Elara's POV
I wake up choking on my own scream.
My eyes fly open and I'm staring at a ceiling that's completely covered in vines. Green leaves cascade down the walls, ivy curls around my bookshelf, and mybasil plant—the one that was barely six inches tall this morning—is now the size of a small tree, its branches spreading across my entire windowsill.
"What—" I gasp, scrambling to sit up. My head spins and my hands shoot out to steady myself, landing in something wet.
I look down. I'm sitting in a puddle of my own tears, my ruined silver dress clinging to me like a second skin. The memories slam back into me all at once.
Adrian. Lydia. The engagement party. The photos. The laughter.
"You were just insurance. A backup organ donor."
A sob tears from my throat before I can stop it.
"No," I whisper fiercely, digging my nails into my palms. "No more crying. I'm done crying over people who never loved me."
But even as I say it, fresh tears spill down my cheeks because who am I kidding? I have nowhere to go. No one to call. In three days, I won't even have this apartment.
I'm completely alone.
"No, you're not."
I freeze. That voice—the same one from before. Soft and whispery, like wind through leaves, like water trickling over stones.
"Hello?" I call out, my voice shaking. "Who's there?"
"We are," the voice answers, and this time I realize it's not just one voice. It's many voices, overlapping, harmonizing. "We've always been here, daughter of gardens. You just couldn't hear us before."
"Daughter of gardens?" I repeat, looking around wildly. "I don't—I'm not—"
"Look at your hands."
I do. They're glowing. Actually glowing, with a soft green light that pulses in time with my heartbeat. As I watch, tiny vines sprout from between my fingers, curling and reaching toward the plants around me.
I scream and shake my hands frantically, trying to make it stop. The vines retract but the glow remains.
"This isn't real," I gasp. "I'm dreaming. I hit my head. I'm having a breakdown—"
"You're awakening," the voices insist, gentler now. "Your tears watered us tonight. Your pain called to us. And we answered."
The basil plant—the giant one—leans toward me, its leaves brushing my shoulder like a comforting hand. The ivy on my bookshelf sways even though there's no wind. Even the struggling succulent I rescued from the trash looks greener, healthier, its leaves plump and vibrant.
"Plants can't talk," I say desperately. "Plants can't move. This is impossible."
"Is it?" A new voice joins the chorus, this one deeper, richer. "You've always talked to us, Elara. Every morning when you water us. Every night when you tell us your secrets. Did you never wonder why we never died under your care? Why we thrived even when you forgot to water us? Why we reached for you?"
My mind races back through years of memories. The flowers I planted in the community garden that grew twice as fast as anyone else's. The "dead" tree I touched once that sprouted new leaves the next day. The way my coworkers always asked me to care for the shop plants because they "did better" with me.
I thought I just had a green thumb.
"What's happening to me?" I whisper.
"You're becoming what you were always meant to be."
Something warm and solid presses against my leg, and I nearly jump out of my skin. But it's just Silver—my stray cat, the one I've been feeding scraps to for three years.
Relief floods through me so intensely I could cry again. "Silver! Thank god, something normal—"
Silver looks up at me with those strange green-gold eyes of his. Eyes that seem far too intelligent for a cat. Eyes that are starting to glow.
"Oh no," I breathe. "No, no, not you too—"
Silver meows once. It sounds almost apologetic.
Then he starts to shine.
Light pours from his scraggly gray fur—silver and gold and something that looks like captured starlight. The air around him ripples and bends. My apartment suddenly feels too small, too hot, like reality itself is stretching.
"Silver, stop!" I cry out, reaching for him. "Whatever you're doing, stop it!"
But he doesn't stop. His small body trembles and grows. His fur recedes, replaced by smooth skin. His paws become hands—actual human hands with long fingers. His tail disappears. His face reshapes itself into features that are achingly beautiful and completely impossible.
I watch in frozen horror as my cat transforms into a man.
He's tall—so tall he nearly touches my low ceiling. His hair is the same silver-gray as his fur was, falling past his shoulders in waves. His eyes are still that mesmerizing green-gold, but now they're framed by dark lashes and set in a face that looks like something from a fairy tale. High cheekbones, strong jaw, lips that curve into a gentle smile.
He's wearing dark clothes that seem to materialize from shadows—a black shirt, dark pants, boots that make no sound on my floor. And there's something about him, some quality I can't name, that makes my instincts scream both danger and safe at the same time.
For a long moment, we just stare at each other. Him standing. Me sitting in a puddle on the floor, covered in mud and tears, surrounded by impossibly overgrown plants.
Then he speaks, and his voice is the same purr I've heard a thousand times when he begged for food or curled up in my lap—but deeper now, richer, unmistakably human.
"Hello, Elara," he says softly, like we're old friends meeting for coffee. "I've waited thirteen years for you to finally see me."
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. No sound comes out.
"Thirteen years," he continues, taking one careful step toward me. "Since you were five years old and found me bleeding in that alley. You brought me food even though you barely had enough for yourself. You sang to me when you were lonely. You told me all your secrets." His smile grows sad. "You cried on my fur every time they hurt you."
The memories flood back. Finding a injured cat when I was five. Begging my adoptive parents to let me keep him, but they refused. So I fed him in secret, visited him every day, talked to him like he understood.
And he did. He understood every word.
"You're not a cat," I whisper.
"No," he agrees. "I'm not."
"Then what are you?"
His eyes glow brighter, and suddenly the air around him shimmers with power. The temperature drops. My breath comes out in visible puffs.
"I'm a Guardian," he says. "An immortal protector created to watch over the last of the Garden-Speakers. And you, Elara Moss, are the first Garden-Speaker born in three hundred years."
"Garden-Speaker?" I repeat numbly. "That's not—that doesn't—"
"It means you can speak to plants. Command them. Make them grow with a thought. You can hear the voice of every living thing that grows from the earth." He crouches down to my level, his expression gentle. "It means you're not human. You never were."
The words should terrify me. Should send me running. But instead, something inside me clicks into place. Like a puzzle piece I've been missing my whole life just settled exactly where it belongs.
"The Moss family," he continues, his voice hardening. "They knew. They've always known. That's why they adopted you. Not as an organ donor—that was just the cruelest lie they could think of. They adopted you to keep you contained. To suppress your powers until the people they work for could harvest you."
"Harvest me?" My voice comes out as a squeak.
"Your abilities are the rarest, most valuable in the supernatural world. People would kill for even a fraction of your power." His jaw clenches. "People have killed. Your real parents were Garden-Speakers too. They died protecting you when you were six months old."
The room spins. I grip the carpet to keep from falling over even though I'm already on the floor.
"My parents were murdered?"
"Yes." His voice is so gentle it breaks something inside me. "I was sent to watch over you, to keep you safe until your powers awakened naturally on your eighteenth birthday. I took the form of a cat because I couldn't protect you as myself without breaking ancient laws." He reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull away, and brushes a tear from my cheek. "I've watched you grow from a scared little girl into this brave, kind woman. I've listened to your dreams and fears. I've felt your loneliness." His thumb lingers on my cheek. "And I fell in love with you."
My heart stops. Starts. Stops again.
"You... what?"
"I love you, Elara," he says simply, like it's the easiest truth in the world. "I have for years. How could I not? You fed a stray cat with your own meal money. You talked to plants like they were your friends. You smiled even when the world was cruel. You're the most beautiful soul I've ever known."
I should say something. Should respond. Should do anything other than stare at him with my mouth hanging open.
But before I can figure out what to say, the window behind him explodes.
Glass sprays everywhere. I throw up my arms to protect my face. Through the chaos, I see figures in black dropping into my apartment—three, four, five of them. They're wearing tactical gear like soldiers, but their eyes glow with unnatural light.
The man who was my cat moves faster than should be possible, putting himself between me and the attackers. His hands grow claws—actual claws, silver and sharp. His teeth lengthen into fangs.
"Stay behind me," he growls, and his voice is no longer gentle. It's the sound of thunder. Of ancient power barely contained.
One of the attackers laughs, a harsh sound that makes my skin crawl. "The Garden-Speaker is awake! Victor will pay a fortune for her."
"You'll have to go through me first," the cat-man snarls.
The attacker's grin widens. "That's the plan."
They charge.
And as silver claws meet glowing weapons in my tiny apartment, as my plants scream warnings in my mind, as power I don't understand courses through my veins, only one thought echoes in my head:
My life just became a nightmare I can't wake up from