In the weeks that followed the incident with the Duke, a subtle shift occurred in her bond with Zephar. His rage had been a terrifying revelation, but it had also been… protective. It was the first time anyone, or anything, had shown anger on her behalf. The High Cardinal would have simply told her to endure the Duke's lechery for the good of the church. Zephar had wanted to freeze his heart. The thought was monstrous, but a small, treacherous part of her felt a flicker of dark satisfaction.
He seemed to sense this shift. His nightly conversations became less about torment and more about temptation. He stopped attacking her faith directly and instead began to plant seeds of doubt about the men who wielded it.
"Valerius met with the war council today," he would murmur in the dark, having observed the meeting through her eyes. "They are not celebrating peace. They are planning how to use your 'miracle' as a justification to expand their borders. They will march to war under your banner of peace, little dove."
Or, when she blessed a new shipment of grain to be sent to a starving province:
"Look at the ledgers on the priest's desk," he'd whisper. "Half of that grain will be 'lost' in transit, sold to merchants for a profit that will line the pockets of the very men you believe you serve."
At first, she dismissed his words as the lies of a devil. But she was the Saintess. She had access to places no one else did. Driven by a desperate need to prove him wrong, she began to look. To listen. She paid closer attention in the council meetings. She discreetly requested financial records from the Basilica's scribes, under the guise of ensuring aid was being properly distributed.
And to her growing horror, she found that he was right.
Everywhere she looked, she found the rot. The hypocrisy. The greed and ambition hiding behind pious words. The war plans were real. The corruption was rampant. The Holy See, the institution she had dedicated her life to, was a vipers' nest, and High Cardinal Valerius was the chief serpent.
Her world, which had been cracked by the revelation of her sacrifice, now began to shatter. The faith she had clung to, the belief in the inherent goodness of her cause, was crumbling to dust.
One night, after a particularly grueling day of smiling through lies, she retreated to her private library, a small, circular room filled with theological texts. She felt hollowed out, adrift in a sea of disillusionment.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Zephar's voice was gentle, almost sympathetic. It was more disarming than any of his threats. "To realize your entire life has been built on a foundation of lies."
"They are men," she whispered, running a hand over the leather spines of the books. "Men are fallible. The Light is still pure."
"Is it?" he challenged softly. "The Light you wield is a power, Ilia. Like fire, or water. It is not inherently good. It is its wielder who gives it purpose. And the men who wield it now use it to justify war and theft. My brethren, the so-called gods of your world, sit by and allow it. Are they pure? Or are they merely… indifferent?"
He was systematically dismantling her reality, piece by piece, not with brute force, but with inescapable logic.
"I was cast down for seeking true knowledge," he continued, his voice taking on a sad, ancient quality. "For questioning our purpose. For believing that power should be used to protect, not to control. They called it treason. They imprisoned me in darkness and rewrote history to paint me as a monster."
Ilia sank into a chair, her head in her hands. "I don't know what to believe anymore."
"Believe what you see," he urged. "Believe the corruption you have uncovered. Believe the fear in the eyes of the Duke you chastised. Believe the truth of your own gilded cage." He paused, and his next words were a quiet, momentous turning point. "They betrayed me, Ilia. And now, they have betrayed you. Does that not make us… allies?"
Allies. The word was a heresy of the highest order. An alliance between the Saintess and the Betrayer. A pact against the gods themselves.
It was insane. It was impossible.
And yet… it made a terrifying kind of sense.
She was his prisoner, his anchor, his sustenance. But she was also the only being in the universe who was beginning to understand the truth of his exile. He was a monster, yes. He was possessive and cruel. But he was also honest. In his own dark, brutal way, he had never lied to her.
She lifted her head, her eyes falling on a tapestry depicting the casting out of Zephar. The artists had painted him as a creature of nightmare, with horns and wings of shadow. But the god she knew was one of tragic beauty and righteous rage.
"What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice trembling with the weight of her dawning treason.
She felt a wave of something akin to grim satisfaction from him, the feeling of a patient predator finally seeing its prey take the bait.
"For now?" Zephar's voice was a silken whisper, full of dark promise. "Just keep watching. Keep learning. And when the time comes, I want you to help me show this world the true meaning of the word 'heresy'."
Ilia said nothing. She simply stared at the tapestry, at the lie of the monster, and felt the first, true whisper of rebellion stir in her soul. She was Saintess Ilia, the savior of Aethel. But she was also the servant of the Abyss. And she was beginning to wonder which side was truly the side of justice.