Chapter 17: The Labyrinth of Flesh and Thorn

Oren's body collapsed like a felled tree, the thorn in his chest dissolving into ash. The rebels froze, their breaths held as the air itself seemed to recoil. For a heartbeat, silence. Then the ground shrieked.

The Capitol's streets convulsed. Cobblestones split, disgorging roots thicker than ancient oaks. Buildings contorted, their facades melting into bone-white bark, windows stretching into screaming mouths. The sky darkened, veined with pulsating thorns that rained black sap. Seraphine's voice boomed from every direction:

"You think a gardener's death can stop a god? This city is my body now. Come. Let me digest you."

Evangeline hauled Jack to his feet, her frostbitten hand slipping on his coat. "Move!"

They ran as the labyrinth rose.

The streets were alive.

Walls of muscle and tendon sealed off alleys, forcing them into spiraling corridors lined with teeth-like thorns. The air reeked of bile and rotting roses. Jack's scar throbbed, its whispers drowned by the labyrinth's cacophony.

"Stay close," Evangeline ordered, slicing through a curtain of sinew.

"Where's close in this hell?" Jack snapped, thorns shredding a root that lunged at her back.

She didn't answer. Ahead, the path forked—one artery pulsing with bioluminescent algae, the other choked with weeping roses.

"Left," Jack said. "The algae—Maeve's work."

Evangeline hesitated. "Or a trap."

A scream echoed behind them. Rebels.

They chose left.

The algae-lit corridor birthed nightmares.

Shadows peeled from the walls, forming figures: Liran, his throat full of roses; Oren, his chest a hollow where the thorn had been; Jack's mother, her arms outstretched, whispering, "You were born to burn."

Evangeline slashed through them, her breaths ragged. "Illusions. Don't listen."

Jack's thorns lashed at a specter of his cubicle from his past life—a ghostly desk, a cracked monitor flickering with Seraphine's face. "You could've been safe," she cooed. "Small. Forgotten."

"I'm done hiding," he snarled, crushing the vision to dust.

The labyrinth rewarded their resolve with a chamber of mirrors.

Each reflection showed a different fate: Evangeline ruling a dead kingdom, her crown of thorns; Jack as Seraphine's puppet, roots bursting from his eyes; the world as a garden of bones. At the center stood a pedestal holding Oren's satchel.

Evangeline reached for it. The floor dropped.

They fell into a cathedral of flesh.

Seraphine waited atop an altar of fused human hands, her body a grotesque tapestry of roses and sinew. The Capitol's heart pulsed above her, a massive Rosa Noctis encasing thousands of thralls in its petals.

"Darlings," she sighed. "You've made it to the last act."

Jack's scar split open. "Give in," it begged—in his voice, her voice, their voice.

Evangeline stepped forward, Oren's satchel clutched tight. "This ends now."

Seraphine laughed. "With algae? How quaint."

"No." Evangeline pulled out the diary's torn page—the covenant's price. "With a trade."

The ritual demanded blood.

Evangeline sliced her palm, her blood mingling with Jack's in Oren's satchel. The algae ignited, green fire consuming the page.

"The vessel's life, or the gardener's sacrifice," Seraphine mocked. "But your gardener is already dead."

"Not a sacrifice," Evangeline said. "A gift."

Oren's thorn—still lodged in the satchel—glowed. The algae-fire spread, engulfing the heartrose.

Seraphine screamed.

The labyrinth collapsed.

Jack dragged Evangeline through disintegrating flesh-tunnels, the scar on his chest knitting itself shut. Behind them, Seraphine's form unraveled, her thorns dissolving into ash.

"You cannot kill a god!" she howled.

"No," Evangeline shouted back. "But we can bury you."

They breached the surface as the Capitol imploded.

Dawn found them miles away, the horizon smoldering.

Jack's scar was a pale seam, silent. Evangeline's frostbitten hand trembled as she passed him the last algae vial. "It's over."

He shook his head. The diary's final page had burned, but its words lingered: The covenant's price is paid, but the garden remembers.

"Not yet," he said.

Somewhere, deep in the earth, roots stirred.

Chapter 17 End.