The scroll wasn't important. That's what Alteria said. Raze didn't ask why she didn't go herself.
He just went.
"East wing. Bottom shelf. Third sconce from the left. You'll know it."
The castle shifted on the way down. Less noise.
Less polish. Dust softened the corners of everything. The lamps here flickered slower.
Shadows had weight.
The East Wing didn't feel abandoned—just unbothered.
A part of the castle that remembered too much and stayed quiet because of it.
He reached the corridor.
Cold met him first. Not chill. Cold.
Memory pressed into stone.
A figure, already seated. Not startled. Not waiting.
Thalia.
She sat on the edge of a cot, rolled parchment in her hands, one leg crossed over the other.
Her posture was relaxed, but not casual.
Like she'd been here longer than she meant to be. She didn't look up. Not right away.
"Did she send you?"
Raze blinked once. "Yeah."
Thalia exhaled. Not a sigh. Just release.
"She said the scroll was important?"
"No." He stepped closer. "Said it wasn't."
That made her smile. Barely.
"That's how you know it is."
The parchment in her lap unraveled slightly.
Ink bled down its spine.
Runes, measurements.
Pieces of a language he didn't know how to read but felt tug in the corner of his mind.
"Do you understand any of that?" he asked.
"No."
A pause.
"But I feel it."
Raze didn't respond. The air between them filled with something quieter than silence.
"Sit, Raze."
Not an order. Not a jest. Just a seat offered with the weight of knowing he needed it. He did. Thalia folded the scroll with care and placed it aside.
"You looked like a corpse last week," she said. "Now you just look... uncertain."
Raze didn't argue.
"Something changed."
"I unlocked something."
Thalia's brow lifted. "Power?"
Raze shook his head. "Something under that."
A beat passed, then her voice turned. Not sharp.
Just still.
"She told me what you did. With the guards."
He looked at her. Didn't hide it.
"You shouldn't have had to prove anything."
"I didn't do it to prove anything."
Thalia nodded once, like she believed that.
"But you did prove something."
Raze didn't answer.
The room was starting to breathe again.
Then Thalia stood, walked over to a shelf.
Pulled a small vial. Held it out.
"Drink this. Tonight, not now."
"What is it?"
"A pause. For your dreams."
Raze took it.
The glass felt heavier than it should have.
He met her eyes.
"You think I'm going to break?"
"I think you already have. But not in the way you're afraid of."
That landed. She stepped back, just enough to let him leave if he wanted. But he didn't.
Not yet.
Thalia looked at him again. This time, not as nurse. Not as keeper. As something else.
"Do you believe in fate?" she asked.
"No."
"Good," she replied. "Then maybe you'll sever it."
She turned.
Pulled another scroll from the pile behind her.
She set the first scroll aside.
One hand resting on the bed frame like she needed to remember what it was made of.
"I used to live here," she said, eyes still forward. The silence between them didn't ask for elaboration. But she gave it to Raze.
"Before it was a storage wing. Before they boarded up the windows and forgot which rooms bled and which just held the wounded—"
Raze nearly turned to leave, this conversation had no value to him… not in hindsight.
"—This was a cloister," she went on. "For servants of the old rites. We lit candles before war councils. Whispered flame prayers before battles."
She pointed toward the far end—an empty alcove sunk just low enough to kneel in.
"There. The altar."
No cloth. No symbol. Just stone.
"They scraped the sigils off it when the Regent took power. Said we were dwelling too much on the past. That prayer was just hesitation dressed up like reverence."
She turned now. Not to face him.
To look at the altar again.
"I don't miss it."
There was no sorrow in her voice.
Just the sharp edge of memory.
"But I remember it. Every time someone talks about loyalty like it's holy."
She looked at him then. Really looked.
"You think pain means you're getting closer to the truth. But sometimes it just means you're walking in circles."
Raze didn't flinch
"I'm not looking for truth. Why are you telling me all of this, Thalia?"
She studied him.
"Then you lie to yourself. Your truth than you desire is being forged into control. Because you believe you have control, then you have truth. That's far worse."
The candle near the alcove flickered once.
Then stilled. Neither of them moved.
Like everything else in this place.
Raze didn't ask right away.
The silence sat too thick. Too shaped.
Then—
"If this place was holy once… why are you still here?"
Thalia didn't blink.
Allowing him to change the subject.
"The church turned cold." she replied a second later "The crown turned colder. So we chose what was left."
A pause. No poetry.
"Queen Alteria was made the next Queen of House Von Rimu after the death of Queen Miriam child in the war that was caused by the Current Regent—"
She stopped. Her hands didn't fidget.
Her stance didn't shift. Just words.
Placed like bricks.
"The Pope chose silence. The Regent chose strategy. We chose survival. Some heard the divine voice. And those who remembered what it meant decided to serve the empire. I left to become my best friend's maid."
"And the Pope?"
"Still powerful, still feared. But you don't speak to him… Not unless the ritual calls for it."
She gestured toward the scroll on the bed. "That's how they keep him holy. Distance."
Raze frowned. "So he's a myth now."
Thalia gave a half-smile—nothing warm. "A myth that signs death warrants." He looked back to the altar.
"And Alteria?"
"She still prays." Thalia didn't hesitate.
A beat followed.
"Not because she believes. Because she hopes belief will return." Raze looked at her then. Not with disbelief. With understanding.
"I know that kind of hope," he said. Thalia nodded. Once.
"Yeah," she murmured. "I figured you would."
The altar wasn't lit. It didn't need to be.
Raze stood in front of it—hands at his sides, breath shallow. The stone was cracked.
The basin was dry.
A broken hymnbook lay open on the shelf behind it, spine rotted, half its chant lines crossed out with ink too dark to be natural.
He didn't kneel—but he read.
Eyes moving over words that weren't meant to be whispered anymore. His voice stayed silent.
"Does the Pope know about me?" he asked. No edge. Just question. "About what I am?"
Thalia didn't move.
"Is the system that bound me divine?" he added, "Or just old magic dressed in a crown's seal?"
Still, no answer. Just her gaze.
Shifted to the window. The light through it bent, but didn't touch the ground.
"Faith doesn't ask for answers," she said. "It just watches what you become."
Raze didn't nod. Didn't reply.
He stepped back. Took the scroll. Didn't open it.
As he reached the threshold, his fingers brushed the doorway—just barely.
The glyph carved into the stone was nearly erased. Long faded.
But not gone.
His hand lingered there.
"You're like me, Thalia. Just you have all of your answers."
Then he left it behind.