The rain had not stopped — not really — since they arrived in this region. It never poured, nor did it vanish. It simply lingered, like a breath the sky refused to exhale. By afternoon, the clouds had thinned just enough to let in a half-light — not sun, not shadow — and the drizzle softened to something between mist and memory. Raindrops kissed the leaves at intervals, as if even the weather were holding something back.
Ravine stood beneath the awning of the inn, arms crossed, her gaze on the stone path that led downward into the forest curve. She hadn't spoken much since Thalen's visit earlier that morning. She had nodded, thanked him, listened. But something in her had bent inward since then — bent, but not yet broken.
Arana appeared beside her, adjusting the strap of the satchel over her shoulder. An umbrella, folded, was tucked under her arm. Ravine raised an eyebrow.
"You're bringing that?" she asked softly.
Arana gave a faint shrug. "Not for rain," she said. "For carrying clippings. Maybe some roots."
Ravine nodded — not quite a smile, but close.
They set off down the path, boots brushing against moss that pulsed gently underfoot. The village receded behind them, its curved rooftops fading into pale green. Before them lay the trail Thalen had marked — an old garden, he said. A place where she used to disappear for hours, humming to the roots like they were old friends.
The further they walked, the quieter the forest became. Not silent — never that — but hushed. As though it were listening again.
The drizzle persisted, light as breath, threading through their hair and catching on their lashes.
And then they saw it.
The garden.
Not cultivated now, but not forgotten either. The paths were overgrown, yet still visible — gentle spirals carved into the earth. Stone markers nestled between flowerbeds long left wild. A low wooden bench sat beneath a tree whose bark shimmered faintly from years of whispered care. Lanterns, long unlit, swayed in the low breeze, their cords humming softly against the branches.
Ravine stepped forward.
She felt it before she saw it.
The ground shifted beneath her boots, not with movement — but memory.
Her breath caught.
The world blurred.
And the garden changed.
Sunlight filtered through leaves in thick golden strands. The rain was gone, replaced with warmth and the scent of turned soil. Petals glowed with colour that felt too vivid to be real — greens that pulsed, violets that trembled with breath. And at the heart of it all, kneeling in the earth, was Eryn Halde.
She was humming — that same lullaby she always did. The one without a name. The one that curled around the ribs like something remembered from a dream.
She looked up — not at Ravine, but through her. At the one who had stood there once, listening.
"You're asking if I want to come with you?" she laughed, brushing soil from her hands. Her braid had a sprig of golden leaf tucked through it, and her cheeks were dusted with pollen. "Of course I do."
She stood, wiping her palms on her tunic.
"You'll probably regret it though. I'll be planting mushrooms in the Dead Zone before we even unpack."
A grin. That bright, infectious grin.
"They say nothing grows there. That even time avoids it. But if I can plant something in cursed soil and make it sing — then maybe they'll stop calling it cursed."
Ravine tried to speak — but her mouth wouldn't open. There were no words from her.
Only Eryn's voice.
Only the way she turned and pointed down a narrow path between the trees.
"My house is just over there. Come. I'll show you my spiral bed. You'll love it. I've been trying to grow dream fruit near a water source — they respond better when they hear it."
Then, with a laugh, she added—
"If you take me, you have to promise one thing."
She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes bright with mischief.
"Let me come back and prove them all wrong."
The memory shattered.
The garden was gray again. Cold. The drizzle had returned — not heavier, but sharper somehow. As though each drop knew where to fall to hurt.
Ravine was on her knees in the mud. The place where Eryn had knelt was still marked — not with footsteps, but with a depression in the earth where nothing had grown since.
Her hands were shaking.
The Bloom pulsed softly against her skin.
She touched the soil, gently. As if the memory might still be there, breathing beneath the surface.
She had asked her to come.
She had not stopped her.
A sob caught in her throat.
"I asked her," she whispered. "I let her go."
Her voice broke.
She bent forward, pressing her forehead to the damp ground.
"I let her go."
And then the rain came down harder.
As if the sky had been holding it in until she admitted it.
Water pooled in the flowerbeds. It streaked down the twisted bark of the tree. The lanterns trembled.
And Ravine wept.
She didn't try to stop it. She didn't wipe her face. The guilt bloomed in her chest like something long-rooted — something fed by years of not knowing.
A voice, soft and certain, broke the hush.
"I told you to wear your hood."
Arana was behind her now. She stepped carefully through the spiral path, unfolding the umbrella in one hand, and held it out above Ravine.
Ravine didn't respond. Couldn't.
Arana knelt beside her. She didn't say anything more. She simply opened the umbrella and let its shadow fall gently over them both.
Rain tapped against it like fingertips on glass.
Ravine curled slightly toward her, forehead still resting against her hands in the mud.
"She wanted to come," she choked. "But she didn't know what we were walking into."
"No one ever does," Arana said. "That's why we call it unknown."
"She trusted me."
"Yes," Arana said. "She did."
The words weren't cruel. They weren't forgiving, either.
They were true.
Ravine sat back slowly. Her face streaked with water, her palms muddied.
The garden looked different now.
Still alive. Still breathing.
But older.
And lonelier.
Arana helped her to her feet; the umbrella still opens above them both.
They stood there a while longer, rain painting soft rivulets down their clothes.
The silence wasn't empty.
It was grieving.
And it grieved with them.