The roses struck like vipers. Thorns pierced Jaren's calf before he could move, black venom searing through his veins. Lyra's gray hair whipped in the churning air as she shoved him backward. "Breathe the rot," she hissed, her voice fraying into Gideon's growl. "Or it'll breathe you."
Varyn's corpse lurched forward, bandages unraveling to reveal flesh petrified into ash. Lira's locket blazed in its ribcage, casting hellish shadows that danced like clawed fingers. Jaren staggered, the thorns in his leg writhing, fusing with his darkening veins. His vision fractured—one eye saw the forest, the other a labyrinth of mirrors reflecting a man with golden scars, half-consumed by metallic rot.
Kael.
When Varyn swung a skeletal arm, Jaren willed the decay.
The corpse's wrist crumbled to ash.
Lyra barked a laugh that cracked halfway. "Clever rot. But he's always watching." She tapped her temple, where Gideon's rose sigil pulsed.
Jaren dodged another swarm of roses, his breath ragged. "How do I stop this?"
Lyra tore open her shirt. A locket—identical to Kael's—hung from her throat, its rose petals smeared with dried blood. "Mirrors lie," she spat. "This isn't mine. It's hers."
Hers. Lira's voice echoed from the locket: "Find the second bud. Burn it before he—"
Gideon's roar drowned her out. Lyra's locket snapped shut, slicing her palm. The forest warped: trees aged centuries in seconds, collapsing into dust. Varyn's corpse flickered between decayed and whole, attacking from multiple timelines. Lyra's form destabilized—one moment a girl, the next a writhing mass of thorns.
"He's not just in the roots," she said, her voice splintering. "He's in the seconds between seconds."
Jaren grappled with his stolen power, decaying Varyn's limbs only for them to regenerate from ash. "He's toying with us!"
Lyra grinned, teeth stained black. "Toying? No. He's rewriting."
Varyn's corpse split into three versions—past, present, future—each clawing at Jaren. Desperate, Jaren focused on the rot in his veins and pulled.
The forest floor erupted in black roses. They devoured Varyn's past self, roots binding his present corpse. But the future Varyn lunged, locket blazing—
Lyra intercepted, taking the blow. Thorns impaled her chest.
"No!" Jaren roared, decay erupting from his hands. Future Varyn disintegrated, but Lyra collapsed, her locket cracked.
The surviving roses coiled into an hourglass shape above them. Gideon's voice boomed: "You've fed my garden well, thief."
A figure emerged from the shadows—Jaren's mother, her eyes bleeding Gideon's amber glow. She raised a knife forged from rusted time. "You shouldn't have run, Jaren," she whispered. "Now he's in the roots." The rusted knife hums with Kael's power. Lyra's "corpse" twitches, thorns piercing her skin as Gideon's control resurrects her.