Chapter 26: The Song of Shattered Stars

The Stranger's Warning

The stranger arrived at dusk, cloaked in tattered scholar's robes stained with ash and stardust. His eyes, one storm-gray and the other gold-veined, fixed on Lyra as he thrust Alaric's journal into her hands. The pages fell open to a map of constellations, each star marked with a rose's thorn.

"The First Gardener sowed her seeds across the cosmos," he said, his voice gravel and smoke. "Your estate is but one garden. There are others—hungrier ones."

Evangeline's dagger pressed to his throat. "Who sent you?"

The stranger didn't flinch. "Alaric. Or what's left of him. The thorns took his mind, but not before he begged me to deliver this." He nodded to the journal. "Your rose is not the first to bleed gold. Nor will it be the last."

Lyra's scar hummed, a low, resonant chord that made the roses shiver. "What do they want?"

"To consume," the stranger said. "As all gardens do."

The Golden Thorns

The estate's roses had transformed. Their thorns gleamed like molten gold, and their petals shimmered with an inner light that repelled the shadows. But when Lyra brushed one, it sang—a note so pure it carved through her bones.

"They're alive," she signed, trembling. "But… different."

Jack knelt beside her, his scarred hand hovering over a bloom. "They don't feel like Seraphine's thorns. No hunger. Just… longing."

Evangeline snapped a thorn from its stem. It dissolved into gold dust, staining her fingers. "A trick. The garden's wearing new skin."

The stranger watched from the terrace. "Or it's evolving. Adapting to its gardener."

Lyra's scar flared in agreement.

The First Gardener's Lullaby

That night, the song in Lyra's scar became a scream.

She dreamt of a field of stars, each one cradling a rose. The First Gardener stood at the center, her form fractured into a thousand shards of light.

"You burned one star," she hissed, her voice a chorus of dying suns. "But I have countless more. And each has a vessel like you."

Lyra woke choking on starlight, her scar splitting open. Golden tendrils spilled onto the bedsheets, writhing like serpents.

Evangeline burst in, dagger drawn. "What's happening?"

"They're calling me," Lyra signed, her hands shaking. "The other vessels. They're in pain."

The Scholar's Secret

The stranger's name was Kael. Once a scholar of the Veyne bloodline, now a scavenger of dead stars. He'd tracked Alaric's descent into madness, watched as the thorns consumed him.

"The First Gardener's vessels are linked," he explained, sketching constellations in the air with a charred stick. "Their scars are threads in a web. When one falls, the others weaken."

Jack frowned. "And Lyra?"

"She's the strongest thread. The First Gardener wants her to join the web—or sever it."

Evangeline scoffed. "So we're supposed to play hero for the cosmos?"

Kael's mismatched eyes hardened. "If you don't, your garden will be the next feast."

The Comet's Return

The second comet struck at dawn.

It tore through the sky, green fire trailing its descent until it slammed into the eastern woods. The impact shook the estate, toppling spires and scattering roses. When the smoke cleared, a crater smoldered, its heart pulsing with a rose of living flame.

Lyra's scar roared to life. "Another star. Another vessel."

They found her at the crater's edge—a girl no older than Lyra, her skin cracked and glowing, her eyes twin supernovae. She clutched a withered rose, its thorns embedded in her chest.

"Help," she gasped, her voice a dying star's whisper. "Before she finds me."

The Fractured Web

The girl's name was Nyra. A vessel from a distant star, hunted by the First Gardener's shadows. Her scar was a blackened fissure, devouring her from within.

"She's been draining me," Nyra rasped as Lyra pressed golden thorns to her wound. "Using my garden to feed hers."

The thorns glowed, stitching Nyra's flesh with threads of light. But with each pulse, Lyra's own scar darkened, veins of black creeping into the gold.

Evangeline pulled her back. "You're killing yourself."

Lyra wrenched free. "I can save her."

Nyra's hand closed around hers. "No. You can fight."

The Choice Beneath Stars

Kael uncovered the truth in Alaric's journal—a ritual to sever the First Gardener's web. But it required a sacrifice: a vessel's scar, willingly given.

"It'll leave you powerless," Kael warned Lyra. "Or worse."

Nyra lay unconscious, her breathing shallow. The comet's rose had spread, its roots sinking into the earth.

"If I don't try, we all burn," Lyra signed.

Jack gripped her shoulder. "We find another way."

But the stars sang louder.

The Scar's Surrender

At midnight, Lyra knelt in the crater. Nyra's rose pulsed in her hands as she pressed it to her scar.

"Take it," she willed. "Take the light. Let her go."

The garden screamed. Gold and black light clashed, tearing the sky. When it faded, Nyra's scar was sealed—and Lyra's was gone.

But in its place, a single golden thorn protruded from her chest.

The First Gardener's Laugh

The thorn whispered as they carried Nyra to the estate.

"You cannot save them all, little storm. But I so enjoy watching you try."