Chapter 26: Things that Bloom and Bite
The garden’s tender hush lingered, a quiet that cradled rather than consumed.
Sylvara knelt where Azareel had fallen, her bare knees sinking into the pulsing moss, her fingers brushing the remnants of the squashed berry—its faint warmth clinging to the earth like a fading heartbeat.
The vines around her hung slack, their crimson leaves drooping, and her flowering hair draped over her shoulders, petals falling in a slow, silent rain.
The air was still, the garden’s pulse subdued, as if mourning the warmth that had slipped away.
Beneath her root-veins, something stirred—a quiet ache, a longing that bloomed where hunger once reigned.
Sylvara reached into the soil, her hands carving a gentle hollow with reverent care.
Her breath was slow, shaky, as she pressed a hand to her chest, where Azareel’s warmth had rested moments ago, then to the earth.
She planted a single seed, small and glowing with orange-gold light, pulsing with laughter, gentleness, and a memory still forming.
Around it, petals unfurled—crimson at first, then shifting to silver and soft ivory, their scent clean, warm, like him.
Sylvara stared at the flower, her amber eyes shimmering, her vines coiling around her like a blanket she couldn’t quite hold.
The roots beneath trembled, echoing her silent longing, as the garden seemed to sigh, its glow softening in the wake of his absence.
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