PERSEFONE POV
The garden remembered me.
I wished it had not.
Because the moment the roses bowed to me, I felt everything.
Every root he had poisoned. Every stem he had twisted. Every living thing that had carried my touch and then been forced to hurt the people I loved.
My sanctuary did not feel like a sanctuary anymore.
It felt like a body after torture.
And somehow, impossibly, it was still reaching for me.
The roses curled around my ankles without thorns. The roots under the cracked stone pulsed beneath my feet like veins. Gold moved through them because gold moved through me, and for the first time in my life, I did not feel like I was holding power.
I felt like power had hands.
Mine.
Eden was not even pacing inside me anymore.
She was not snarling or throwing herself at th
