The ruins of Blackspire smelled of wet stone and something sweeter—burnt sugar, maybe, or the ghost of a festival long extinguished. Sorin crouched in the shadow of a toppled pillar, arranging stolen trinkets into something resembling a fortress: a bent spoon for a tower, a chipped teacup for the throne, and a handful of copper coins as an army.

  Lyria clapped her hands. “The Hollow King’s castle!”

  Sorin’s fingers twitched. The name still prickled, even now. “It’s not a castle. Just… a pile of junk.”

  “Junk with potential,” Lyria corrected, plopping down beside him. Her knees were scraped, her boots caked with mud, but her eyes were too old for her face. She hummed as she worked, a tune that made Sorin’s scars ache.

  He knew that song.

  He’d never heard it before.

  “Where’d you learn that?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

  Lyria didn’t look up. “Liraeth taught me.” A pause. “She said you’d forget.”

  The air thickened. Sorin’s reflection in the teacup wavered—just for a second—into a crowned silhouette. He flipped the cup over.

  Before he could ask who the hells Liraeth was, a voice rasped behind them:

  “A kingdom for a copper, is it?”

  An old woman stood in the archway, her spine bent like a question mark. Moonlight caught the silver streaks in her hair and the dirt caked under her nails. A wicker basket hung from her arm, filled with flowers that glowed faintly—petals like crushed sapphires, stems threaded with gold.

  Lyria gasped. “Moonblooms!”

  The woman—the Gardener—smiled. “Clever girl.” She shuffled forward, her steps scattering petals that wilted before they hit the ground. “And you.” Her milky eyes fixed on Sorin. “You’re the boy who wasn’t a king.”

  Sorin’s throat tightened. “I’m not—”

  “Oh, hush.” She waved a gnarled hand. “Kings are boring. Boys are better. Boys still grow.” She rummaged in her basket and pulled out a seed, small and black as a forgotten thought. “Plant this where kingdoms fall.”

  Sorin hesitated. “What does it grow?”

  The Gardener’s grin revealed missing teeth. “What do you want it to grow?”

  Lyria snatched the seed before Sorin could refuse. “We’ll plant it now!” She dragged him to a patch of cracked earth, where the shadows of Blackspire’s ruins stretched like grasping fingers.

  As Sorin pressed the seed into the soil, the wind stilled. The Gardener hummed—the same lullaby—and the ground shuddered.

  A sprout pierced the earth, gold as Sorin’s scars.

  Then the earth sang.

  The golden sapling unfurled its first leaf, and the world bent.

  Sorin’s vision blurred—not with tears, but with something worse: memory.

  A flash of a silver-haired woman pressing a dagger into his small hands. A voice whispering, "When the time comes, remind me." The scent of burning paper, the weight of a crown that wasn’t his yet, the scream of a child—

  His scream.

  He wrenched back, gasping. The sapling pulsed, its roots threading deeper into the earth like veins. Lyria crouched beside it, utterly unafraid, her fingers brushing the glowing stem.

  "It remembers you," she said simply.

  The Gardener chuckled. "Oh, it remembers more than him." She plucked a withered moonbloom from her basket and tucked it behind Lyria’s ear. The flower crumbled instantly to dust. "Nothing lasts. Not even kings. Not even seeds."

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  Sorin’s scars burned. "What is this?"

  "A beginning," said the Gardener. "Or an ending. Depends on the gardener." She winked.

  Lyria tilted her head. "It’s singing about the Hollow King."

  Sorin stiffened. "I don’t hear anything."

  "That’s because you’re listening with your ears." She pressed her palm flat to the soil. The sapling shivered, its light flickering in time with the distant echo of a lullaby—Kael’s lullaby, the one that haunted Sorin’s dreams.

  The Gardener sighed. "Ah. That old tune." She shuffled to Sorin’s side, her breath warm and sour against his cheek. "Tell me, boy—when you dream of falling, do you ever land?"

  Sorin’s mouth went dry. He always woke before he hit the ground.

  Lyria answered for him: "No. Because the crown won’t let him."

  A cold wind sliced through the ruins. The teacup in their makeshift castle cracked down the middle.

  The Gardener reached into her basket again and pulled out a trowel, its blade stained with something dark. "Every king needs a spymaster. Every spymaster needs a thief. And every thief—" She jabbed the trowel toward Lyria. "—needs a girl who remembers too much."

  Lyria beamed. "That’s me!"

  Sorin’s head throbbed. "None of this makes sense."

  "It doesn’t have to." The Gardener shoved the trowel into his hands. "Dig."

  "Why?"

  "Because the truth is buried, and you’re the only one who can unbury it." Her milky eyes gleamed. "Or are you afraid of what you’ll find?"

  Sorin’s fingers tightened around the trowel. He stabbed it into the earth near the sapling.

  One scoop. Two.

  On the third, the metal struck something hollow.

  A box. Small, wooden, its surface carved with thorns.

  Lyria clapped her hands. "It’s yours!"

  Sorin pried it open. Inside lay a single object:

  A child’s tooth.

  His breath caught. He knew this tooth. He’d lost it the day the Broken Sanctum fell, the day his scars first bled gold.

  The Gardener whispered, "Nothing is ever truly gone."

  The sapling’s glow surged, its light painting the ruins in stark relief—and for a heartbeat, Sorin saw shadows where none should be.

  Tall, twisted figures, watching from the rubble.

  Then the wind shifted, and they were gone.

  The tooth sat in Sorin’s palm, small and yellowed with time. It shouldn’t have meant anything.

  But his blood screamed recognition.

  A memory tore through him—

  Rain. The Broken Sanctum’s courtyard. His mouth full of iron, his hands scrabbling at the cobblestones as a shadow loomed over him. A voice, cold and familiar: "You were never supposed to wake up."

  Then—pain. The first scar, splitting his skin like a crack in glass. Gold welling up, thick as honey.

  Lyria’s voice yanked him back. "Sorin?"

  He was on his knees, the trowel discarded, his free hand pressed to his oldest scar—a jagged line across his collarbone. The tooth trembled in his grip.

  The Gardener watched, unblinking. "The body remembers what the mind forgets."

  Sorin’s voice came out ragged. "Whose shadow was that?"

  "Now that," the Gardener said, plucking another moonbloom from her basket, "is the right question." The flower withered as she twirled it. "But answers cost more than questions."

  Lyria leaned in. "What does it cost?"

  "A story." The Gardener’s gaze pinned Sorin. "One you’ve been telling yourself all along."

  The wind picked up, carrying the scent of burning sugar again. The sapling’s glow pulsed, its light catching on something half-buried near the box—a scrap of fabric, frayed and stained.

  Sorin tugged it free.

  A child’s handkerchief. Embroidered in one corner: Sorin, Age 8.

  His stomach lurched. He didn’t remember owning this. But the stitching was unmistakably his mother’s.

  Lyria traced the letters. "You did have a family."

  The Gardener snorted. "Everyone does. Even kings." She crouched, her bones creaking. "But some families are like these flowers—bright, then gone." She crushed the dead moonbloom in her fist. Dust sifted through her fingers.

  A shadow moved at the edge of Sorin’s vision.

  He spun.

  Nothing.

  But the air thickened, the way it did before a storm.

  The Gardener went still. "Ah. They’re here."

  Lyria scrambled to her feet. "Who’s here?"

  The ruins answered before the Gardener could.

  Shadows detached from the rubble—tall, gaunt figures with too-long limbs and faces like smudged charcoal. They had no eyes, but Sorin felt their gaze like a blade between his ribs.

  The Hollow King’s Hounds? No. These were something older.

  The Gardener sighed. "Memory thieves. Nasty things." She flicked a handful of dust at the nearest shadow. It recoiled with a hiss. "They feed on what’s forgotten."

  Sorin grabbed Lyria’s wrist. "Run."

  The shadows lunged.

  The world fractured into chaos—

  Lyria shrieking as a shadow grabbed her braid.

  The Gardener cackling, her basket upended, dead flowers swirling like a shield.

  Sorin’s scars burning, gold light searing through his sleeves as he swung the trowel at a shadow’s grasping hand. It connected with a thud, the shadow shrieking as it dissolved into smoke.

  Then—

  A lullaby.

  Not Lyria’s hum. Not Kael’s tune.

  This one was older, sadder, sung in a voice like breaking glass.

  The shadows froze.

  The sapling shuddered, its roots tearing free from the earth as it stretched—not upward, but sideways, branches knitting into an archway. A door.

  Through it, Sorin saw—

  A silver-haired woman turning her back. A crown shattering. A child’s hand reaching for him—

  The Gardener yanked him back. "Don’t. Not yet."

  The door collapsed. The sapling crumbled to ash.

  The shadows were gone.

  Silence.

  Then Lyria whispered, "That was her. Liraeth."

  Sorin’s pulse hammered. "Who is she?"

  The Gardener retrieved her trowel, her smile gone. "The first thing you forgot."