The roots didn't just obey—they worshiped.
Kael felt them now, not as mere extensions of his will but as something older, deeper—ancient, ravenous things that knew him. The flower in his palm had become a conduit, its thorned vines fused with his veins, feeding him the garden's dying screams like communion.
Kane coughed violently beside him, his body shuddering as another wave of blackened petals spilled from his lips. His fingers—now more root than flesh—twitched against the fractured stone.
"You always were a stubborn bastard," he rasped, voice cracking like dry earth. "Even when we were kids. Couldn't leave well enough alone."
The bear growled low, mournful, its massive head swinging between them. Kael's breath caught as he looked closer. Those weren't just scars.
They were brands.
Crown-shaped, pulsing with a sickly gold glow, their edges weeping something thick and dark.
"Fuck me," Kael muttered, the flower on his hand twisting in response. "You're not just—"
"Told you," Kane cut in, his bark-like skin splitting as new shoots pushed through the cracks. "The garden remembers." He tried to stand, his legs buckling as white tendrils burst from his knees. "Now quit staring like a rookie and move."
The roots surged around them, convulsing upward into a grotesque archway—thorns interlocking like jagged teeth in a yawning maw. At its center, something pulsed.
A heart.
The heart.
Sarnel's voice slithered through the vines, silk-wrapped in venom: "You mistake destruction for freedom, little seeds. But even weeds know their place."
Kael spat to the side, his saliva black with pollen. "Bitch, we are the weeds."
He grabbed Kane's forearm, ignoring how his skin flaked away like dead bark. "And we're about to choke your whole fucking garden."
The moment they touched, the world split.
Memories cascaded between them—
—Two boys kneeling in fresh-turned soil, not brothers by blood but by something older, pressing seeds into each other's palms as snow began to fall
—Sarnel standing over them years later, scalpel glinting, grafting their pain into something obedient
—The bear watching from the dark, its branded crown glowing faintly in the moonlight, waiting
The roots beneath them shrieked as synchronization hit 90%. The prison trembled like a dying beast.
Kane grinned, teeth blackening as petals unfurled behind his eyes. "Well?" he rasped, gripping Kael's wrist hard enough to draw blood. "You gonna stand there all day looking pretty?"
Kael bared his own stained teeth. "Fuck no."
Together, they stepped into the archway of thorns.
The bear followed, silent and immense, its body barely fitting through the writhing passage.
The air thickened. It stank of rotting nectar and something older—like turned earth after a long winter.
The roots whispered around them, countless voices layered into one:
"They tried to bury us…"
"…didn't know we were seeds…"
"…break the throne…"
"…eat the crown…"
Kael's flower pulsed with each word, its roots digging deeper into his flesh.
He could see it now—the garden's true shape, its infinite hunger. The throne at its center. Waiting.
And the most terrifying part?
It felt like coming home.