Read Chapter 22: The General's Debt

The Roman gallery smelled of dust and old stone, and the specter stood at its center like a statue that had decided to breathe. He was tall, armoured in bronze that gleamed despite the darkness, his face scarred and his eyes hollow with centuries of regret.

Eamon stopped ten feet away, the clay soldier’s sword still warm in his hand. The vision had faded, but its weight pressed against his skull—a battlefield, a betrayal, a woman’s face blurred by time.

“You are the one,” the general said. His voice was not loud, but it cut through the shriek building beneath the floorboards. “The dragon has sent you to collect what I owe.”

“I don’t know what you owe,” Eamon said. “I just need the dragon to let me go.”

The general laughed, a dry, brittle sound. “We all need something. The dragon needs balance. I need forgiveness. You need—” He tilted his head, studying Eamon. “You need to live long enough to matter.”

Eamon tightened his grip on the sword. “You betrayed your emperor.”

The general’s jaw tightened. “I loved his concubine. She was not his. She was never his. He took her by decree, and I—” He stopped, his spectral form flickering like a candle in a draft. “I opened the gates. I let the enemy in. I thought I could save her. Instead, I burned a dynasty.”

“Love,” Eamon said flatly. “You burned a dynasty for love.”

“You sound as if you have never felt it.”

Eamon said nothing. The silence stretched between them, filled by the rising howl from below. He could feel it through his boots now, a vibration that climbed his spine.

“What do you want?” Eamon asked. “The dragon said to right a wrong. That’s you. What do I have to do?”

The general stepped closer, and the air grew cold. Frost crept along the marble floor at his feet. “Her tomb is in the north of this city. Hallowed ground, but broken. I placed her there before I fell on my own sword, and I have not been able to reach her since. The world moved on. Roads grew. Buildings rose.”

“I don’t have time for a trip across London,” Eamon said. “The door under the museum is opening. If I don’t bind the blade, everything wakes up.”

“Then you will make time,” the general said. “You will go to the garden. The dark garden beneath this museum, the one your keepers call the Night Garden. You will take one rose. One white rose, from the oldest bush that grows there. And you will carry it to her tomb.”

“A rose,” Eamon repeated. “That’s it?”

“That is not ‘it.’ That is everything.” The general’s eyes burned. “The dragon does not ask for grand gestures. It asks for proof that you understand what was lost. A rose for a life. A flower for a dynasty. Simple, yes. Easy, no.”

Eamon looked at the sword in his hand. “I’m holding your sword. The one you lost.”

“I did not lose it. I gave it to the clay soldier who would stand guard when I could not.” The general’s gaze dropped to the blade, and something like peace crossed his face. “You returned it. That is why you can see me. That is why the dragon listens.”

“So I go to the garden, get a rose, find her tomb, and place it. Then the dragon lets me go?”

“Then the dragon releases you. And you can do what you came here to do.”

Eamon nodded, turning toward the gallery’s exit. The map on his hand pulsed—the scarab’s dying gift. A line traced from his palm to his finger, pointing north. Toward her tomb.

“Where is the garden?” he asked.

“Beneath the Egyptian wing. The door is hidden behind the false wall in the sixth chamber. The plants there are old. They do not like being harvested.”

Eamon’s stomach tightened. Of course it wouldn’t be easy. “They’ll attack?”

“They are the guardians of what remains. The rose is the heart of the garden. Taking it will wake everything that sleeps in the soil.” The general stepped forward, and for a moment his face was almost human. “You must move quickly. The garden does not forgive hesitation.”

“Understood.” Eamon started walking, then stopped. He looked back at the specter. “Her name.”

The general’s voice cracked. “Li Hua.”

Eamon nodded once, then broke into a run.

The museum was a labyrinth at night, every corridor stretching longer than it should, every shadow reaching for him. The shriek from below had grown louder, more desperate—not just a sound but a pressure, a force pressing against his ribs. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until the gold fragment would be needed. Fifteen minutes to find a rose, cross London, and return.

Impossible. But he was alive, and that was a start.

He slid through the Egyptian wing, past the sarcophagi and the staring eyes of gods, until he found the sixth chamber. A false wall, nondescript sandstone, exactly as the general said. He pressed his palm against it, and the map on his hand flared—a line of gold tracing a door he couldn’t see. The wall gave way, swinging inward on silent hinges.

The Night Garden was not a garden. It was a cathedral of green, a vast glass-domed chamber choked with vines and thorns and flowers that seemed to breathe. Moonlight filtered through the glass, casting silver patterns on the mossy floor. And at the center, on a pedestal of marble shot through with cracks, stood a single bush. White roses. Perfect, untouched.

Eamon stepped inside, and the garden shifted.

Every vine turned toward him. Every leaf angled like an eye. The air grew thick, heavy, laden with the scent of soil and something older—something hungry.

He moved slowly, carefully, each step deliberate. The story of any plant: it doesn’t notice you until you reach for what it loves.

He reached the pedestal. His hand closed around a rose stem. And the ground exploded.

Vines erupted from the earth, thick as pythons, whipping through the air. One caught his ankle, yanked him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, the rose still in his fist, his other hand scrambling for the dagger at his belt. He slashed at the vine—black sap sprayed, the vine recoiled—but two more wrapped around his legs, dragging him toward the soil.

He bit his wrist. The cut opened. Blood spilled onto the moss.

The garden froze.

The vines paused, hovering, as if tasting the offering. Eamon pulled himself upright, rose clutched to his chest. He dripped blood across the path as he stumbled back toward the hidden door.

The vines trembled. Then, slowly, they retracted, sinking back into the soil.

The garden let him go.

Eamon burst through the false wall, gasping, and slammed it shut behind him. The shriek from below was a scream now, shaking dust from the ceiling. He looked at the rose in his hand—white, perfect, glowing faintly in the dark.

He had maybe ten minutes left.

He ran. Out of the Egyptian wing, past the Greek galleries, down the stairs toward the museum’s main exit—and stopped.

Maggie stood at the end of the corridor, pale, holding a lantern that cast long shadows across her face. She looked at the rose, at his bleeding wrist, and her eyes widened.

“Eamon,” she said. “The crypt under the White Tower. It’s not where they said it was.”

“What?”

“The map on the blade—it’s shifted. The cult moved the binding site. They knew we’d find this place.” She stepped forward, her voice thin. “The crypt is still there. But the blade is already moving. It’s being carried up the river.”

Eamon stared at her. “Then where do I take the rose?”

Maggie lifted her lantern, and in its light, her face was the colour of ash. “You don’t. Li Hua’s tomb is not north. It’s under the river. And it’s already open.”