Myrren of the Bloom

There are many ways to keep a secret. Some are soft—moss over footsteps, mist over water. Myrren of the Bloom prefers the kind that leave a clean, undeniable absence. Among the Whispering Bloom, they are the hand that tidies shadows after the council has decided what must be done. Vinebound by birth and vocation, Myrren moves like a trellis taught to walk: stems braided for grace, thorns folded flat until the moment they are not. Their voice is quiet, their manners impeccable, their ledger meticulous. The last thing most people remember is how polite the darkness felt.

Twilight.
When the Shadekin rose and the Whispering Bloom consolidated its will, the Mire needed more than intrigue—it needed precision. Nightshade Weaver set about shaping a cadre who could impose order without rumor, and Myrren became the pattern by which the rest were trained. They wore a mantle of dreamweave that bent sight and softened sound, a gift woven from the spores that lift at moonrise along Hollowroot’s canals. Duskwyrms shadowed their patrols, not as mounts but as moving curtains of night; the great drakes regarded Myrren with the wary respect reserved for a quiet storm.

Their charge in these years was twofold. First: prune dissent within the Bloom before it flowered into schism. A whispered correction here, a vanished agitator there, a “change of heart” shepherded by Memory Drakes whose crystal-latticed hides kept what should be kept and trimmed what should not. Second: tend the border where Galdrowen’s quilts of Thornspine quills sang their warning. Myrren learned the music of those resin walls—a low, almost kindly hum that became a snarl when crossed—and developed paths that carried agents between the notes. They did not love violence; they loved symmetry. When a raid was necessary, it unfolded like a diagram: minimal cuts, maximum consequence, no splatter on the page.

What they believed, few can say. Myrren was neither zealot nor doubter. They spoke of the Mire as a patient and of themselves as scalpel—tools do not preach to the flesh they save. When Bloom defectors began spreading madness harvested from corrupted Memory Drakes, it was Myrren who laid the problem to rest. They did not crow about it. They returned to Hollowroot, hung their dreamweave to dry, and filed a report written in the tidy hand of someone who has practiced mercy until it looks like efficiency.

Echoes.
The world softened. The Prism Star’s return brightened the upper sky, and even the Mire’s gloom learned to glitter. Nightshade Weaver’s ambitions widened accordingly: influence must reach beyond the reeds, into drowned Vaelorien where grief made soft targets and into the courts of Itharûn where honor could be used as handle. Myrren’s remit became outward—“Expand along the quiet seams,” their orders read, “and where the cloth is rotten, cut.”

In Vaelorien, they moved like a diver among bell-tones. Lantern-light doubled on black water as Tidecaller Aeliryn rebuilt with care; Myrren offered help no one saw them give, then guided those favors toward outcomes the Bloom preferred. Smugglers bearing stolen relics began delivering to the wrong collectors—for reasons they could not recall. Petty lords with a taste for ghost-silk suddenly found their nightmares curated, their appetites redirected to more civic hungers. Nothing dramatic. A city can be turned with a fingertip if the touch is applied in rhythm.

Back in the Mire, their relationship with Nightshade Weaver deepened from loyal operative to “field agent and executioner”—the phrase is recorded in a ledger whose pages will never be found. When overgrowth threatened Hollowroot itself—sentient creepers blooming without sanction—Myrren led a quiet cull in which not a single scream managed to cross the water. They coordinated with Tharnshade, who prefers grand strategies and iron diagrams; Myrren supplied the negative space those diagrams require: the places where a line should not be drawn.

And still they visited the Memory Drake Whisperwind, pressing a hand of green filigree to the elder’s cool crystals to consult the recent past. The drake’s mind was a library of echoes; Myrren was the librarian who returned books to the right shelves. Some evenings they stood on a root-bridge and listened to the far hum of Galdrowen’s quilts, thinking of the care that hum implies. On such nights they walked home slower.

If Nightshade Weaver is the Bloom’s will, Myrren of the Bloom is its neatness—the art of leaving no loose petal where a storm could begin. In the era of Echoes, when alliances are rebraided in every realm, neatness can be mistaken for peace. Myrren is content with the mistake. After all, a garden that looks untouched is often the best-tended of all.