Elara's POV
Victor's dark magic slams into Kieran like a freight train.
I scream as Kieran crashes into the alley wall so hard the bricks crack. He crumples to the ground, blood trickling from his mouth.
"No!" The word tears from my throat. "Leave him alone!"
Victor turns those cold blue eyes on me. "Protective of your Guardian? How sweet. But pointless." He takes another step forward, his power making the air itself feel heavy. "He can't save you from me, child. No one can."
My plants scream warnings. The ground beneath us trembles. And something inside me—something wild and ancient and absolutely done with being afraid—roars to life.
"I said," I growl, my hands blazing with green light, "leave him ALONE!"
Every plant in a three-block radius responds to my rage.
Tree roots burst through the concrete like massive serpents. Vines erupt from sewer grates, wrapping around Victor's legs. The small flowers growing between the bricks explode into massive blooms that release clouds of blinding pollen.
Victor staggers back, actually surprised. "Impossible. You've only just awakened—"
"And you just threatened the one person who's ever really loved me." My voice doesn't sound like mine. It sounds like thunder. Like earthquakes. Like nature itself speaking through me. "Bad. Choice."
I don't know what I'm doing. Don't know how I'm doing it. But I pull on that well of power inside me and push.
The entire alley transforms into a jungle. Grass grows knee-high in seconds. Trees sprout from nowhere, their branches forming a cage around Victor. Thorny vines as thick as my arm snake toward him, ready to tear him apart.
For one wild moment, I think I've won.
Then Victor laughs.
It's not a scared laugh. It's amused. Almost... proud?
"There it is," he says softly. "The true power of a Garden-Speaker. Raw. Untrained. Magnificent." He raises one hand and speaks a single word in a language I don't understand.
The plants around him wither instantly. Turn black. Die.
My heart lurches. I feel them dying, feel their pain like it's my own.
"Did you think I survived three centuries without learning how to kill your kind?" Victor asks. "I've studied Garden-Speakers for longer than you've been alive. I know exactly how to hurt you."
He gestures again and more of my plants die. The basil I rescued. The ivy I've had for years. They turn to ash in front of me.
"Stop it!" I sob. "Please, stop—"
"Elara, close your eyes!" Kieran's voice cuts through my panic.
I do, just as a blinding flash erupts behind me. When I open them again, Kieran is standing—badly hurt but standing—with both hands raised. Symbols glow in the air around him, ancient and powerful.
"Teleportation seal," he gasps. "Elara, now!"
He grabs my hand. The world lurches sideways. Reality bends and twists. For one terrifying moment, I feel like I'm being torn apart and put back together.
Then we're somewhere else.
I collapse immediately, vomiting onto grass. Real grass. Not alley concrete. When my vision clears, I see we're in some kind of abandoned greenhouse. The glass roof is mostly broken, letting in the early morning sun.
"Where—" I start.
"Safe house number three," Kieran wheezes, sliding down the wall. "He can't track us here. Different wards. Different protections."
I crawl over to him. His injuries look worse in the daylight. Deep cuts. Burns from Victor's magic. Blood everywhere.
"You need a hospital," I say, my hands shaking.
"Can't go to human hospitals. They don't know how to treat Guardian injuries." He manages a weak smile. "I'll heal. Give me a few hours."
"A few hours?" I look at the hole in his side that's definitely not healing fast enough. "Kieran, I can see your ribs—"
"I've had worse."
"That's not comforting!"
"Elara." He catches my hand. "I'm three hundred and twenty-seven years old. I've survived wars, plagues, and things that would give you nightmares. Victor Thorn is powerful, but he's not going to kill me with a few lucky shots."
"Those weren't lucky shots. He threw you through a wall!"
"And I got back up. That's what matters." His golden eyes meet mine, intense despite his pain. "But we can't stay here long. Victor knows I have multiple safe houses. He'll find this one eventually."
"Then what do we do?"
"We train you." He struggles to sit up straighter. "Right now, you have raw power but no control. That makes you dangerous—to yourself and to others. If we're going to survive this, you need to learn how to actually use your abilities."
I look down at my hands. They're still faintly glowing, even though I'm not trying to make them glow. "I don't know how. Everything I did back there just... happened."
"That's because you're reacting on instinct. We need to teach you intention." He pauses, wincing. "But first, I need you to do something for me."
"Anything."
"Heal me."
I blink. "What? I don't know how to—"
"Yes, you do." His voice is patient. "Garden-Speakers don't just control plants. You can accelerate growth, encourage healing, mend what's broken. It's in your blood. You just have to want it."
I stare at the wound in his side. At the blood still seeping through his fingers. At this man who's been protecting me for thirteen years and just took dark magic to the face because of me.
I want him healed more than I've wanted anything in my life.
"Okay," I breathe. "Tell me what to do."
Three days later
I'm standing in the greenhouse, sweat dripping down my face, glaring at a rosebush that refuses to cooperate.
"Bloom," I command for the hundredth time. "Please?"
The rose doesn't even twitch.
"You're still trying to force it," Kieran calls from where he's leaning against the far wall. He healed—I actually healed him, which still feels impossible—but he's taking it easy today. "Plants don't respond to force. They respond to connection."
"I am connecting!" I protest. "I'm asking nicely!"
"You're asking with your voice. Try asking with your heart."
I groan in frustration. Three days of training and I still can't do the simplest things consistently. Sure, I can make plants grow when I'm scared or angry. But controlled, intentional growth? Apparently, that's much harder.
Kieran pushes off the wall and walks over. "Here. Let me show you."
He stands behind me, close enough that I can feel his warmth. His hands come to rest on my shoulders, gentle and grounding.
"Close your eyes," he says softly. "Feel the rose's presence in your mind. Every plant has its own personality, its own song. Listen for this one's."
I close my eyes and try to feel what he's describing. At first, there's nothing. Then, slowly, I sense something. A quiet humming. Like the rose is singing in a language I almost understand.
"There," Kieran murmurs, his breath warm against my ear. "Do you hear it?"
"I... I think so."
"Good. Now don't command it. Don't ask it. Just... share your joy with it. Share what you feel when you see flowers bloom. Share the happiness."
I think about spring mornings. About finding wildflowers growing in sidewalk cracks. About the first time I saw cherry blossoms and thought they looked like pink snow.
The rose's song grows louder, happier.
And then, without me saying a word, it blooms.
One perfect red flower unfurls, followed by another, and another. Within seconds, the entire bush is covered in roses, their scent filling the greenhouse.
"I did it!" I gasp, spinning around to face Kieran. "Did you see? I actually—"
The words die in my throat.
Kieran is looking at me with an expression I've never seen before. Soft. Tender. Full of something that makes my heart skip beats.
"You're beautiful when you smile like that," he says quietly. "Did you know that? For thirteen years, I watched you and lived for the moments when you'd smile. Really smile, not the fake one you gave the Moss family."
"Kieran..." I don't know what to say. Don't know how to process the way he's looking at me.
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to pull away. His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. "I've wanted to touch you like this for so long. To tell you everything. To show you—"
A massive crash interrupts him as the greenhouse door explodes inward.
We both spin, Kieran moving in front of me instantly. But it's not Victor. It's not Harvesters.
It's Adrian.
My ex-fiancé stands in the doorway, looking nothing like the polished golden boy from the engagement party. His clothes are torn. His face is bruised. And his eyes...
His eyes are glowing the same unnatural green as Lydia's.
"Elara," he says, and his voice sounds wrong. Layered. Like multiple people speaking at once. "We need to talk."
Kieran's claws extend. "She has nothing to say to you."
"Actually," Adrian's mouth twists into a smile that's too wide, too sharp, "she has everything to say to me. Because I have something that belongs to her."
He steps aside and two more figures stumble through the doorway—a man and a woman, both looking dazed and scared.
My breath catches.
They're in their forties. The woman has my dark hair. The man has my green eyes. And they're looking at me with expressions of hope and heartbreak and desperate recognition.
"Hello, daughter," the woman whispers. "We've been looking for you for eighteen years."
My knees give out. Kieran catches me, but I can't stop staring at the two people who are supposed to be dead.
My parents.
My real parents.
They're alive.
"Surprise!" Adrian laughs, that horrible wrong-sounding laugh. "Victor sends his regards. And a message: Come to the old Silvercrest Botanical Gardens by midnight tonight, or we kill them in front of you. Your choice, Garden-Speaker."
He vanishes in a swirl of dark magic, taking my parents with him.
The greenhouse is silent except for my ragged breathing.
"They're alive," I whisper. "My parents are alive. And Victor has them."
Kieran's arms tighten around me. "It's a trap."
"I don't care." I pull away from him, standing on shaking legs. "They're my parents. The real ones. The ones who were supposed to be dead for eighteen years." I meet his eyes. "I'm going."
"Elara—"
"I'm going, Kieran. With or without you. Victor took everything from me. He's not taking them too."
For a long moment, Kieran just looks at me. Then he sighs, reaching up to brush a strand of hair from my face.
"I've waited thirteen years to hold your hand properly," he says softly. "I'm not about to let you walk into Victor's trap alone."
He takes my hand in his. Electricity sparks between our palms—not magic, just connection. Just two people choosing to face impossible odds together.
"Then we go together," I say.
"Together," he agrees.
But as we start planning our rescue mission, neither of us sees the shadow watching from the broken greenhouse roof.
Neither of us hears the soft laughter that drifts down.
Neither of us realizes that everything—the attack, the reveal, the impossible choice—has been exactly what Victor wanted all along.