Chapter 3 · free to read
We held the Acre. I finished counting what holding it cost me before the sun was properly up.
Ash-smoke kills the flower. It never once reached the root. Write that down, gardener — that's the whole war in a single line.
Nine still standing out of forty. In my old life I'd have called that a failed germination rate and thrown out the tray.
He rang the bell to name me a heretic. He had just told the whole city exactly where the garden was — and given me a month before they walked up the hill for it.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.