Chapter 31: The Soil of Sorrows

The Green Rose's Dirge

The song began at dusk—a low, resonant hum that seeped through the estate's cracked walls. Lyra followed it into the woods, her scar pulsing in time with the melody. The trees here were skeletal, their branches fused with thorned vines that dripped a viscous, iridescent sap. The green rose from her windowsill clung to her hand, its roots needling into her skin like a lover's caress.

"Come home," it sang, its voice the First Gardener's. "Let me show you what you are."

She found the source in a clearing: a rosebush twisted into the shape of a throne, its blooms glowing with the same sickly green light as the Voidspawn. At its base lay a corpse—Saint Marthas, his glass eyes shattered, his mouth stuffed with wilted petals.

Evangeline emerged from the shadows, her dagger drawn. "It's a trap. Again."

Lyra didn't move. "Then why are you here?"

"Because you're too damn stubborn to die alone."

The Weight of Memory

They burned the corpse. The smoke coiled into the shape of a child—Lyra, years younger, her hands buried in the soil of the Vossaire garden. Seraphine stood behind her, guiding her fingers around a rose's stem.

"See how it bends?" Seraphine's ghost whispered. "Life is a negotiation. You must break it to make it yours."

Lyra's hands shook. "I'm not her."

Evangeline tossed another branch onto the fire. "Aren't you? You've got her eyes when you lie."

The flames crackled. For a heartbeat, Lyra saw Evangeline as she once was—a girl with blood on her gloves, hiding her brother's corpse in the crypt.

"You never told me how Liran died," Lyra signed.

Evangeline's voice hardened. "You never asked."

The Voidspawn's Mirror

Nyra found them at dawn, her hands stained with ink and something darker. She'd uncovered a ledger in the village—a list of names, each marked with a green thorn. The last entry was her sister's.

"They weren't just feeding the Saints," Nyra said, her voice hollow. "They were trading. Children for protection. My sister… she volunteered."

Lyra's scar throbbed. "Why?"

Nyra's laugh was bitter. "Because the First Gardener promised her a garden where pain didn't exist. Where I didn't exist."

Evangeline stiffened. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Nyra unfurled a scroll—a child's drawing of two sisters holding hands, their faces scratched out. "The Voidspawn showed me. They wear her face sometimes. Her voice. They know exactly how to carve you open."

Jack arrived, his boots caked in mud from the marshes. "The cellar rose is spreading. It's in the well. The stables. The walls."

Lyra's green rose hummed. "Everywhere," it agreed.

The Corruption of Flesh

The stable boy was the first to change.

His skin split at dawn, green veins erupting into tendrils that lashed at the horses. By midday, his body had fused with the hay, a grotesque mound of flesh and straw that whispered pleas in the First Gardener's voice. Jack pinned it to the ground with a pitchfork, his face ashen.

"Burn it," Evangeline ordered.

Lyra knelt beside the boy. His eyes were still human. "What did she promise you?"

"A world without thorns," he gurgled. "Liar."

The cellar rose's roots burst from his chest, silencing him.

"Enough," it hissed. "Sentiment is a weakness, little storm."

The First Gardener's Embrace

That night, the estate dreamed.

Lyra wandered halls lined with portraits of Vossaires long dead—each with her face, her scar, her thorns. The First Gardener waited in the solarium, her form shifting between Seraphine, Evangeline, and Nyra's sister.

"You've been fighting so hard," she crooned, offering a goblet of liquid moonlight. "But you're mine. You always were."

Lyra shattered the goblet. "I'm not your daughter."

"No." The First Gardener's smile split into thorns. "You're my mirror."

The vision shifted: Lyra stood atop a mountain of corpses, her hands blooming with roses, her eyes twin voids.

"This is your legacy. Your destiny."

Lyra woke screaming, roots coiled around her throat.

The Fractured Pact

Evangeline found her in the cellar, clawing at the rose's roots.

"It's in Jack," she said, her voice raw. "The corruption. I saw it in his dreams."

Lyra's hands stilled. "What?"

Evangeline's gold-flecked eye glowed. "The cellar rose isn't just in the walls. It's in our blood. Our bones. The First Gardener's been here all along."

Nyra appeared, clutching her sister's ledger. "We need to end this. Now."

"How?" Lyra signed.

Nyra pressed a blade into her hand—the star-forged dagger, its edge humming. "We cut out her heart."

The Roots of the World

Beneath the cellar, the roots converged into a pulsating heart—a mass of thorns and starlight, its rhythm echoing through the earth. The First Gardener's voice boomed:

"You cannot kill a god, little storm."

Lyra plunged the dagger into the heart.

The world screamed.

Chapter 31 End.