Chapter 28: The Blood of Forgotten Stars

The Retreat to Ruin

The estate's gates groaned shut behind them, iron hinges screaming as if the garden itself resisted their return. Lyra collapsed against the courtyard's sundial, her breath ragged, the golden thorn in her chest throbbing in time with the cellar rose's pulse. Nyra crouched beside her, peeling back Lyra's glove to reveal veins of light now branching to her fingertips.

"It's merging with you," Nyra said, her voice hollow. "The thorn isn't a weapon—it's a bridge. She's using it to see through your eyes."

Evangeline slammed a fist into the sundial, cracking the stone. "Then we cut it out."

"You'd kill her," Jack snapped.

"I'm already dead," Lyra signed, her hands trembling. The cellar rose's voice slithered through her mind, sweet and venomous: "Not dead, darling. Transformed."

Above them, the sky curdled. The Harvest's shadow stretched across the horizon, her crown of thorns devouring the light.

The Pact's Price

The cellar rose demanded payment.

Evangeline found its roots coiled around her bedchamber door, black sap oozing from the wood. "A kingdom, Viper. You promised."

"Give me time," she hissed.

"Time is a currency I no longer accept." The roots lashed, pinning her to the wall. "Bring me the Harvest's heart. Or I'll take yours."

When Evangeline emerged, her left eye was flecked with gold.

Nyra's Revelation

Nyra stole into the crypt, guided by the fragment of Eclipse Crown buried in her scar. The visions had grown clearer—a vault hidden beneath Seraphine's coffin, filled with star-metal tools and a journal bound in human skin.

"The First Gardener's first failure," she read aloud. "A vessel who resisted. Her name was… Lyra?"

The journal dissolved into ash, revealing a blade forged from a dead star's core. Its edge hummed with a frequency that made Nyra's scar ache.

"Nyra?"

She turned. Lyra stood in the doorway, her thorn's glow staining the crypt walls.

"You're not her," Nyra signed, gripping the blade. "You're not the Lyra in these pages."

Lyra's smile was too sharp. "Aren't I?"

Kael's Return

The star-forged warriors arrived at dusk, their armor etched with constellations, their faces uncanny mirrors of Lyra's. Kael led them, his mismatched eyes weary.

"The First Gardener's clones," he said, tossing a severed thorned hand at Evangeline's feet. "They were meant to replace you. Now they're all that's left of the Veyne Legion."

Jack eyed the clones. "Can they fight?"

"They'll die for her," Kael said, nodding to Lyra. "Whether she wants them to or not."

One clone stepped forward, her voice a distorted echo of Lyra's. "The Harvest comes. The estate cannot hold."

Lyra's thorn flared. "Then we won't let her in."

The Harvest's Siege

The first wave struck at midnight.

Thorned beasts—hybrids of root and stardust—surged from the woods, their jaws unhinged, their bellies full of screaming light. The clones met them at the gates, blades singing, while Jack and Evangeline rained fire from the battlements.

Lyra stood atop the highest tower, the thorn in her chest syncing with the cellar rose's rhythm. "You promised to protect them," she signed to the garden.

"I protect you," it purred. "The rest are fertilizer."

Nyra appeared beside her, the star-forged blade in hand. "The crown fragment in my scar—it's a key. It can lock the First Gardener out. But I need your thorn to do it."

Lyra hesitated. "What's the cost?"

"Your light. Your voice. Maybe your life."

The Harvest's laughter shook the tower. "CHOOSE, LITTLE STORM."

The Fractured Storm

Lyra chose.

She plunged the star-forged blade into her chest, severing the thorn. Gold light erupted, blinding the clones, scorching the thorned beasts to ash. Nyra caught her as she fell, the blade now glowing with stolen radiance.

"Now," Lyra signed, blood flecking her hands. "Break the crown."

Nyra drove the blade skyward. A beam of light pierced the Harvest's shadow, shattering her thorned crown.

The Harvest screamed, her form unraveling. "YOU WILL BURN. ALL OF YOU."

The clones collapsed, their armor crumbling. The cellar rose shrieked, roots retreating into the earth.

The First Gardener's Curse

In the silence, Lyra lay cradled in Nyra's arms, her scar a jagged void. The cellar rose's voice was faint but vicious: "You think you've won? You've only made her hungrier."

Kael knelt beside them, his star charts ash. "The First Gardener has other daughters. Other Harvests."

Evangeline's gold-flecked eye twitched. "Then we'll kill them all."

The Withering Light

Dawn found the estate in ruins, the gardens silent. Lyra's hands trembled as she traced the hollow where her thorn had been. "It's not over."

Nyra gripped the star-forged blade, now dull and lifeless. "It never is."

Above, the sky remained fractured—a jagged scar where the Harvest had fallen. And in the cellar, the rose began to regrow.

Chapter 28 End.