After the incident with Lucien, the palace became unbearable.

Not because anyone openly confronted Eva.

That would have been easier.

Instead, the entire Underworld seemed to develop opinions.

Servants stopped whispering when she entered rooms. Nobles watched her during Court gatherings with sharp, measuring eyes. Even the guards standing outside the throne hall tracked her movements like she had become politically contagious.

Which, honestly, felt unfair.

She was not the one emotionally malfunctioning every time someone else stood too close.

That was entirely Acheron’s problem.

Unfortunately, Acheron himself had become worse too.

Not colder.

Eva almost wished he had become colder.

Instead, he became quieter.

More watchful.

And somehow, infinitely more dangerous.

Three days passed without a single proper argument between them, which was deeply unnatural. Acheron avoided unnecessary conversation now, but his shadows continued finding her anyway.

They slipped beneath doors.

Curled near her chair in the library.

Lingered outside her bedroom at night.

Once, she caught one resting across the edge of her pillow like an exhausted black cat.

Eva was beginning to suspect the Lord of Death had lost control of approximately half his emotional stability.

The realization should have terrified her.

Instead, it made her curious.

That was probably a terrible sign.

The garden appeared accidentally.

Or at least, that was how Acheron behaved about it.

Eva had been wandering the western corridors after dinner, mostly because sleep had become impossible lately. The contract between them pulsed too strongly at night now. Whenever Acheron remained awake somewhere in the palace, she felt it beneath her skin like distant heat.

It was distracting.

Deeply distracting.

The western tower remained mostly empty compared to the rest of the palace. Fewer servants. Less whispering. The walls here looked older somehow, the black stone cracked with faint silver lines glowing beneath the surface.

Eva turned one corner and stopped abruptly.

A pair of massive iron doors stood partially open at the end of the corridor.

Soft white light spilled through the opening.

Not silver fire.

Not Underworld magic.

Moonlight.

Real moonlight.

Eva frowned immediately.

“That feels suspicious.”

The shadows near her feet stirred softly.

Not warning.

Encouragement.

Interesting.

She pushed the doors open fully.

And forgot how to breathe.

The garden stretched endlessly beneath an open night sky.

Not the endless black void hanging above the rest of the Underworld.

An actual sky.

Dark blue clouds drifted slowly overhead while pale moonlight spilled across white stone paths and enormous flowering trees.

White roses covered everything.

Thousands of them.

Their pale petals glowed faintly beneath the night air like ghost-fire caught in bloom.

Eva stepped slowly into the garden.

“…That cannot possibly belong here.”

The air smelled alive.

Not like the palace.

Not like death.

The scent of roses and rainwater drifted softly through the cold breeze while silver fountains murmured quietly beneath hanging vines.

For the first time since entering the Underworld, Eva heard birds.

Tiny pale creatures sleeping in the branches overhead.

Her chest tightened painfully.

Because suddenly—

Suddenly she remembered home.

Not the dying.

Not the fear.

Before that.

Warm afternoons. Dirt beneath fingernails. Her sister laughing while planting flowers outside their tiny house because apparently optimism survived even terrible soil.

Eva closed her eyes briefly.

“That’s unfair,” she whispered.

“You are trespassing.”

She turned sharply.

Acheron stood several feet away beneath one of the flowering trees.

Of course he did.

Black coat.

Silver eyes.

Shadows resting quietly around his feet tonight instead of twisting violently like usual.

Interesting.

He looked different here.

Less like a king sitting on a throne built from fear.

More like a man standing somewhere he should not love.

Eva glanced slowly around the garden again.

“You have a secret flower garden.”

“It is not secret.”

“You literally hid it behind ominous iron doors in an abandoned tower.”

Acheron said nothing.

Which felt suspiciously like defeat.

Eva walked farther along the stone path slowly, fingertips brushing lightly against pale rose petals.

“They’re real,” she murmured.

“Yes.”

“In the Underworld.”

“Yes.”

“That feels emotionally contradictory.”

A faint breeze moved through the garden.

The white flowers shifted softly around them like snowfall.

Acheron watched her in silence.

Not the dangerous silence from Court.

Not the sharp silence from the banquet.

Something quieter.

Eva turned slowly toward him.

“You come here often.”

Not a question.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the trees overhead.

“When the palace becomes loud.”

Eva blinked once.

There it was again.

Those tiny impossible moments where he sounded less like death itself and more like someone unbearably lonely.

Dangerous moments.

The kind that made people care accidentally.

Eva crossed her arms lightly.

“You know, for someone who rules the dead, you’ve built an extremely beautiful place to hide from people.”

The silver in his eyes shifted toward her again.

“My mother planted the first trees.”

Eva stilled immediately.

Oh.

Well.

That was unexpected.

Acheron rarely spoke about himself voluntarily.

Actually, correction—

Acheron never spoke about himself voluntarily.

The garden suddenly felt different now.

Less like a sanctuary.

More like a wound.

Eva moved closer slowly.

Moonlight filtered softly through white branches overhead, silver light sliding across Acheron’s pale face. The flowers surrounding him made him look almost unreal.

Not softer.

Never soft.

But younger somehow.

More human than the throne allowed him to be.

“She liked flowers?” Eva asked quietly.

A long silence followed.

Then:

“She loved mortal things.”

The answer settled strangely between them.

Eva studied him carefully.

There was something fragile hidden underneath the sentence.

Not weakness.

Grief.

Ancient grief.

Acheron’s gaze drifted toward one of the flowering trees near the fountain.

“When the old gods claimed the Underworld,” he said quietly, “they burned every mortal kingdom beneath the veil.”

Eva’s chest tightened.

The shadows near his feet had gone completely still now.

“She refused to leave the surface.”

His voice remained calm.

Too calm.

The sort of calm people used when speaking about pain they survived by locking it inside themselves for centuries.

Eva suddenly understood why the garden existed.

Not because Acheron loved beauty.

Because someone he loved once had.

The realization hurt unexpectedly.

“She died there,” Acheron continued softly. “Among the burning cities.”

The moonlight shifted across the garden.

White petals drifted slowly through the silence.

Eva looked at him carefully.

The Lord of Death stood beneath pale roses with the expression of someone who had spent thousands of years pretending grief could not still reach him.

And suddenly she understood something terrible:

Acheron did not hate warmth because he was incapable of feeling it.

He hated it because once, long ago, he had lost it.