Morning came in fractured pieces, like light shining through broken glass. It slipped through the veil of mist that clung to Veilspire's southern edge and painted the cobblestones in bruised gold. There was no warmth in the dawn, only sharpness. The air carried no comfort, no promise of peace. It revealed more than it soothed. The streets, still quiet from the hush of night, gleamed with wetness, their slick stones reflecting light like old, half-forgotten memories.
Ardyn walked them in silence, his steps sure but unhurried. The hood of his cloak remained drawn low, shielding his face not from recognition, but from distraction. He didn't fear being seen. He simply didn't want to be read. The system's mark throbbed under the sleeve of his jacket, slower now, but far more potent. Since the cathedral, everything had changed. It wasn't just a hum in his blood anymore. It had taken root, deep and stubborn. A presence. A second heartbeat. Every inhale felt heavier, as if the air itself had begun to expect something from him.
He hadn't told the others. Not yet. Not about the veiled woman who seemed to step out of legend. Not about the coin. Not even about the words that still echoed in the back of his mind, haunting and true. There was power in silence, and Ardyn knew better than to reveal truths before understanding them. Before mastering them. And before choosing who to trust with them.
There was one thread still untouched, one that waited without waiting. Lysandra. The one who never tugged. Never chased. Never demanded. But always remained.
He crossed into the gardens behind Seraphine's estate, where few dared wander. The manor's eastern quarter sprawled in ancient elegance, all spires and silk-curtained corridors, but beyond it lay the greenhouse, wild and breathing, an oasis half-forgotten and yet impossibly alive. Ivy spilled over the stone walls like living paint, and flowering vines climbed skyward in slow defiance of gravity and time. This place did not feel like Veilspire. It felt older. Smarter. Watching.
He found her kneeling beside the lion-mouth fountain, fingers tracing the petals of a blooming orchid. Its colors shimmered unnaturally, pale blue darkening to indigo at the edges. The leaves curled at odd angles, pulsing gently with the faintest glow. Magic lived here, not in bold displays, but in quiet symbiosis. In balance. In breath. It lived in her too.
She didn't turn. She didn't need to.
"I wondered how long you'd circle the truth before stepping into it," she said, her voice soft, not accusatory. She always spoke like that, never raising her voice, yet somehow always being heard.
"I needed to see clearly," Ardyn replied, moving closer. "You're not like the others. You never reach for me. You wait. You observe."
"The garden never chases the sun," she murmured, rising with quiet grace. "It grows. And one day, the sun notices."
He took in the sight of her. Not in admiration, though there was plenty to admire, but in awareness. Her eyes met his with that same unbending calm, silver, but not cold. They shifted like the moon reflected in moving water. Beautiful, yes. But unpredictable. Unfathomable.
"There's no hunger in you," he said. "Kael guards. The Saintess yearns. Seraphine burns. But you… you don't ask for anything."
"That's where you're wrong." She stepped toward him. The air didn't shift. It settled. "I ask for what none of them dare. I want to know the part of you beneath the system. Beneath the bindings. The boy before the threads. The man after them."
"And if you don't like what you find?"
Her hand rose, brushing the edge of his wrist, where the system pulsed faintly beneath the skin. She didn't press. She simply rested there, light as wind. "Then I'll bury that part in my soil, and coax something stronger from its roots."
Ardyn blinked, surprised by the chill that followed her words. Not fear. Not even threat. Truth. That was what she offered him. And unlike the others, she didn't build herself on fire or promise. She built herself on acceptance.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "You've always known something was different."
"I felt it the moment your shadow crossed mine," she said. "The system sings around you, but it trembles when I come near. That's not coincidence. That's recognition."
He searched her expression for signs of manipulation, of control, but there was nothing to hide. No mask. Just clarity. "The woman at the cathedral… she said the system was a punishment. That it was never meant to grant power, only to test it. That I was chosen, not for greatness, but as a warning."
Lysandra nodded slowly. "Then she told you only part of the truth. All curses were once gifts. The gods do not waste power. They simply hide it where few dare to look."
He shook his head, unsettled. "And if I fall like the man before me? If I become him?"
"Then I will be the hand that buries you," she whispered. "And from your death, I will grow a better man."
The words could have been cruel. But in her voice, they weren't. They were a vow. Steady. Patient. Loving in a way most could not comprehend.
Her fingers slid up to his collarbone, resting just beneath it. The system responded at once, a soft thrum pulsing through his chest. Not fire. Not longing. Something deeper. A thread began to stir, no longer silent, no longer waiting. It wrapped itself around his heart with the same ease as ivy claiming stone.
[Thread Activated: Lysandra, Keeper of the Garden]
[Emotional Signature: Trust Rooted. Insight Awakened.]
She leaned in and kissed him.
It was not the kind of kiss that claimed territory or shouted promise. It didn't carry urgency or possessiveness. It simply was. Deep, unshaking, and entirely hers. A quiet devotion. A kiss that said, "I see you." A kiss that didn't ask him to be more, or less. Only true.
The system did not burn. It cleared. For the first time, Ardyn felt the difference. He wasn't being drawn forward. He wasn't falling. He was standing still, and still, she found him.
When they parted, her breath lingered against his lips for a moment longer, just enough to say she wasn't finished with him, only patient.
He exhaled, resting his forehead against hers. "I don't know what happens next. But I know someone will try to take this from me."
Lysandra pulled back, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly. "Then let them come."
That was when the wind shifted.
Subtle at first. A flicker of motion across the vines. A sharp tremor in the leaves. Then the glint of steel, barely visible against the dappled morning light.
Lysandra moved first.
Her hand went to Ardyn's shoulder in warning just as he turned.
A figure broke from the ivy above the wall, blades drawn, body cloaked in grey. No sound. No battle cry. Just intent.
Ardyn moved without thinking. Magic surged through him, not from the system, but from within. Raw, instinctive power. He met the attacker mid-air, caught the assassin's wrist before the blade could find its mark. A twist, a pulse of force, and the bones snapped with a wet crack.
The man fell hard, rolling across the garden stones, pain erupting from his shattered arm. He tried to scramble away, but Ardyn stepped forward, ready to finish it.
"Wait," Lysandra said, placing a calm hand on his back. "Let him crawl."
Ardyn hesitated, pulse pounding. "Why?"
"Because fear walks faster than a corpse. Let whoever sent him see what it costs to try."
The man's eyes widened. He clutched his wrist, scrambling backward through the hedge, vanishing into the overgrowth with breathless panic.
The garden fell silent again, but the air had changed.
"They're watching me now," Ardyn said, eyes still on the thrashed foliage. "They know I'm no longer just a user. I've become something more."
Lysandra nodded. "Then let them watch. The garden does not run from storms. It thrives through them."
He turned to her, the thread between them pulsing with new strength. She was no longer just a bond waiting to be claimed. She was rooted in him now, just as much as he had become part of her soil.
And Ardyn understood, with a clarity that scared and comforted him all at once.
If someone came for him, they wouldn't find him alone.
They'd meet the garden first.
And the garden had teeth.