I walked up and down the gardens, their stillness pressing against me.
Once, they had bloomed so brightly that the air shimmered with color. Now the petals hung motionless, caught in the moment the world stopped.
Why can we keep living when everything else stands still?
It was a question that wouldn’t leave me.
Footsteps approached behind me, measured and steady. I turned to see Castor, his face carved from stone as always.
“I have something to show you,” he said simply, and turned before I could answer.
I followed him through the winding paths until we reached Kathera’s greenhouse. I hadn’t set foot inside since she passed. The thought of it without her had felt unbearable.
When Castor opened the door, the scent of roses flooded the air—sweet and earthy, unmistakable.
The Rose of Hynitha.
The smell of Kathera.
It held me there, the smell of her. The feeling came in waves, all of my unanswered questions washing over me. All of the memories I had with her flashed before my eyes. I blinked myself back into reality. Fight the emotion, I told myself.
Castor walked to the center of the room, where a single rosebush stood mid-bloom.
“This garden isn’t as simple as you think,” he said. “These flowers bloom only when times are hard—a gift from the gods to remind us that even in struggle, life continues.”
The petals were pale blue at the edges, darkening into violet toward the center. I couldn’t look away.
Then…
The outer petals trembled. Slowly, impossibly, the rose unfurled the rest of the way, the purple deepening as it opened.
My heart skipped a beat. “It moved,” I whispered.
Castor’s expression didn’t change, but his voice softened. “It moved.”
Behind him, Briar clasped a hand over her mouth, tears already shining in her eyes. “It’s beginning,” she said.
I looked back at the rose—breathing, blooming, alive.
And for the first time in years, the world didn’t feel so still.
For a long moment, none of us spoke. The only sound was the faint rustle of petals finishing their motion, the whisper of something alive remembering how to move.
Briar took a cautious step forward, eyes shining. “It bloomed,” she said softly, almost afraid to disturb it. “After all this time.”
Castor knelt beside the rosebush, his calloused fingers tracing the air above a petal but never touching it. “If the flowers are moving, the stillness is breaking.”
I swallowed hard. “You think it’s them? Ami, Sahora…?”
He glanced at me, and for the first time in years, I saw uncertainty on his face. “Whatever they’ve done, it’s reached us.”
Briar’s voice trembled with a fragile kind of joy. “Kathera’s light is coming back.”
I wanted to believe it, but the thought felt too large to hold. The greenhouse felt warmer now, the air shifting as if the world itself were drawing a shallow breath.
I stepped closer to the rosebush and watched another bud twitch. “Then every piece they find will wake more of Celentra,” I whispered. “One bloom at a time.”
Castor nodded. “Then we need to be ready. If the land starts to move again, so will the darkness.”
Briar turned to me, her expression steadying. “You must prepare the council. They’ll need guidance, and the people will need hope. They must see their Emperor believing, even when they can’t.”
I took a slow breath, the scent of the roses wrapping around me like a memory. “Hope,” I repeated, tasting the word as if it were new.
The rose shimmered faintly in the morning light. For the first time since Kathera’s death, I didn’t feel like I was standing still.
“Then we’ll be ready,” I said quietly. “When she returns, this kingdom will be ready to wake.”
Castor and Briar left me to sit with the roses. Later that night, two horses had vanished from the stables.