Hayat had taught me: masks were weapons, silence a shield, performance a blade. If Kaelith wanted a play, then fine. I’d give him one. But the ending wouldn’t be his.
I lifted my chin, letting the mask settle—and walked beside him.
20
Aurelia
Turns out,Nyxarra actually did have gardens. And they were beautiful.
Rows of black roses, moon-pale lilies, and violet blooms kissed with frost stretched out in careful lines. Vines curled up trellises shaped like wrought-iron wings, while fruit trees loomed beyond—trunks twisted like sentinels, branches heavy with blood-oranges, wine-dark plums, and golden pears left untouched.
Kaelith led me further along the winding path, his fingers tracing idle patterns against the crook of my elbow where our arms remained linked. The touch felt deliberate—possessive even—as though he wanted to remind me with every step whose stage I was walking on. My skin prickled beneath his hand, but I kept my mask steady.
Just ahead, a low archway carved from bone-white stone framed another row of flora—this one unlike the rest.
A young woman knelt among the beds, carefully coaxing soil around the base of a black-stemmed bloom. The mark of Sylvaracurled along the side of her neck—a green vine etched into her skin, its tiny leaves glimmering as though dew gathered there. Stray auburn-brown curls fell loose from her braid, brushing her cheek each time she leaned forward.
“Elpida. Leave,” Kaelith barked.
She rose quickly, clutching her hands to her chest, and slipped past us with her gaze glued to the ground—silent, obedient, and gone within seconds.
Kaelith gestured toward the flowers she’d abandoned. “These,” he said, “are Etherblooms.”
I slowed, eyes drawn to the strange blossoms swaying gently—caught in a breeze I could not feel. They were delicate, star-shaped things, veined in silver and kissed with the faintest blush of blood-red, as though moonlight bled beneath their translucent skin, pooling at the center.
But beneath their beauty writhed danger.
The base of the blooms was tangled with serpents—sleek, glistening bodies coiled between root and stone. Their scales shimmered in shifting hues of obsidian and garnet, patterns rippling like moving sigils. Some were tiny as bracelets, others thick as wrists, their tongues flickering over the soil as though tasting the power threaded beneath it. They didn’t strike or rattle—theywatched.
“They only bloom at twilight,” Kaelith said, voice quieter now. “Their roots drink from the ley veins beneath Nyxarra. The veins run like lifeblood through the city—threads of forgotten power. Some say they once fed the divine themselves. Others say they’re what remains of something even older.”
Another serpent coiled tightly around a stem, protecting it, or perhaps claiming it. The way their bodies wound together reminded me of old stories whispered in Synnex: of sisters whobetrayed their own, of oaths broken beneath a bleeding moon. Stories Mama said were too dangerous to tell aloud.
“It’s said the Etherbloom listens,” Kaelith continued. “That if you whisper your secrets while it blooms, the flower will remember them long after you’ve forgotten.”
I shivered, unsure whether it was from his words or the bloom’s quiet hum echoing beneath my skin.
“They’re used in the wine, too,” he added, fingers ghosting over a blossom. “To open the mind. Blur the edges of memory and truth.”
He turned back to me, eyes dark and glittering. “Everything in this place has a purpose, Aurelia. Even beauty.”
I slowed near the edge of the path, gaze drifting back to the glowing flowers. “The Etherblooms,” I said softly.
Kaelith tilted his head, watching me too closely. “You’re drawn to them.” Not a question. A truth.
“They’re stranger than I imagined,” I murmured.
“Most beautiful things are.”
Maybe there was more truth to the legends than I’d let myself believe. Something that might actually reach the parts of Aeryn nothing else could.
I hesitated, then glanced at him. “This is what I came for. For my brother.”
His brow lifted. “Ah yes, the brother you mentioned—weak of the mind, is he?”
I flinched before I could stop myself. Just slightly, but enough. The insult wasn’t new; I’d heard it before back home in Synnex. But hearing it here, from Kaelith’s lips, with that cold, curious detachment—it struck deeper. My chest tightened, a spark of fury heating low in my gut. He was testing me. Waiting to see if grief or fury would crack my mask. Weighing me the way predators do when they circle the weakest in the herd. Men like him neverasked for what they wanted straight on—they circled it, needled it, carved their way toward it with questions meant to cut.
Kaelith’s expression shifted—almost amused, but something else slithered beneath it. “Bring him here,” he said after a moment. “You’ll be living here now, after all. It only makes sense.”