Dravaryns were proud at best, and overconfident to the point of delusion.
Ella rolled her eyes and moved toward it.
Jakobav might’ve given her freedom to wander for now, but she had no idea how far that freedom stretched. Certainly not far enough to test the front gates. Better to slip out a window than assume she was welcome to walk out the foyer doors.
She ducked through without hesitation.
The window was barely a story above the ground, an easy drop she could make without twisting an ankle, if luck was on her side. But if anyone saw her outside the castle walls at thishour, she might lose any illusion of freedom Jakobav had given her.
The ledge was slick with climbing ivy, and her foot slipped once, catching on a knot of vines, but she steadied herself with practiced ease. Orchid’s palace had trained her well in the art of sneaking out unseen.
It didn’t matter how much a child loved their parents, or how steady a life they’d built. Curiosity came calling, even for the content.
Dravaryn vines, however, were thicker, their tendrils coiling like ropes. She forced her way through, leaves whispering against her skin, until the wall released her into open air. From there, the ground sloped downward, leading her to the faint glow she had felt pulling at her ribs. By the time she pushed past a tangle of hedges, the path had already chosen her.
The air outside hit her like warm silk, castle towering behind her, spires jutting against the stars. But here, on its quiet western edge, something else waited.
A garden. No…thegarden.
Shadow-laced hedges curled in wild spirals, glowing faintly in the moonlight. She followed a narrow path that wound through humming trees until it spilled into a clearing.
And there they were.
Thousands of black roses. Ella stopped cold.
The roses shimmered with a starlit darkness, black but never flat, layered and opulent, with thorn-covered vines seeming almost alive. But as she took a closer look, she realized they weren’t just black. Plum, charcoal, and violet glints winked in the petals like secrets. Each bloom unfurled as if painted with midnight, grief, and sorcery.
She reached out and brushed a petal, and it vibrated, warm beneath her fingers.
Breathtaking.
The greenery was so stunning it felt wrong, too vibrant, too intricate, as if painted by a hand that had never seen daylight.
Leaves gleamed a green too delicate to be real. Their texture caught her eye and looked like the skin of a snake, ridged and damp, a chill woven into every vein. She imagined stroking the vine with her fingertip, and she swore she would feel a clammy pulse, wet and dry at once, adrenaline sparking as if the thorns would swivel and bite. Droplets of dew clung to the surface, glittering though there were no clouds and no rain had fallen.
For some gods-forsaken reason, her eyes welled up.
Absolutely not.
She blinked hard, furious with herself. She couldn’t help it.
Awe surged as something like recognition and longing seized control. As if part of her had been waiting to find this place, and now that she had, it still wasn’t enough.
Every petal of the shimmering roses seemed to lean toward her, listening, as if the buds knew her name and were watching her as closely as she was watching them. A faint warmth stirred beneath her collarbone, right beneath the Orchid sigil she’d spent years hiding. It answered the roses with a single pulse. Quiet but unmistakable.
She’d only ever seen a black rose carved into Dravaryn’s crest. She’d thought it only a symbol or maybe a warning.
But they were real, and they were beautiful.
No gardener had shaped this.
No mortal hand could have coaxed such perfection from soil and shadow.
Why did it feel like the roses whispered to her? And why did it feel as though her blood had whispered back?
It certainly didn’t fit the narrative.
This was not the version of Dravaryn she had been raised to fear. Her parents had lulled her to sleep with stories of war and vengeance, weaving Dravaryn into every nightmare.
