"The ceremony ends. The hunt begins."
Evening did not end. It held its breath.
Kaen let Aelis pull him from the courtyard, past the broken crystal and the whispers that wouldn't look him in the eye. Lanterns burned along the chapel wall like patient stars. Behind them, the Dominion Inspector spoke quickly to his Scribe, sun-sigils flaring on the slate.
"Report filed," the scribe hissed. "Anomaly confirmed."
The Inspector lifted two fingers. Riders peeled away into the dark. Others stayed.
Aelis felt the change in the air before the boots returned.
"Inside," she whispered. "Now."
They slipped through the side door into the nave—stone ribs, candlelight, the faint scent of cedar and old prayers. Kaen could still feel the crowd outside recoiling from his shadow. His hands shook; the crack in his wooden pendant pricked his palm.
"Breathe," Aelis said, guiding him behind the altar. "Stay low. Do not move unless I say."
Liora slid beside him without argument. Her cane clicked once on the marble as she knelt. "I'm here," she said, and his chest loosened by the smallest measure.
Footsteps erupted at the chapel doors.
The Inspector strode in at the head of a double line—armor white-gold, helm under one arm, jaw locked. "By order of the Dominion," he called, voice clipped and official, "the Nullbound anomaly is to be detained for purification."
Nullbound. The word cinched around Kaen's lungs like wire.
Lucien stepped down from the altar, all calm spine and open hands. "This is sanctuary," he said. "You will not spill blood here."
"Then produce the boy." The Inspector's gaze swept the pews, the side aisles, the choir loft. His knights fanned out at a gesture; shields brushed wood, spearheads ticked stone. "Search."
Benches groaned as armored shoulders shoved them aside. Hymn books skittered onto the floor like startled birds. A child's forgotten shawl was kicked beneath a pew.
A knight shouldered past Rellan at the aisle's end. Purple still fainted his skin where the orb had lit him. Rellan's eyes flicked—to Lucien, to the altar, to the shadow behind it.
He saw Kaen.
Kaen mouthed it, begging where no sound could carry: Please.
Rellan's jaw worked. Pride, fear, jealousy—every color of the day flashed through him like bad light. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed.
"There." His voice cracked. "Behind the altar."
Something in Kaen dropped straight through the floor.
Three knights surged forward. Aelis stepped into their path, arms wide, spine unbending.
"You will not touch him."
The closest gauntlet moved like a hammer. It caught Aelis across the jaw. Her head snapped sideways; she collapsed hard, temple striking marble. Blood threaded through her hair.
"Aelis!" Kaen lunged up—
The butt of a spear drove into his stomach and the world knifed white. He folded, retching air, tears burning his eyes. Hands closed under his arms—iron bands—and dragged him out from the altar. His heels scraped stone; splinters of candlewax carved lines across his back.
"Let—go," he coughed, voice shredded. "I didn't—do—anything—"
"You exist," the Inspector said. "That is sufficient."
Liora tore free of hiding and crawled to Aelis, fingers frantic at her temple. "Mother—please—please—" Her voice broke into prayer. Rellan stumbled with her, violet all but gone from his skin now, guilt curdling into something small. Together they hauled Aelis to the shadow of a shattered pew. Liora glared up through tears at the knights hauling Kaen. "Stop! He's not—"
"Do not interfere," barked a knight without looking. His gauntlet shoved Liora back against the wood. Rellan caught her before she fell. Neither of them were seen.
Kaen clawed at stone as he scraped past Lucien's hem. His pendant snapped from its cord and thumped the floor. He reached for it and a boot ground it flat.
Lucien moved.
He stepped into the center aisle and planted his staff, body between the boy and the door. "You will not take him," he said. Calm. Clear. Uncompromising. "I will take him beyond the valley myself. I will bear responsibility as priest and as man. Whatever fear you carry, lay it down here."
The Inspector did not slow. His spear did.
"Stand down," he ordered. "Or be charged with obstruction of Dominion law."
"This is not law," Lucien said, voice lifting with something like grief. "It is fear cosplaying as faith."
The spear moved before the sentence finished.
Steel kissed ribs, slid between bones, and blossomed red.
The chapel inhaled and forgot how to let go.
Lucien stared down at the haft in him as if discovering a stranger's hand. His staff hit stone and rolled—an old sound, simple and impossible. He found Kaen with his eyes and remembered to smile.
"Kaen," he whispered, copper wetting his tongue. "Do not—let them—name you."
His knees bent, grace even in falling. He sank, hands losing the habit of blessing just shy of the floor.
Something inside Kaen tore.
"LUCIEN!" The name ripped out of him like skin. It rang the rafters. It struck the windows. It struck him.
The knights holding him flinched. For an instant their grips loosened.
Air pulled inward, just a breath—candles leaning toward Kaen instead of up, wax trembling. The iron of every nail, hinge, clasp in the room hummed in answer like a single low note struck across a thousand throats.
The Inspector recovered first. "Bind him," he snapped. "Now."
Hands crushed Kaen's arms again. The pews creaked. Aelis groaned where she lay. Liora pushed to her feet on shaking legs, eyes wide, lips forming the same name Kaen had just shattered the air with.
Lucien's blood crawled outward along the grout lines like a map remembering its roads. Kaen stared at the red finding the shape of the floor and understood nothing except the hole inside him where a voice had just gone quiet.
"I… I'm sorry," he said to the blood, to the priest, to the world. "Please… somebody—help me stop this."
The candles flickered once more—toward him.
Something old and listening leaned closer.
And the chapel began to feel heavier.
"He begged the world to stop. The world held its breath."