CHAPTER 185

CHAPTER 185
“The Garden of Blood”

The path to the Garden was not a path at all it was a living maze of twisting roots and whispering branches, every vine pulsing faintly with a reddish hue, like veins carrying ancient memories. Cambria trudged forward, her cloak heavy with ash, her boots slick with the blood of monsters long slain. The deeper she went, the quieter it became until even her own breath seemed too loud.

“Stay close,” Knox murmured behind her, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his blade.

She didn’t answer. Her thoughts were too loud, drowning everything else. The memory of Maddox, his warmth, his final breath, and the look in his eyes haunted her with every step.

The Garden of Blood had once been sacred. A sanctuary for the first queens of flame, a place where life and death were said to kiss beneath a crimson sky. But now, it was rotten. Poisoned by centuries of betrayal, corrupted by the Architects’ failed experiments. Still, it was here that the next piece of Ember’s truth lay buried. It was here that Cambria would find the lost bloodline the twin heart of the Phoenix, scattered and hidden by her ancestors to protect the flame’s final gift.

A low growl echoed to her left.

Knox stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “We’re not alone.”

The vines ahead parted like lips, revealing a clearing where the soil was stained red and the trees hung with bones hundreds of them, human and beast, arranged in spirals that pulsed faintly. And in the center stood a woman.

No not a woman. Something older, wrapped in the form of one.

She was draped in black silks that moved like smoke, her hair long and silver like spilled starlight, her eyes an unsettling shade of gold. She did not blink. She did not breathe.

“You’ve come far, little ember,” the woman said, voice smooth as oil. “Too far, perhaps.”

Cambria’s spine stiffened. “Are you the Keeper?”

The woman tilted her head. “I was once called that. Now I am merely a memory, rotting in the soil.”

Knox drew his blade, sensing the danger before it even moved.

“I need access to the Rootfire,” Cambria said. “The Garden’s heart. You know where it is.”

The woman’s golden eyes flickered with amusement. “Do you know what the Rootfire is, child? It is the wound left by the first betrayal. The place where the flame bled, and the world never healed.”

Cambria didn’t flinch. “Then show me the wound.”

For a long moment, the woman said nothing. Then she smiled, and it was not kind.

“Very well.”

The ground trembled as roots pulled back like curtains, revealing a spiral staircase carved into flesh yes, flesh slick and pulsing and alive. It smelled of copper and rot. Cambria hesitated, then stepped onto it.

Each step down felt like descending into a throat, swallowed by something ancient and ravenous.

Knox followed silently.

At the bottom was a chamber bathed in red light, where a massive tree rose from the center its trunk made not of wood, but of bone and fire, its roots sunk into the ribcage of a dead god.

The Rootfire.

And there, embedded within the base of the tree, was a sword. Blackened, ancient, and whispering. The blade of Seraphine Vale Cambria’s ancestor and the first Queen of the Ember Flame.

“This is what you seek,” the Keeper said from above. “But beware… pulling the blade is not an act of war. It is a marriage vow.”

Cambria’s hand hovered over the hilt.

She could feel it in her blood, singing, her power resonating with the sword. This was not just a weapon. It was a seal. A promise. A curse.

Behind her, Knox spoke.

“You don’t have to take it.”

She turned to him. “Yes, I do. This is the only way to open the final gate. The Ember won’t be complete without it.”

Knox’s eyes softened. “Then let me stand with you.”

She nodded once, then gripped the hilt.

The moment her fingers touched it, the world exploded in light.

Visions flooded her images of Seraphine screaming in betrayal, fire raining from the heavens, a twin sister locked in stone, an Architect weeping over a cradle. Cambria saw everything. The origin of the Ember. The hidden heir sealed in the Archives. The final key is buried beneath a sea of silence.

And a voice. Maddox’s voice, echoing through it all.

“Don’t become what they made me.”

Her scream tore through the chamber as the blade surged with power, carving new truths into her soul.

When it ended, she collapsed, gasping.

Knox caught her, holding her close. “Cambria ”

“I saw her,” she whispered. “The lost heir. She’s not dead. She’s been hidden in stasis... beneath the Echo Spire. They kept her frozen because she was too powerful. Too unstable.”

Knox’s jaw tightened. “We’re going there next.”

Cambria nodded, rising to her feet with the blade of Seraphine in her hand.

The Keeper watched her, a strange gleam in her eyes. “You have taken the vow. The world will bleed for it.”

Cambria stared back. “Then let it bleed.”

As they turned to leave, the Garden behind them began to decay petals falling, bones crumbling, vines hissing in retreat. The curse was lifted.

But a darker shadow stirred in the roots below.

The Architects had felt the blade awaken.

And they were ready.