Chapter Six — Beneath the Crimson Bloom
1148 Words
The days no longer passed in uneasy silence.
What had begun as formal lunches slowly became routine.
Every noon, Isella found herself walking the familiar corridors to the Eastern Dining Hall. Every evening, more often than not, another invitation awaited her for dinner.
Neither of them acknowledged that it had become a habit.
They simply... expected the other to arrive.
Their conversations changed.
At first, Vaelthar had asked questions.
Now, he answered them as often as he posed his own.
"The first castle stood elsewhere," he explained one afternoon, cutting into a piece of roasted game. "This is the third."
"You've rebuilt it twice?"
"Four times."
She nearly choked on her tea.
"...Four?"
"The first burned."
"The second sank into the Black Rift."
"And the third?"
He looked thoughtfully at his wine.
"I disliked the architecture."
Isella stared at him.
Then, despite herself, laughed.
It escaped before she could stop it.
A genuine laugh.
For the first time since arriving in the Abyss.
Vaelthar looked up.
His expression remained composed, but there was something different in his crimson eyes.
A quiet satisfaction.
"I said something amusing."
"You demolished an entire palace because you didn't like it."
"It was poorly designed."
"You ruled an empire."
"I also lived there."
She shook her head.
"That's ridiculous."
"I've been told that before."
By whom, he never said.
On another evening she asked,
"Do you ever leave the palace?"
"When necessary."
"That sounds lonely."
He paused.
"I do not often notice."
She studied him.
"You didn't answer the question."
A faint exhale escaped him.
"...It can be."
She wasn't sure why that answer lingered with her long after dinner had ended.
She, in turn, found herself speaking more freely.
She told him about sleeping atop abandoned rooftops because they were warmer than the streets.
About stealing apples from market stalls.
About an old woman who had secretly taught her to read in exchange for helping carry water every morning.
She even admitted she had once attempted to pick the pocket of a city guard.
"What happened?"
"He caught me."
"And?"
"He bought me dinner."
Vaelthar raised an eyebrow.
"...That was unexpected."
"He said I was terrible at stealing."
"Were you?"
She smiled.
"Apparently."
The corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly.
Almost.
The servants noticed.
No one dared mention it aloud.
Yet whispers spread quietly through the palace.
The King laughed.
Not loudly.
Not often.
But enough that those who had served him for centuries questioned whether they had imagined it.
Nearly six weeks after her arrival, Vaelthar approached her at the end of lunch instead of immediately returning to his duties.
"There is somewhere I'd like to show you."
She looked up from her tea.
"Somewhere?"
"My private garden."
Her eyebrows rose.
"You have a garden?"
"I do."
She smiled.
"I didn't think flowers grew in the Abyss."
"They do."
He stood, offering nothing more.
"Come."
The garden lay hidden behind towering obsidian walls deep within the palace.
As the gates opened, Isella stopped walking.
"...Oh."
It was breathtaking.
A crystal-clear stream wound lazily through beds of flowers unlike anything she'd ever imagined. Dark orchids shimmered with silver pollen. Crimson lilies glowed softly from within, illuminating winding stone paths. Vines heavy with sapphire blossoms climbed ancient black arches, while trees with leaves of deep violet whispered gently in a breeze that carried the scent of rain.
Above them, the crimson sky seemed strangely distant.
Peace had found a home here.
"This..."
She turned slowly.
"...This is yours?"
Vaelthar nodded.
"No one enters without my permission."
"It's beautiful."
"I know."
She laughed softly.
"Modest, aren't you?"
"I cultivated it myself."
That surprised her.
"You?"
He knelt beside a cluster of pale blue flowers whose petals folded inward as his fingers brushed them.
"They were dying when I found them."
The flower slowly unfurled beneath his touch.
"I dislike waste."
"You saved them."
"I gave them another chance."
She watched the tenderness with which he handled the fragile bloom.
It was the same man who commanded armies.
The same ruler whose name inspired fear throughout the realms.
Yet here...
He looked almost gentle.
He noticed her watching.
"What?"
"I wasn't expecting this."
"The garden?"
She shook her head.
"You."
Silence settled between them.
Not awkward.
Merely honest.
"You care about them."
"I care for everything entrusted to me."
His answer was simple.
Matter-of-fact.
Yet somehow...
It revealed more than he likely intended.
They wandered deeper into the garden.
Vaelthar stopped beside a tree whose silver branches held blossoms resembling tiny stars.
"I've kept this one alive for over a thousand years."
Isella stepped closer.
Its blossoms shimmered with faint light.
"They're beautiful."
"They bloom only once every decade."
She carefully reached toward one of the flowers.
"May I?"
"You may."
The blossom was impossibly soft beneath her fingertips.
As soon as she touched it, the tree shivered.
Not from wind.
From her.
One blossom opened.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Within moments, the entire tree erupted into radiant silver bloom.
The garden itself seemed to pause.
Even the stream fell strangely quiet.
Isella quickly withdrew her hand.
"I... did I break something?"
Vaelthar stared at the tree.
"No."
His voice carried genuine astonishment.
"It has never bloomed outside its season."
They looked at one another.
Neither spoke of it.
Not yet.
Instead, they continued walking.
Eventually they reached a small stone bench overlooking the stream.
For a while they simply sat.
Listening to the water.
Watching glowing petals drift lazily through the air.
Isella glanced sideways.
Vaelthar no longer looked like the terrifying sovereign she had first seen descending upon the auction hall.
The crown.
The throne.
The title.
They were still part of him.
But they were not all that he was.
She saw a man who carried centuries on his shoulders.
A man who built gardens in a realm of darkness.
Who preserved dying flowers.
Who had given a frightened stranger a room instead of a prison.
Who had never once demanded gratitude for it.
She realised, almost with surprise, that she no longer thought of him as the one who bought her.
Nor solely as the Sovereign of the Abyss.
Somewhere between shared meals and quiet conversations, he had become simply...
Vaelthar.
A man she was beginning to understand.
As the thought settled in her mind, she smiled without quite realising it.
Vaelthar noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You smiled."
"I know."
"Why?"
She looked out over the garden, watching silver blossoms drift upon the stream.
"...I think this is the first place in a very long time that feels like home."
He said nothing.
Yet his gaze lingered on her just a little longer than usual.
And though his expression barely changed, something warm stirred behind the ancient reserve in his crimson eyes.
For the first time in centuries, the solitude of the Abyss no longer felt quite so complete.
- Writer
