Mal's run was a clumsy, pathetic thing. His sandals, their leather soles worn tissue-thin, slapped with a wet, panicked rhythm on the polished marble. He fled the Great Hall, not because Reaper Theron was chasing him, but because the void of the Reaper's gaze felt like a physical weight on his back, a cold hand ready to close around his neck.
He didn't slow until he burst through the carved pear-wood doors and into the open-air cloister that led to the service sector. Here, the air was different. The Great Hall's atmosphere of incense and ozone was replaced by the more mundane, earthy smells of the Garden: damp soil, cut grass, and, as he neared his destination, the overwhelming, eye-watering aroma of boiling cabbage and lye.
He was in the Domain of the Drones. While the Blooms inhabited the airy, sunlit spires and halls, the Drones lived and worked in the foundational levels—the kitchens, the laundries, the workshops, and the stables.
The kitchens were a low, stone building, its chimneys belching a constant, greasy smoke. Mal skidded to a halt at the back entrance, his breath catching in his chest, a painful stitch forming in his side. He was already late.
He pushed through the heavy wooden door into a wall of heat, steam, and noise.
This was the heart of the Garden's "lesser" magic. The kitchen was a vast, cavernous room. Massive copper pots, large enough to boil a man, bubbled over fires that were not wood. They were "Sustain" spells, cast by a rotation of Drones, their sacrificed hair-magic creating a low, consistent, smokeless heat. Other Drones were using "Lift" spells, their faces contorted in concentration as they floated heavy sacks of flour and barrels of ale from high shelves.
The magic here was not beautiful. It was work. It was sweat, grunts, and the ever-present, sour smell of Drones pushing their limits. For a "Lift" spell to hold a barrel, a Drone had to sacrifice a good, thick lock of hair, at least three inches long. The resulting magic would last perhaps an hour. Mal watched one Drone, a burly man named Borin, curse as his "Lift" on a side of beef sputtered. The carcass, halfway to the hook, dropped to the stone floor with a wet thud.
"Weft-damnit!" Borin roared, clutching his head. He had a new bald spot on the side of his scalp, red and weeping from the fresh sacrifice. His magic was spent for the day.
"Then use your arms, you oaf!" bellowed the Kitchen Master, a formidable, heavyset Drone named Grol. Grol's own hair was a decent, bristly grey, but he was one of the few who preferred non-magical labor. He believed it "kept the shoulders strong." He spotted Mal cowering by the door.
"You! Smudge! Where have you been? The Tithe Feast doesn't prepare itself! You think the Blooms eat air?"
Mal bowed, his forehead nearly touching his knees. "Honored Kitchen Master. Reaper Theron... he held me. In the Great Hall."
The mention of a Reaper made Grol's face soften, just a fraction. Contempt was replaced by a shared, weary pity. "A Reaper, eh? Well, nothing to be done for it. You're on peel-duty. And be quick. The Matron wants a seven-course service for the Tithe, and the last thing we need is a cold broth."
Mal scurried to the root cellar, a cool, dark, underground room that smelled of damp earth and turnips. This was his usual post. A mountain of potatoes, turnips, and carrots was piled in the corner. He grabbed a small, dull knife and a wooden bucket, and sat on his three-legged stool.
And he began to peel.
Scrape, scrape, scrape. The sound was his life. The same as scrubbing, just a different tool. He was a creature of repetition, of a thousand small, meaningless tasks that kept the great, beautiful machine of the Garden running.
His mind, however, was free. It had fled the cold, damp cellar and the smell of raw potato. It had fled to the one place it ever went.
Lilia.
Her smile. The way her midnight-black hair had seemed to defy the light, to drink it in. He replayed the memory from the library, the only good memory he had. The carved box... his clumsiness... her simple, unjudging act of grace.
Drones were not supposed to think of the Blooms in that way. To the other Drones, the Blooms were holy objects. They were revered, feared, and desired—but as one desires a divine blessing, not as one desires a person. Kael and Jev would talk in the barracks, their voices low, of which Bloom had the "most potent" hair, which one had the "most graceful" carriage. Theirs was a distant, grasping lust.
Mal's feeling was different. He didn't want Lilia. He didn't want to own her, or even be near her in that way. He just... wanted her to be happy. He wanted her to keep smiling. The thought that she, too, would one day be a part of the Tithe, that her beautiful, irreplaceable hair would be offered up... it gave him a hollow, sick feeling.
The Tithe. Today was the day. The holiest day of the month.
The doctrine was simple. Every month, at the full moon, the most "Blessed" of the Blooms—those whose hair was longest, most potent, and most pure—would gather in the Sanctum of Tithes. There, in a holy ritual, they would each willingly offer one single, precious, non-regrowable strand to Matron Flora.
These "Prime Strands," as they were called, were then added to the "Great Weaving." This was a massive, shimmering tapestry in the heart of the Sanctum, a literal weaving of all the sacrificed hair from centuries of Blooms. This Great Weaving, the Matron taught, was the source of their protection. It was a massive, complex spell that hid the Garden from the Shorn, that made the walls grow strong, that purified their water, and that blessed their crops.
It was their shield. It was their life. And it was built on the willing sacrifice of the Blooms.
Mal scraped at a potato, his hands, chapped and red, working automatically. He'd never seen the Great Weaving. No Drone had. Only the Matron, the Reapers, and the chosen Blooms were allowed in the Sanctum.
A bell chimed, its low, bronze tone echoing through the stones of the kitchen.
Grol clapped his beefy hands. "First course! Runners! Get the soup tureens to the Hall! Now!"
Mal was not a runner. His job was to stay in the back, unseen. He finished peeling the last of the potatoes and dumped them into a vat of water.
"You, Smudge!" Grol barked, pointing a thick, flour-covered finger at him. "The Matron's private broth. To the Sanctum antechamber. And don't spill it. And don't be seen."
Mal's heart stopped.
The Sanctum? He had never been. He was forbidden. All Drones were.
"But... Honored Master," Mal stammered, "I... I'm not a runner..."
"Jev was the runner for the Matron's broth, but he's gone and cast a 'Lift' too strong and given himself a Weft-headache. He's in the corner, vomiting. You're all I have." Grol shoved a small, silver tureen with a domed lid into Mal's hands. It was surprisingly heavy, and warm. "It goes to the service door on the west side of the Sanctum. You knock three times, soft. A Reaper will take it. You see nothing. You hear nothing. You say nothing. You are nothing. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Honored Master!" Mal squeaked.
"Then go! It's a sin to let the Matron's broth go cold."
Mal backed out of the kitchen, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. The silver tureen was warm, but his hands were ice-cold and shaking.
He moved through the service corridors, a maze of grey, undecorated stone tunnels that ran beneath the beautiful, sunlit cloisters of the Blooms. This was his world. The smell of lye, old water, and dust.
He followed the signs, his footsteps the only sound. The main Tithe ceremony would be happening now, in the Great Hall, where the Blooms and Drones who were not part of the "inner" ritual were gathered for the feast and hymns. But the real Tithe... the giving of the Prime Strands... that happened in the Sanctum.
He reached the corridor. The west side of the Sanctum. It was as Grol had said. A simple, unmarked wooden service door, identical to a dozen others. But Mal felt a difference. The air here was... cold. And it hummed, a low, subsonic vibration that he felt in his teeth.
It was the power of the Great Weaving, he thought. It was right on the other side of that wall.
He approached the door, his steps slowing. He was supposed to knock. Three times, soft. But as he raised his trembling hand, he paused.
There was a sound.
It was not a hymn. It was not the Matron's silken voice.
It was a sniffle.
Mal froze. He strained his ears. The stone was thick, but he heard it again. A faint, muffled... sob. Someone was crying.
His mind screamed at him. Knock. Do the job. You are nothing. You see nothing.
But the cry came again. And it was followed by a word, a single, desperate plea, so faint he thought he'd imagined it.
"...please..."
Mal's blood turned to ice. He was forbidden. To stay was a sin. To be here was a sin. If a Reaper found him, he would be cast out. He would be Shorn. The terror of that fate was so absolute, so primal, that his body began to turn, to flee back to the kitchens.
Knock. Run.
But then... a different memory. Lilia. Her smile in the library. A simple, kind, human gesture. The only one he had ever known.
The sob came again, and this time, it was cut short, as if by a muffled hand.
It was a woman's voice.
His duty and his terror warred with a new, strange, and terrible curiosity. He had to know. He had to know.
He looked around. The corridor was empty. He was alone.
Slowly, his heart hammering so hard he thought it would break his ribs, he set the silver tureen down on the stone floor. His hand went not to the knocker, but to the door.
He pushed.
It was unlocked.
It opened, just a crack, with a soundless swing, its hinges perfectly oiled. A sliver of cold, blue-white light cut across the dark corridor floor.
He was in a dark antechamber, a storage room, smelling of old wax and... something else. A sharp, chemical tang. Like rust, and something else he couldn't name. He was looking through a carved wooden screen, a divider meant to hide this service area from the room beyond.
He was looking into the Sanctum's "Root" chamber.
And it was not a holy place.