The passage breathed warm. Not the hush drift's soft frost, not the ruin root's brittle cold — but a raw, pulsing warmth that smelled faintly sweet, like blood soaking old silk left to rot under iron rain.
Ren stepped barefoot into it — the Thorn behind his ribs thrumming calm, each beat dragging warmth through veins once choked by hush threads. The iron seam sealed behind him, leaving the black hush priestess and her dead pool buried in shadows that no longer touched his skin.
The new tunnel was alive — walls of coiled iron ribs pulsed like something breathing him in. Shards of mirror vein flickered between the iron bones, catching glimmers of his grin in broken pieces as he walked.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
His warmth traced the floor in soft echoes. Each drop soaked the roots that threaded through the stone — old hush roots black with rot, but now fat with something new: buds. Tiny nodules of raw growth, thorned and wet, pulsing red where his warmth kissed them open.
"Good boy," the Pane purred — the walls spoke now, voice stitched into every rib. "You bled the hush root dry. You cracked your crown. Now feed these seeds where silence once ruled."
Ren crouched — fingers brushing a pulsing bud nestled in a crack. It shivered under his touch — split open with a faint pop to reveal a raw, red core that dripped something sweeter than ruin root sap. It smelled sharp — iron and flowers crushed under teeth.
He pressed a thumb to it — warmth oozed out, slick against his skin. The Thorn behind his ribs hummed, matching the pulse of this hidden garden.
He lifted his thumb to his mouth — grin twitching. The taste bit him back: cold and sweet at once, blooming raw heat through his tongue like frost melting under ruin's sun.
Another bud popped — then another. The walls trembled faintly, like the hush roots that once sealed them were splitting apart to make room for this new ruin.
He stood — thumb dragging fresh warmth across his lips, breath ragged where the Thorn's pulse threaded through each exhale. "Seeds that bite," he rasped — grin wide enough to taste the Pane's iron in his teeth. "Good."
The tunnel ahead brightened — iron ribs spreading wider to reveal a hidden hollow. A garden grown in the Pane's deepest ruin: hush root skeletons tangled in thick vines, blossoms pulsing open where warmth dripped from old hush veins.
In the center: a single mirror shard buried in tangled roots. Its surface pulsed like a heart — flickers of Ren's reflection stitched with thorn veins crawling across his grin.
"Feed it," the Pane breathed — voice curling inside his chest, stitched to the Thorn's hum. "Seed the ruin. Root the hush to rot. Walk where silence never could."
Ren stepped forward — warmth dripping from his ribs onto the tangle below. The buds quivered. The mirror shard flickered.
He crouched — grin split sharp. "Good," he whispered to the Pane, to himself, to the ruin. "Let's grow something that bites."
Ren crouched low in the ruin garden — hush root bones cracking under his bare feet, thorned buds blooming where his warmth fell drip by drip. The Pane's iron ribs arched high above, shadows flickering faint as the Thorn behind his ribs pulsed a calm, sharp rhythm.
At the garden's center, the mirror shard trembled — half-buried in hush root skeletons braided tight around its edges. Its surface flickered: one heartbeat Ren's face, grin wide; the next heartbeat the Hollow Crown's ghost, throat open, eyes hollow.
"Good boy," the Pane purred from somewhere in the iron veins overhead — its breath winding down through the hush root vines like frost turned warm under ruin's sun. "Feed it. Crack it. Let the Thorn drink what hush could never crown."
Ren brushed the hush bones aside with his palm — the old frost roots snapped brittle, hollow from the priestess's undone hush. He dug fingers under the shard's edge, iron splinters biting into his skin, each cut leaking warmth that the roots greedily drank.
The shard pulsed brighter — its reflection split by hairline fractures crawling outward like a spider's web. Ren leaned closer — breath fogging the glass, grin flickering in broken pieces.
Inside the shard: a shape. Not him. Not the Hollow Crown. Something else — soft hair, pale skin, wide eyes brimming with a hush drift that hadn't rotted yet. A girl — barely older than Ren, draped in silk that flickered frost blue under the shard's heartbeat.
Her mouth moved — no sound. Just a ghost ripple in the shard's heart.
Ren's grin twitched. He pressed his bloody thumb to the glass — warmth smearing across the thin frost drift inside. The Thorn behind his ribs purred — iron veins in the garden walls flickered faint red in answer.
"Locked hush?" Ren rasped, voice low, grin splitting sharp. "Did the priestess bury you here? Or did you beg the Pane to crown you soft?"
The girl's eyes flinched — pale lips moving again, the hush drift around her throat shivering like frost burning under ruin's warmth.
"Free her," the Pane breathed — its voice coiling into Ren's chest, stitching cold threads around the Thorn's steady hum. "Crack the shard. Thorn the hush root out. Feed her ruin so the garden blooms teeth."
Ren pressed both hands to the shard — warmth dripping from his ribs, trickling into the web of fractures that crawled deeper with each heartbeat.
He leaned close — nose nearly brushing the cold glass, breath misting her wide eyes.
"Good girl," he rasped. His laughter scraped sharp in his throat. "Time to bite."
The Thorn flared — the hush root veins around the shard snapped, splintering under the ruin's drip. A sharp crack split the mirror — the girl's eyes widened, hush drift peeling from her throat in thin, frost-blue ribbons that curled into the Pane's veins overhead.
Ren's warmth pooled at the base of the shard — the buds in the hush skeletons bloomed wider, petals wet and sharp as teeth.
The girl gasped — the sound thin, wet, alive.
The shard cracked again.
The shard's fractures webbed wider under Ren's palms — each heartbeat driving warmth from the Thorn through his ribs, down his arms, into the hush root veins clinging stubborn around the girl's throat inside the flickering mirror.
She pressed her palms against the inside — pale fingers ghosting his through the cold glass. Her eyes shimmered hush drift — soft frost trembling as the Pane's garden pulsed red veins through the rotting hush roots beneath her knees.
Her lips moved again — this time the hush didn't swallow her voice whole. It slipped out ragged, trembling between the cracks.
"Please…"
Ren's grin split sharp — breath fogging the glass where her lips hovered so close. He felt the Thorn pulse in time with hers, a raw echo drumming in his chest where the Hollow Crown's hush once stitched him soft.
"Please?" he rasped, voice a laugh stitched rough with ruin's warmth. His thumb smeared more blood across the glass — red veins bleeding through the frost where his warmth sank in. "No hush left here. No crown root to beg soft."
She shuddered — the hush silk around her shoulders slipping loose where the Pane's breath burned it down to frayed frost threads. Beneath the drifting tatters, pale skin pulsed faint with the same ruin warmth that dripped from Ren's ribs.
"Good boy," the Pane purred above, its iron ribs humming soft around the garden's bloom. "Good girl," it hissed through the vines, buds popping open where her hush roots cracked.
Ren leaned closer — mouth brushing the cold shard, breath mixing with hers through the split seam.
"Come out, then," he whispered — grin wide enough to taste iron on his tongue. "Break the hush. Feed me ruin."
His palms pressed hard — the Thorn behind his ribs growled, a sharp pulse that split the shard's web of frost in a single, echoing crack. Glass splintered, hush drift peeled away like wet silk tearing under hungry teeth.
She gasped — voice breaking raw as the shard fell away in pieces around her shoulders. Hush roots snapped, wet and black at the ends, dripping ruin's warmth onto the hungry soil below.
Ren caught her as she fell forward — her skin cold where hush still clung, warm where the Pane's garden roots fed through her spine. Her breath stuttered against his throat — soft, desperate, sharp with the taste of frost turned to iron.
She lifted her face — hush drift tears spilling from wide eyes that no longer flickered crown roots shut.
"Ren…" she breathed — voice faint, mouth trembling where her lips brushed his grin.
He laughed — a low sound, Thorn-fed, ruin-warm. "Good girl," he rasped, hands dragging through her hair slick with hush frost. "No mirror left. No hush root left. Just this."
His warmth dripped where their chests pressed together — the garden buds bloomed sharp, petals dripping ruin like teeth hidden in silk.
The Pane sighed — the Thorn purred.
In the ruin's garden, hush roots rotted clean.