The scar on Eris's chest no longer burned, but it didn't feel healed.
She lay still on the cot, staring up at the cracked ceiling of the stronghold's infirmary, listening to the creak of rootless footsteps above. Her brand, once a pulsing network of silver-black veins, had faded into a patch of pale scar tissue that felt deeper than skin. Not dead. Dormant.
Kael sat beside her, arms resting on his knees, silent for the third hour. Mercy was across his lap, sheathed and motionless, its hum reduced to something like breath.
"You've been watching me like I'll rot again," Eris said at last.
Kael didn't smile. "Just making sure you're still you."
"Still as stubborn, so yeah."
She turned her head, the stiffness in her neck sharp. "Did we kill it?"
Kael nodded. "The node's gone. Burned out from the inside. You held it long enough."
"Doesn't feel like a win."
"It never does."
Outside, a cold wind stirred the ash-laced air, whispering through the broken stone corridors. The Rootless camp had gone quiet since the night of the ritual. Veyra had doubled watch rotations and shut off all outgoing signals. They were hunkered down, but the Garden never stayed idle for long.
Kael stood and adjusted his cloak. "You need rest."
Eris caught his wrist. "You're going to see Veyra?"
"Yeah."
"Bring me back news."
He didn't answer, but she let go.
Veyra was in the war room again—if the map-scarred wall of a crumbling hall counted. He stood with two of his lieutenants, staring at a fresh set of markers burned into a tattered map of Solarae and the surrounding wastes.
Kael stepped inside.
"We got word an hour ago," Veyra said without looking up. "Courier came through the west ridge relay. Syndicate patrols pulled back from three outer sectors."
Kael frowned. "Why?"
"They're not defending them anymore. They're offering them."
Kael stepped closer.
"What does that mean?"
Veyra tapped a burned-out circle near the edge of Solarae. "They're calling it 'neutral territory.' But it's bait. Places the Garden's already taken root. They're abandoning them on purpose."
"Letting it spread?"
"More than that," one of the scouts added. "They're supplying the Bloomed."
Kael stiffened. "The what?"
Veyra met his eyes. "New cult. Built around what's left of the Garden. Not feral like the corrupted. Organized. Weaponized. Wearing symbols traced in sap."
Kael's mouth went dry. "Seth?"
"There's a rumor," Veyra said, lowering his voice. "That he's still alive. That he's in the Citadel now, deep beneath Solarae. The Bloomed call him the Rooted One."
Kael looked at the map. At Solarae, burning faintly red beneath years of scarring and blood.
"And they're following him?"
Veyra nodded. "Syndicate's splintered. Half are using this as a power grab. The other half are scared. And in the middle of it, you and your sword are being blamed for all of it."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Of course."
Veyra crossed his arms. "We have a plan. We send in a team through the underpass beneath the old Syndicate waterworks. It links into the city's power grid. We take out the Aetherium cores feeding the Bloomed's growth chambers and root-labs. Without the power, their network collapses. So does the hybridization chain."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "And Seth?"
"If he's alive, he's below the throne hall. Right above the grid."
Kael said nothing for a long moment.
Then: "When do we leave?"
Kael returned to Eris just before dusk.
She was sitting up now, cloak wrapped around her shoulders, sipping something hot from a cracked tin cup. Her skin looked pale, drawn, but steady.
"They're calling him the Rooted One," he said.
Her fingers tensed around the cup. "Seth?"
Kael nodded.
"They're feeding the Garden now. Not fighting it. The Syndicate's split. The Bloomed are rising. Solarae's already halfway gone."
"And the plan?"
"Infiltrate the grid. Cut the Aetherium cores. Sever the city's root system."
"And Seth?"
Kael hesitated.
"We stop him. This time for good."
She finished her drink and stood, wobbling once before regaining her balance. "Then I'm coming with you."
"No. You're still—"
"You think I'd let you face him alone again?" Her voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. "Last time we nearly died. And I survived having the Garden in my head. That makes me more qualified than half the Rootless."
Kael didn't argue. He didn't have the strength.
He just nodded.
They left at midnight.
Kael, Eris, Veyra, and four Rootless scouts descended into the ravine behind the stronghold, guided by starlight and silence. The wind howled low through the rock passages like a warning. Mercy remained quiet at Kael's hip, its hum subdued, but present.
The entrance to the old waterworks was buried beneath a fractured cliffside, half-swallowed by time and dust. Veyra pried the access hatch open with a crowbar, and the group slipped into darkness.
Inside, the tunnels were cold and damp, lit only by bioluminescent fungi and flickers of silver thread in the walls. The deeper they went, the more roots they saw—twisting through metal grates and piping, laced with veins of flickering blue.
"They're feeding from the grid," Veyra murmured. "Drawing Aetherium directly."
"How long until they reach the surface?" Kael asked.
"They already have. They're just not showing it yet."
The group split at the junction beneath the eastern substation.
Two scouts peeled off to sabotage the outer relays, while Kael, Eris, and Veyra pressed deeper into the spine of the city's power system. The pressure grew the further they went—something humming through the walls, not mechanical, but organic.
The Garden was awake.
They reached the core chamber just before sunrise.
A massive Aetherium column rose from the ground to the ceiling, glowing faintly blue. Dozens of roots wrapped around it like a parasite's arms, pulsing silver and red. Hybrid flowers had bloomed between the coils—each one shaped like an open eye.
At the base of the column stood a figure.
Kael froze.
It was Seth.
But not as he remembered.
Seth was taller now—stretched unnaturally, his skin translucent and veined with glowing filaments. His eyes, both of them, burned the color of the Garden. His limbs ended in root-tipped fingers, and where his ribs had once been, something like petals fluttered with each breath.
He looked at Kael.
"You came back."
Kael stepped forward, slowly unsheathing Mercy. "You knew I would."
Seth smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You're late. The bloom is already seeded."
"We're here to stop it."
"You're here to finish your mistake."
Eris raised her blade. "He's not making the same one twice."
Seth's gaze flicked to her. "Ah. The failed vessel. You've scarred, but you haven't healed."
"Neither have you," she snapped.
Seth opened his hands. "I'm beyond healing. Beyond death. I am memory given flesh. I am the proof that the Garden endures."
Kael stepped closer.
Mercy screamed.
The fight was short and catastrophic.
Seth moved like a storm—tendrils lashing, roots bursting from the walls, petals shattering in waves of Aetherium. Kael fought like a man with nothing left to lose, Mercy blazing in his grip. The blade pulsed with heat and memory, each strike opening wounds that refused to bleed.
Eris flanked from the side, blades drawn, her movements tight despite the ache in her limbs. She cut roots before they could fully bloom, stabbed through tendons that hissed like gas vents.
Veyra and the scouts disabled the outer stabilizers. The grid began to pulse erratically.
Seth howled.
"You think this ends with me?" he roared. "You kill me and another rises. That's the cycle. That's the root!"
Kael drove Mercy through Seth's chest.
"You're right," he whispered. "But I'm not part of it."
The chamber exploded in silver fire.
Kael hit the ground hard, smoke burning his lungs. He turned, coughing, eyes blurry—but the roots were writhing in retreat. The column pulsed, then fractured, splitting into shards of blue flame.
Seth lay crumpled beneath the ruin, his body melting into root and ash.
Mercy trembled in Kael's hand.
He felt the sword sigh.
And then—for the first time—it went quiet.