The ice around the Grand Priest pulsed once, then sank into stillness. His eyes stayed open behind the frost, unfocused, his chest rising and falling in a shallow, steady rhythm.

It was the gentlest ending Jayden could imagine for someone like that.

He turned away.

"The Grand Cleric," he said quietly, "didn’t know."

Marcellus’s sword dipped an inch. "Didn’t know what?"

"About me. About the ritual. Any of it." Jayden’s voice had gone flat, the rage that had carried him through the sanctum stripped down to something hollow. "She thought I’d been kidnapped. The council lied to her while they handed me over to their inquisition."

Julius slid his blade back into its sheath with a soft click that seemed too loud in the silence that followed.

"How did you find out?" he asked.

"Evelina." Jayden glanced toward the broken doors, to the grey light seeping in from the cathedral beyond. "She was in the Grand Cleric’s head. Said there was nothing there. No deception. No hidden malice. Just... grief."

Marcellus stood very still. The golden light that had wrapped around him since the battle began had faded, leaving him looking almost ordinary. Almost human.

"Where is she now?"

"The Grand Cleric? On the roof. Cael’s with her; she’s dying."

"Will you be all right with that?"

Jayden let out a low, bitter laugh. "No."

He was quiet for a moment, then said, "Julius, check on Cael’s students and Lillian. Make sure they’re safe."

"Understood."

Julius moved toward the broken doors, his footsteps measured on the fractured stone. Jayden followed in silence, his hands still trembling faintly at his sides, the frost on the floor already beginning to melt in their wake.

Marcellus waited until they had vanished into the grey light beyond, then turned toward the lesser altar.

The red glow had gone out completely, leaving only dark stone and cold ash. The runes cut into its surface were cracked and crumbling, their edges worn, their meaning lost to time and violence.

He set his palm against the altar.

[Light Compression]

Golden light poured from his hand, seeping into the cracks and crevices, burning away the last traces of whatever ritual had been anchored there. The stone groaned, shifted once, and then fell still.

Marcellus lowered his hand.

The sanctum was quiet now. Truly quiet. No chanting. No clash of steel. No desperate prayers forced through cracked lips. Only the sound of his own breathing, and the distant murmur of a city slowly remembering how to live.

He looked at the bodies scattered across the sunburst floor.

Then at the Grand Priest, still frozen in the block of ice, eyes open, chest moving in that thin, stubborn rhythm.

A part of Marcellus wanted to end it. To cut the last thread, leave nothing unfinished.

But the Grand Priest was not his to kill.

That choice belonged to someone else.

Marcellus turned away and walked toward the doors. The grey light spilled over him as he stepped through, warm and soft, nothing like the cold radiance of the sanctum’s dying glow.

The cathedral beyond was a ruin.

Pews lay overturned. Pillars were cracked. The great stained-glass windows had shattered, their colored fragments scattered across the marble like fallen leaves. Ash coated everything, fine and grey, stirred by the wind that drifted through the broken doors.

In the center of it all, standing alone amid the wreckage, was Azrael.

"You took your time," the headmaster said without turning.

"You’re not supposed to be here."

"I’m not supposed to be anywhere near here." Azrael finally faced him, eyes passing over Marcellus with something that almost resembled approval. "But I’ve been watching. From a distance. Making sure none of you did anything too foolish."

"And?"

"And you didn’t." A faint smile touched his mouth. "Mostly."

Marcellus walked past him toward the cathedral’s main entrance. The steps beyond were strewn with more ash, more debris, the remnants of a crowd that had fled and never come back.

"Is it over?" he asked.

"The ritual is over," Azrael said, falling into step beside him. "Whether it’s over for the Church of Elion... that, I can’t say."

They stepped out into the grey afternoon together. The Holy City spread below them, its streets slowly filling with people who had no idea how close they had come to annihilation.

In the distance, the cathedral roof gleamed faintly, gold and white against the muted sky.

And on that roof, a woman was dying while her goddess watched.

Evelina sat at the roof’s edge, legs dangling over the drop, watching the city rouse itself. Her white hair stirred in the breeze, and the ring on her finger had finally gone quiet.

Beside her, Jayden knelt with the Grand Cleric’s head resting in his lap, his frost magic pressed gently against her wounds in a futile effort to slow the bleeding.

"You’re wasting your magic," the Grand Cleric whispered.

"I know."

"It won’t bring me back."

"I know."

She smiled, thin and trembling, and lifted a bloodied hand to his face.

"You were always stubborn. Even as a child. You’d fall, scrape your knees, and refuse to cry. You’d just get back up and try again."

Jayden’s jaw tightened. "I learned from watching you."

Her hand slipped back to her chest.

Her golden eyes drifted past him toward the sky, to the faint light breaking through the clouds.

"Elion," she murmured, "I did my best. I tried to be faithful. I tried to be good. I didn’t know..."

Her voice faded.

Her chest rose.

Fell.

Rose again, more slowly.

Then stilled.

Jayden did not move. His hands remained pressed to her wounds, his frost still flowing uselessly through veins that no longer answered. The Grand Cleric’s face had smoothed into something almost peaceful, grief and confusion eased away by whatever waited beyond.

"Are you sure you didn’t want me to heal her?" I asked, settling beside Evelina and leaning my head against her shoulder.

"No. She’s been alive long enough. She deserves to rest," Jayden said softly. "As for the church... I’ll take control of it."

"Control...?"

"Yeah. Don’t worry about the details." He glanced at Evelina and gave her a small, knowing wink, already certain she was reading his thoughts.

"I suppose I’m all right with that," Evelina said. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Then I guess that settles it," I murmured.