Elara's POV
The silver tree's branches burn my arms like frozen fire.
I'm screaming Kieran's name while the tree drags me backward toward Lydia and her army of Harvesters. Every plant in the greenhouse that was singing moments ago now shrieks in terror. The beautiful place Kieran built for me is dying—thorns stabbing through flowers, poison dripping from vines, darkness eating light.
"Let her GO!" Kieran roars. More vines shoot up from the floor, wrapping around his throat. His claws slash through them but they just grow back thicker, faster, choking him.
"Stop struggling!" Lydia calls sweetly. "You're only making it worse for yourself, Guardian. Victor wants you alive too. He has special plans for ancient beings who refuse to cooperate."
The tree yanks me closer. Five feet. Four feet. Three feet from Lydia's twisted, thorn-covered hands.
Then I feel it—the tree's pain.
Victor's dark magic isn't just controlling the silver tree. It's torturing it. For fifty years, this beautiful ancient tree has been screaming silently, forced to betray everyone who trusted it. Forced to poison Kieran's safe house. Forced to wait for me.
"You're hurting," I whisper to the tree. "I'm so sorry."
The branches hesitate for just a second.
That's all I need.
I stop fighting against the tree and start pouring my power into it instead. Not commanding. Not forcing. Just offering—like watering a dying plant or feeding a hungry cat.
I can help you. Let me help you. Please.
The tree shudders. Its grip loosens slightly.
"What are you doing?" Lydia snaps. "Tree, I said HOLD HER!"
But the silver tree isn't listening to Victor's magic anymore. It's listening to me.
Green light explodes from my hands—so bright the Harvesters have to shield their eyes. The tree's bark cracks and black poison oozes out like infected blood. My Garden-Speaker power burns through Victor's dark magic, healing decades of torture in seconds.
The branches release me completely.
"No!" Lydia screams. "That's impossible! That tree was sealed by Victor himself!"
"Nothing's impossible when you actually care about what you're controlling," I say, stumbling to my feet. The healed silver tree bows its branches to me like an apology. "You should try it sometime."
Lydia's face twists with rage. "You think you're so special? So chosen? I'm special too! Watch!"
She slams her thorn-covered hands into the ground. The earth splits open and twisted, wrong plants crawl out—roses with teeth instead of petals, vines that drip acid, flowers that scream with human voices.
These aren't natural plants. They're tortured. Corrupted. Forced into nightmare shapes through dark magic.
"Lydia, what did you do?" I breathe in horror.
"I made myself POWERFUL!" She laughs wildly. "Victor taught me how to take what I want. How to make plants obey through pain instead of patience. You got to be the precious Garden-Speaker by accident of birth. So I became one through my own strength!"
Her corrupted plants attack—stabbing toward me like spears.
But the healthy plants in Kieran's greenhouse move to defend me without being asked. Vines catch the poisonous thorns. Tree roots form shields. Even the small flowers weave together into barriers.
"You're not a Garden-Speaker," I say, dodging a whip-like vine covered in barbs. "You're a plant torturer. There's a difference."
"There's NO DIFFERENCE!" Lydia shrieks. "Power is power! Control is control! You're just too weak to do what's necessary!"
Behind her, more Harvesters pour into the greenhouse. Twenty. Thirty. Maybe more.
Kieran breaks free of the vines choking him and shifts fully—half man, half massive silver cat, all deadly warrior. He tears into the Harvesters with claws and fangs, moving so fast he's almost a blur. Three go down. Five. Seven.
But more keep coming.
I spin to face Lydia's next attack—a wall of those horrible screaming flowers rushing toward me. Instead of destroying them, I reach out with my power and ask them a question:
Do you want to be free?
The screaming stops. The flowers hesitate, trembling.
"Don't you DARE!" Lydia's eyes go wide with panic. "You belong to ME! OBEY!"
But the tortured plants are already choosing. They turn away from me and collapse into dust, preferring death to one more second of her control.
"NO!" Lydia falls to her knees, staring at the ashes of her dark garden. "They were mine! MINE!"
"They were never yours," I say quietly. "You can't own something you only hurt."
For one second, my sister looks small and broken and almost human. Then her face hardens with pure hatred.
"Fine. If I can't have power through plants—" she pulls out a curved black knife that pulses with sick magic, "—I'll take YOUR power directly. Victor taught me the ritual. All I need is your blood and your broken spirit."
She charges at me, knife raised.
I don't run. I stand my ground and whisper to every plant in the greenhouse: "Will you help me? Please?"
They answer like a chorus of friends: Always.
Vines shoot up from the floor, wrapping around Lydia's legs. Branches reach down from above, catching her arms. Flowers bloom instantly, their pollen making her cough and stumble. Within seconds, she's completely trapped in a cocoon of living plants—held tight but not crushed, contained but not harmed.
"Let me GO!" She thrashes and screams. "I'm your SISTER!"
"You were never my sister," I say, and there's no anger in my voice anymore. Just sadness. "A real sister wouldn't have enjoyed hurting me. A real sister wouldn't have stolen my fiancé just to prove she could. A real sister wouldn't have helped torture me for eighteen years."
Lydia stops struggling. For the first time since the engagement party, I see something like shame flicker across her face. But it's gone in a heartbeat, replaced by that familiar sneer.
"You're weak, Elara. You always have been. That mercy will get you killed."
"Maybe," I say. "But at least I'll die as myself. Can you say the same?"
Before Lydia can answer, the remaining Harvesters suddenly retreat—running out of the greenhouse like something terrified them. Kieran, covered in blood that isn't his, shifts back to human form and rushes to my side.
"They're fleeing," he pants. "That's not normal. Harvesters don't run unless—"
Lydia starts laughing. Even trapped in vines, even defeated, she laughs like she's won.
"You stupid, stupid girl," she giggles. "You think you beat me? This was never about me winning. This was about stalling you. Keeping you here. Making sure you couldn't run."
Cold dread floods my stomach. "What did you do?"
"Victor's coming." Lydia's eyes gleam with mad joy. "He's been waiting at the city border with an army. Real soldiers. Real weapons. Not just Harvesters—every dark supernatural creature he's collected in three hundred years. Demons. Corrupted fae. Blood mages. Things that make me look like a fairy tale."
"When?" Kieran demands, grabbing Lydia by the throat. "When is he coming?"
"Oh, Guardian—" Lydia's smile is pure poison, "—he's already here."
The greenhouse explodes.
Not with fire. With darkness.
A wave of black magic hits so hard it knocks both Kieran and me off our feet. The beautiful plants shrivel and die instantly. The silver tree screams and goes silent. Even the grass outside turns gray and brittle.
When the darkness clears, I see him.
Victor Thorn stands in the ruined doorway, and he's everything nightmares are made of. Tall. Ancient. Powerful. His eyes glow red like dying stars, and the air around him bends from the weight of his magic.
Behind him are hundreds of creatures—things I don't have names for, things that shouldn't exist, things that make the Harvesters look like children playing dress-up.
"Hello, little Garden-Speaker." Victor's voice is smooth and cold as winter death. "I've waited three hundred years to meet one of your kind again. The last one I met—" he smiles at Kieran with casual cruelty, "—well, your Guardian remembers what happened to her. And to everyone she loved."
Kieran makes a sound like a wounded animal.
"You have something I need," Victor continues, walking into the greenhouse. Plants die with each step. "Your power. Your blood. Your parents, who I've kept alive all these years specifically for this moment."
My heart stops. "My parents are alive?"
"Oh yes. Didn't the Guardian tell you?" Victor's smile widens. "I've been experimenting on them for eighteen years. Testing their limits. Breaking them. They're in my facility right now, waiting for their daughter's rescue attempt that will never come. Because you're not going anywhere."
He raises one hand and the army behind him moves forward like a wave of death.
Kieran pulls me behind him, claws extending, ready to fight to his last breath.
"Run," he whispers. "Elara, please. Run while I hold them—"
"No." I grab his hand, our bond blazing to life between us. "You said war was coming. You promised I wouldn't face it alone."
"War?" Victor laughs. "Child, this isn't war. This is an execution. You're outnumbered. Outmatched. And completely, utterly mine."
The army charges.
But before they reach us, something impossible happens.
The World Tree—the massive tree that grew from Victor's bomb, the one I thought was miles away in the Botanical Gardens—moves.
Its roots burst through the greenhouse floor. Its branches crash through the ceiling. In seconds, it creates a barrier of living wood between us and Victor's army, blocking their attack.
Then it speaks in a voice like thunder and growing things:
"The daughter of gardens calls for help. And we answer."
I look up in shock. The World Tree isn't alone. Behind it, through its branches, I see them—hundreds of Garden-Speakers. Young and old. Strong and weak. Some barely glowing with power, others blazing like green suns.
And at the front of them, two figures that make my breath catch.
A woman with my eyes. A man with my smile.
Both covered in scars. Both radiating power. Both very much alive.
"Hello, daughter," my mother says, her voice breaking. "Sorry we're late. We've been a bit tied up."
Victor's confident expression cracks for the first time. "That's impossible. The seals—the chains—"
"Were broken the moment our daughter awakened fully," my father says. His smile is gentle but his eyes are fury. "Did you really think we'd stay locked up once we felt her power bloom? We've been planning this escape for eighteen years, Victor. We were just waiting for the right moment."
Victor's face goes cold. "Then I'll kill all of you together. How convenient."
"You can try," my mother says, taking her place beside me. "But you're about to learn something, Victor. You're about to learn what happens when you threaten a Garden-Speaker's family."
She takes my hand. My father takes my other hand. Through our connected bond, I feel Kieran's strength. Behind us, hundreds of Garden-Speakers join hands, their power flowing together like rivers joining an ocean.
And for the first time in three hundred years, Victor Thorn looks afraid.