The Garden did not grow in silence anymore.
It pulsed with stories.
With breath.
With contradiction.
And yet—it did not collapse.
It did not fracture.
It became stronger.
Because truth, in all its many forms, was no longer something to be proven.
It was something to be carried.
By hands of every shape.
By voices with every cadence.
Even by those still learning what their voice was.
Elowen sat with a creature who had no name.
It did not speak. It did not understand speech.
But it hummed.
A low, layered sound that shaped the air like sculpture.
She listened.
Not to reply.
But to reflect.
And as she traced its rhythm in the soil beside her, the ground responded—
Not with answers, but with curiosity.
For not all truths were declarations.
Some were invitations.
The Ash-Child built cairns of boneglass and shadow, each one a memory no longer needing to hurt.
Not to erase pain—
But to transform it.
