The cathedral had once been a courthouse.
Lemma remembered that.
She remembered standing in its shadow as a child while her father argued trade laws inside, the banners of House Heartfilia snapping in bright defiance above the stone arches. Back then the windows had been clear glass. Back then the doors had opened for justice, not worship.
Now the windows were stained with an image of her kneeling beneath a crown of light.
Now the doors were carved with prayers.
Now the bells rang in her name.
She stood across the square at dusk, hood drawn low, and watched as the faithful gathered for evening vespers to a saint who had never consented to sanctity.
"They've improved your posture," the god murmured inside her, dry as old parchment.
"Be quiet," she whispered.
The bells continued..
Each toll felt like a nail.
Inside the cathedral, candles glowed in constellations. Incense drifted outward in thick clouds that smelled like honey and old wood. People entered with bowed heads. Some wept before they crossed the threshold. Some carried offerings—bread, coins, handwritten confessions tied with ribbon.
Confessions.
To her.
"I didn't ask for this," she said.
"No," the god replied gently. "But they did."
She watched a mother guide her son up the steps. The boy clutched a small wooden carving—crudely shaped, but unmistakable.
Her face.
Only softer.
"They don't want you," the god said quietly. "They want absolution."
Lemma's jaw tightened.
"I don't forgive them."
"For what?"
"For surviving."
The words came out before she could stop them.
The god did not respond immediately.
"That is not yours to judge," he said at last.
She turned away from the cathedral and began walking toward it.
"I'm not judging," she muttered. "I'm resenting."
The doors were open.
Inside, the nave stretched long and luminous beneath vaulted ceilings painted with scenes of her suffering. There she was on the night Seraphina struck her down. There she was rising in dragon fire. There she was crowned in starlight, hands outstretched in mercy.
They had erased the rage from her eyes in every image.
They had replaced it with patience.
The congregation knelt as the High Devotee ascended the dais.
He raised his arms.
"Tonight we celebrate the Everlasting Star," he proclaimed. "She who suffers so we may endure. She who ascended beyond mortal grievance."
Lemma felt something in her chest tear.
Ascended beyond mortal grievance.
As if grief were a stain she had scrubbed away.
"She's here," someone whispered.
Heads turned.
The High Devotee faltered mid-sentence.
Lemma stood in the center aisle, hood lowered now.
Gasps rippled outward.
A woman fainted.
The Devotee swallowed.
"You dare mock her in her own house?" he demanded, voice trembling.
Lemma tilted her head slowly.
"This was my father's house."
Murmurs.
The god's presence shifted, tense.
"Careful," he warned.
Lemma stepped forward.
Her boots echoed on polished stone.
"You have mistaken memory for permission," she said, voice low but carrying. "You have mistaken grief for endorsement."
The Devotee lifted his staff, its head carved into a stylized starburst.
"She transcended wrath," he insisted. "She transcended flesh."
Lemma stopped before him.
"I did not transcend anything."
She turned slowly, addressing the kneeling congregation.
"I am not beyond grief. I am not beyond anger. I am not beyond wanting my mother dead."
Shock rippled through the pews.
"She would never—" someone began.
"She does," Lemma interrupted sharply. "I do."
The god stirred inside her, conflicted but silent.
"You've painted me clean because my pain makes you uncomfortable," she continued. "You've polished my scars into miracles because you need them to mean something tidy."
A child's voice piped up from the back.
"But you saved us."
Lemma's breath caught.
She found the child—small, solemn, clutching a ribboned letter.
"I saved myself," she said softly. "You survived yourselves."
Confusion spread like fog.
The Devotee's eyes hardened.
"You speak like a demon," he accused.
"And you speak like a coward," she replied evenly.
Gasps.
"You want a saint because saints don't argue," she said. "Saints don't bleed wrong. Saints don't fail."
Her gaze lifted to the massive mural behind the altar.
Her painted self glowed there in divine radiance, hands raised in blessing.
The image shifted.
Light gathered around it.
The congregation gasped as the mural shimmered—and then stepped forward out of stone.
The false divinity descended onto the dais in luminous grace.
It wore her face.
But the eyes were wrong.
Too calm.
Too empty of fury.
"You see?" the Devotee whispered, falling to his knees. "She answers."
The congregation bowed in unison.
Only Lemma remained standing.
The false divinity regarded her with gentle disappointment.
"You persist," it said, voice like distant chimes.
"Unfortunately," Lemma replied.
The construct tilted its head.
"They need peace."
"They need truth."
"They prefer comfort."
The god inside her recoiled faintly at the presence of the thing—belief condensed into body.
"It is stronger here," he murmured.
The false Lemma stepped down from the dais.
With every movement, the candles brightened.
"With me," the construct said, extending one luminous hand toward the congregation, "their guilt dissolves. Their fear quiets. Their pain acquires purpose."
The kneeling faithful wept openly.
Lemma's throat tightened.
"And what do you acquire?" she asked.
The construct smiled.
"Continuation."
The word hung heavy.
"Belief does not require your heartbeat," it continued gently. "It requires your image."
The Devotee looked between them, trembling.
"You are the fracture," he spat at Lemma. "You are the doubt."
"I am the person," she shot back.
The false divinity's gaze softened.
"You are tired," it said to her quietly. "You ache under the weight of their expectations. Let me carry it."
"You don't carry," Lemma said. "You consume."
A flicker—irritation, perhaps—crossed the luminous face.
"I refine," it corrected. "You are jagged. I am smooth. You wound. I soothe."
"I am real."
"And I am useful."
The word struck deeper than any insult.
The god inside her spoke carefully.
"It is anchored to their desire," he said. "If you destroy it here, you will turn them against you completely."
"They already are," she replied internally.
Aloud, she said, "You think if I die, you win?"
The construct's expression did not change.
"If you die," it said softly, "you become perfect."
The congregation inhaled as one.
Martyr.
The word unspoken but throbbing in the air.
"You don't need me alive," Lemma whispered.
"No," the construct agreed.
Something inside her cracked.
For months she had fought to survive—to breathe, to bleed, to stay human against Seraphina's schemes and the Demon Kings' hunger and the god's fractured divinity.
And now here stood proof that survival was not required.
Only symbolism.
"If I step into the fire right now," she said, voice trembling, "if I let them kill me in this hall—"
"You would become eternal," the construct finished.
The Devotee looked almost hungry at the idea.
The god's voice sharpened.
"Do not romanticize annihilation."
Lemma's eyes burned.
"I am so tired," she whispered.
The false divinity stepped closer.
"I know."
Its voice was unbearably gentle.
"You do not have to fight them anymore. You do not have to argue your own humanity. Let them grieve you. Let them sanctify you. Rest."
The offer was not cruel.
It was worse.
It was kind.
The congregation began chanting softly.
"Saint Lemma. Saint Lemma."
The sound pressed against her ribs.
"You see?" the construct murmured. "They already love you most as memory."
The words sank like stones.
The god inside her felt distant suddenly—small against the swell of collective belief.
"You are not obligated to endure," he said, but his voice trembled.
Lemma looked at the kneeling crowd.
At the children.
At the mothers.
At the broken men clutching hope like splinters.
"If I disappear," she said slowly, "do they get peace?"
"For a time," the construct replied.
"And then?"
"They will build upon your martyrdom."
"And more children will bleed in my name."
A pause.
"Yes."
The honesty startled her.
"Belief evolves," the construct continued calmly. "It does not end."
Her hands shook.
She turned inward.
"If I erase my name now," she whispered to the god, "if I sever it completely, here, before them—"
"You would collapse this construct permanently," he said. "You would scatter their narrative."
"And me?"
"You would lose more than before."
"How much?"
Silence.
"Enough."
She looked up at the luminous version of herself.
"Would you stop if I erased us both?" she asked it.
The construct tilted its head.
"If there is no Lemma," it said, "there is no Saint."
"Then why not?"
The congregation's chanting grew louder.
The Devotee's eyes gleamed with something almost fevered.
"Because you do not truly wish to be forgotten," the construct said quietly.
The words struck like a blade.
"You fear irrelevance more than death."
Her breath hitched.
The god did not deny it.
The construct stepped closer—so close their faces were inches apart.
"You want to matter," it whispered. "Even if it costs you."
Tears burned in her eyes.
"I don't want to matter like this."
"Then die differently."
The cathedral fell utterly silent.
The god's voice surged.
"Lemma."
She felt the weave again—the threads of her name stretched taut through prayer and history and blood.
She could cut it.
Here.
Now.
In front of them all.
The gesture would shatter the hall. The shock would ripple through kingdoms. Seraphina would feel it like a blade between her ribs.
And Lemma—
Lemma would become less.
She closed her eyes.
Her father's voice echoed faintly in memory.
A name is a promise.
What promise had she made?
To reclaim a throne?
To kill her mother?
To survive?
Or simply—
To remain?
"I am not your saint," she whispered aloud.
The congregation stilled.
"I am not your absolution."
Her voice grew stronger.
"I am not your martyr."
The construct's glow flickered faintly.
"You can make me a story," she continued, tears slipping down her cheeks, "but you do not get to decide the ending."
She reached inward—not to sever, but to pull tight.
The weave screamed.
Pain exploded behind her eyes.
The god cried out inside her, not in protest but in shared agony.
The luminous construct recoiled as the threads twisted violently away from its anchor.
"You would rather suffer?" it demanded.
"Yes," she gasped.
"You would rather remain flawed?"
"Yes!"
"You would rather be hated?"
Her voice broke.
"Yes."
The word shattered through the cathedral like a bell.
The weave snapped—not cut, but reconfigured.
The construct's body cracked with lines of dark fracture.
The congregation screamed.
Light bled out of the false divinity.
"You choose pain," it hissed, voice distorting.
"I choose myself."
With a final, wrenching motion, she tore the anchor free.
The construct imploded—not in flame, but in collapsing radiance.
Candles extinguished.
The mural behind the altar splintered.
Silence fell heavy and absolute.
Lemma stood swaying, blood running freely from her nose, her ears, her mouth.
The congregation stared at her—not with reverence.
With fear.
Good.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I am alive," she said hoarsely. "And that will have to be enough."
No one knelt.
No one cheered.
Some backed away.
Some wept.
The Devotee stared at the shattered dais like a man whose god had died twice.
Lemma turned toward the doors.
As she walked, someone whispered—not Saint.
Not Martyr.
Just—
"Lemma."
It hurt more than the divinity had.
But it was hers.
Outside, the night air struck her face cool and real.
The god's presence trembled inside her.
"You nearly erased yourself," he said softly.
"I know."
"Why didn't you?"
She looked up at the stars.
"Because I am not finished being inconvenient."
A faint, weary laugh echoed in her mind.
"That may be the most faithful thing you have ever said."
She began walking down the cathedral steps.
Behind her, belief shifted—fractured, unsettled, no longer clean.
It would not disappear.
But it would no longer wear her face without resistance.
"Martyrs are easy," she murmured to the dark.
"And I refuse to be easy."
Somewhere far away, Seraphina felt the rupture.
Somewhere deeper still, the Demon Kings stirred uneasily.
Lemma Heartfilia walked into the night—still named, still flawed, still alive and far more dangerous than a saint.