Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 97: The Gardens of Forgetting: Where War Fades

Chapter 97: The Gardens of Forgetting: Where War Fades

From that moment on, without solemn words being spoken, without any pact or vow uttered aloud, we had made a promise.

No more battles.

No more training.

On this land, we had decided it with a glance — only love and peace were allowed to exist.

And that, against all odds, awakened within me a feeling I barely recognized anymore.

A forgotten good.

The kind of relief that doesn’t burst forth, but seeps in slowly, into every gesture, every breath, until it relaxes muscles you didn’t even know were tense.

The simple act of walking without being in a constant state of alert, of not having to scan every shadow as a potential threat, of not feeling my fingers slide instinctively toward the hilt of a weapon — even an invisible one, even an absent one — was a disarming sort of calm, as if my body, suddenly stripped of tension, had to relearn what it meant to exist without fear.

I hadn’t known how tired I was.

Not physically.

But deeply.

And the silence that peace wove around us was worth more than all the victories.

Calm reigned around us, but it wasn’t that frozen stillness found after violence, not a silence of ashes or a hollow void — it was a living calm, vibrant, woven from tiny movements, barely perceptible tremors, as if the earth itself was breathing slowly so as not to wake us.

With each step, the world opened before us without a sound, welcoming our presence without suspicion, without rejection — not as strangers passing through, but as children who, after a very long absence, had finally found their way home.

We walked unhurriedly, carried by this new slowness that didn’t weigh us down but lifted us — hand in hand at times, or simply side by side, our shoulders almost touching, our breathing aligned without even thinking about it.

Our steps sank gently into the tall, supple grasses, which bent beneath us without protest, caressed in passing by warm breezes that played with the leaves, making the canopies dance like veils of light.

And all around us, life.

Absolute.

Not loud or extravagant, but simply there, with grace and obviousness.

A magnificent, harmless, radiant life — one that didn’t need to defend itself, because it wasn’t threatened.

Beneath a grove braided with iridescent vines, whose shimmer shifted slowly with the light as if responding to the slightest breath of wind, we came across a group of Brumelunes.

Small, discreet, delicate creatures, similar in shape to hares, but with bluish fur that floated around their bodies without ever fully settling, as if made of a light, suspended, living mist.

They moved with a gentle, almost choreographed slowness, and their mere passage through the tall grasses left behind a subtle scent, mingling lavender and frost — a blend that stirred in me memories I had never lived, as if those scents belonged to a memory older than my own.

They were said to soothe nightmares by approaching sleepers in the night, nestling close to their hearts, never letting themselves be felt, and in the morning, they would leave behind nothing but the peace restored to one’s dreams.

Lysara watched them for a long time, unmoving, her hands joined before her, and I saw a strange smile slowly bloom on her lips — not forced, not controlled, but rising from deep within — a smile woven from tenderness and melancholy, from longing and forgetting.

She said nothing.

But I knew that in that moment, something inside her had finally settled.

A little further on, as the afternoon light filtered through the foliage in wide golden sheets, we crossed a patch of Celestial Mirrorflowers — those rare, silent plants that legend sometimes calls the heart’s witnesses.

Their round corollas opened slowly, almost shyly, and their translucent petals seemed made not of matter, but of frozen memory.

For these flowers did not reflect what one saw around them.

They reflected what one carried within.

Not the body, but the soul.

When I approached one, hesitant, I first thought I saw only a shimmer, a vague light disturbed by the wind — but as I focused on the heart of the flower, it was not the vampire I saw there, nor the warrior.

It was not the being of power or instinct I had become.

It was a child.

A child with tear-filled eyes, full of grief he didn’t yet understand, a child alone, fragile, bearing an absence too heavy for his age, searching endlessly for something — or someone — lost far too soon.

I stood frozen before that image, breath slowed, as though seeing it — even without surprise — required from me a silence deeper than the world’s.

Lysara said nothing.

But I saw her approach another flower gently, hand outstretched with care, almost in reverence.

She brushed a petal with her fingertips.

And instantly, the flower opened.

Silently.

Gently.

At its center, a pale light, soft as moonlight through a dream.

But no reflection appeared.

Nothing was projected.

And into that luminous emptiness, she whispered, without looking at me, but with a voice full of a hope too old to be feigned:

— They’re giving me a chance.

Later, as the day continued its slow journey toward dusk, we entered a clearing bathed in warm, diffuse golden light, as if the sky, at that exact spot, had decided to draw nearer to the earth.

That’s where we encountered a Swarm of Flûviennes — tiny winged creatures, light as mist, their bodies seemingly woven from glowing pollen, and their wings, wide and delicate, shaped like petals in motion.

They circled around us with quiet grace, tracing wide, supple spirals, as if every flight obeyed a music we could not yet hear.

They did not flee our presence.

They danced.

And when they landed, briefly, on our shoulders, our arms, or along our necks, something inexplicable happened: a gentle warmth entered the body, silent, deep, and my old pains — my ancient wounds, my buried burns, even the scars I thought had shaped my identity — began to fade.

Not disappear.

But recede.

As if they were retreating into the past, returned to their origin, less searing, less final.

I felt my body, for the first time in years, stop resisting.

And Lysara, eyes lifted to the swarm, breathed softly, almost in awe:

— They’re singing, do you hear it?

I fell silent immediately, letting the quiet settle between us.

And yes.

In the breath of the wind, in the slow beat of their wings, in the warm air filled with light and resin... there was a tune.

Soft.

Repetitive.

Strangely familiar.

Like a lullaby one had known before even having a name.

Finally, after a long stretch of walking marked by silence and light, we reached the edge of a clear stream, its water gliding between stones with a softness almost timid, as if it too feared disturbing the peace of this place.

That’s where we saw a Térasol.

A rare, nearly mythical bird, with pale gold and soft amber plumage, each beat of its wings seeming made of light and stardust, as if the sky had entrusted it with a piece of its brilliance to carry to the earth.

It didn’t flee upon seeing us.

On the contrary.

It looked at us calmly, with smooth, deep eyes, without suspicion, without judgment, then approached the edge, slowly dipped into the clear water, and emerged in a spray of crystalline droplets, which it gently shook from its wings as if in greeting.

Its song, discreet yet present, echoed like a forgotten lullaby, a melody that called not for dreams or sleep, but simply for the soul’s rest.

Lysara knelt, hands resting on her thighs, her back straight but relaxed, eyes wide open, full of an emotion she didn’t try to hide.

— I think... I love this place more than anything I’ve ever known.

I looked at her, in silence, letting her words take root in my memory, and I knew, with a clarity that needed neither voice nor gesture: so did I.