Chapter 16: The Scarred Prophet
We took a train out of Oslo before the sun rose.
Milo didn't ask where we were going. He just followed. Watching snow blur past the window, hands tucked into his sleeves, legs bouncing with unspent grief.
There's a stillness to trauma that people mistake for peace. But I knew that silence. The kind that wraps around your ribs like barbed wire. Milo was wrapped in it.
---
We arrived in Vilnius by dusk.
The city wore its winter coat well — cobbled streets dusted in white, stone facades lit by warm lanterns. It was quieter than the last time I'd been here. Or maybe I was the one who'd changed.
I led Milo through winding alleys until we reached a monastery-turned-shelter nestled behind a rusted iron gate. The kind of place that didn't show up on maps. The kind built by men who no longer wanted to be found.
Inside, candles lined the halls. The scent of cloves, old wood, and something fainter — ash.
We found him in the chapel.
He sat alone on a pew, reading a worn book by candlelight. His left hand was missing. So was most of the skin along the right side of his face. Burned beyond recognition, lips forever twisted into a half-grimace. But his eyes were clear.
"Elian," I said softly.
He looked up. And despite everything time had stolen from him, he smiled.
"Tony."
---
Elian had been a soldier once. In 1847, he came to me with a favor: to save a village from a group of mercenaries. He asked not for victory — but for their annihilation.
He got what he asked for.
And the Wheel took what it needed.
He wouldn't die from age or illness for two hundred years. But pain? Pain stayed. He burned in the same fire he brought down on his enemies — his body permanently scarred, his nerves forever raw.
He became a legend, a ghost, and then… this. A man who prayed every day not for forgiveness, but for restraint.
---
Elian looked at Milo and nodded slowly.
"You have fire in you. I can see it."
"I want to use it," Milo said.
"That's the danger," Elian replied. "Once you light it, it won't ask who it burns."
Milo didn't look away. "I just want to make sure someone like Lina never disappears again."
Elian stood, wincing. He walked closer, the limp in his step subtle but permanent.
"I did what you're thinking of. I became the monster to stop others. I don't regret saving those people. But I regret who I became afterward. I stopped knowing where the line was."
Milo clenched his fists. "But what if there is no other way?"
Elian placed his burned hand gently on Milo's shoulder.
"Then choose to carry it. But do not lie to yourself. You won't be the same afterward."
---
That night, we stayed in silence. The chapel was cold. But something about Elian's presence made it easier to breathe. He didn't offer absolution. Only honesty.
Milo fell asleep in the pews, curled like a dog in winter.
Elian and I sat near the window, watching snow fall under moonlight.
"You still carry your Wheel?" he asked.
"Always."
"I never hated you for what happened. I knew the cost. I still chose it."
I nodded. "But you didn't know what it would do to your soul."
He smiled faintly. "No one ever does. That's the curse — not the punishment. The after."
We sat in silence a while longer.
Then I asked the question I'd never dared to.
"Would you do it again?"
He didn't answer right away.
When he did, it was barely a whisper.
"Only if I believed there was no other way."
---
In the morning, Milo stood by the door, waiting.
He looked at me, and for the first time, there was a crack in his resolve.
"I'm ready to decide."
I reached into my coat.
The Wheel waited.