## CHAPTER 8: _"A Garden of Ghosts"_
The sanctuary had quieted, but the silence wasn't peace—it was the kind that arrives after death, when even time forgets how to breathe.
Arien lay still on a stone bed, pale but breathing, his side bandaged in layers of moss, cloth, and Lysia's stubborn magic. She hadn't slept in two days. Every time her eyes drifted closed, she saw the dagger, the blood, the look in his eyes when he fell.
Now, she sat by his side, whispering spells in an ancient tongue she barely remembered learning.
> "You die," she said softly, "and I burn the world."
Behind her, the shadows moved. She turned fast, a dagger flying from her hand. It struck a vine.
Not a threat.
But a memory.
This sanctuary had once been sacred to the Moondamned—the cursed bloodline that Lysia carried like poison through her veins. Now the trees whispered old hymns, calling her by names she never knew she had.
She stepped out into the courtyard.
And froze.
Flowers had bloomed where blood had fallen.
Dozens of pale white roses—ghostblooms. A flower that only grew in places where death had been kind. She knelt beside them. They pulsed faintly, as if still alive.
> "You see them too," a voice whispered.
She spun.
An old woman stood in the garden, skin like paper, eyes too young.
> "Who are you?" Lysia asked.
> "A gardener," the woman replied. "And a ghost. Like you."
> "I'm not dead."
> "Aren't you?"
The woman stepped forward and placed a hand on Lysia's cheek.
> "You carry a death that hasn't happened yet. But it waits."
Lysia stepped back. "Are you real?"
> "What is real, child? Pain? Magic? Love?"
> "Love is a curse."
> "Only if you waste it."
The woman vanished like mist.
Lysia stood alone again, surrounded by ghostblooms.
---
Back inside, Arien stirred.
> "Lysia," he murmured.
She rushed to his side.
> "I'm here. I'm here."
> "You were crying."
> "No."
> "I felt it."
She brushed a hand through his hair. "You always feel what you shouldn't."
> "I felt something else too. Something dark. Watching."
She stiffened.
> "What?"
> "A dream. Your mother. Standing in flame."
> "Arien—"
> "She said you'd burn down the palace."
Lysia stood.
> "Then we start walking."
> "You're not ready."
> "I don't need to be. I need her to see me."
---
That night, before they left the sanctuary, they stood once more in the garden.
Arien looked at the ghostblooms.
> "They're beautiful. Even in ruin."
> "Like us."
> "You think we'll survive this?"
> "I think survival is the wrong word."
> "Then what?"
> "We become the curse they fear."
He kissed her then—soft, full of warnings.
She kissed him back—full of promise.
And as the moon rose above the trees, the ghostblooms glowed white.
They were not safe.
They were not saved.
But they were no longer running.
They were going home.
To burn it down.