The rain over the city was a relentless gray curtain, washing the soot from the cathedral's gargoyles. Jeremiah sat in his small, stripped room in the rectory. His trunk was packed—two sets of clothes, a few journals, and a small wooden cross. The symbols of his life were now little more than baggage.
He felt a strange, hollowed-out lightness. He was no longer Father Jeremiah. He was simply Jeremiah, a man with a heavy chest and a darkening cough. Every breath felt like inhaling fine sand.
A soft scratch at the door made him stiffen. The Bishop had forbidden visitors.
"Jeremiah?"
He stood, his legs trembling, and unlatched the heavy oak door. Celestine stood there, drenched, her hair clinging to her cheeks like ink. She didn't wait for an invitation; she stepped inside, closing the door behind her with a definitive thud.
For a long moment, they simply stared at one another. The space between them was thick with everything they had lost and everything they had accidentally found.
"You should be far away from here," Jeremiah whispered, his voice raspy.
"I tried," she said, her voice trembling. "I got as far as the city gates, and then I felt... I felt the cord pull. Not the magic, Jeremiah. The real one. The one that hurts."
She moved toward him, her hands hovering near his chest. She saw the dark stain on his collar—the black blood that he hadn't been able to wash away. Her eyes filled with a fresh wave of agony.
"I have to tell you," she whispered. "I have to tell you why you're sick."
"I know why," he said, trying to smile. "The Bishop says it's the weight of my sin."
"The Bishop is a fool," Celestine snapped, her grief turning into a brief, sharp anger. "It's me. My family... we were never meant to love. We were meant to take. My grandmother, my mother... they all died alone because they knew that if they truly gave their hearts away, the person they loved would be consumed by this. It's a rot, Jeremiah. A divine lock on our souls. The more I love you, the more the world tries to erase you."
Jeremiah reached out, his fingers brushing the wet silk of her sleeve. He didn't pull away in horror. Instead, he drew her closer.
"Then let it erase me," he murmured against her temple.
"Don't say that! If we stay together, you'll be dead within the month. There is no cure. No herb, no prayer, no ancient text can stop the Tenebris Cor."
Jeremiah pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. "Celestine, listen to me. I spent my whole life waiting for a sign from God. I looked for Him in the scriptures, in the silence of the altar, in the eyes of the poor. I found glimpses, yes. But I never felt the fire until I looked at you. If I die tomorrow, I will die a man who finally understood what it meant to be alive."
With a ragged sigh, he leaned down and kissed her. It wasn't the chaste kiss of a priest or the manipulative kiss of a siren. It was a desperate, human collision. In that moment, the last of his vows didn't just break; they dissolved. The Church, the Inquisition, the Bishop's threats—they all faded into the background noise of the rain.
The door burst open.
Bishop Malachi stood there, flanked by two guards with lanterns. The light flooded the dim room, exposing the two of them—the fallen priest and the cursed woman.
"Sacrilege," Malachi breathed, his face contorting in disgust. "In the very room of your vestment. You are no longer suspended, Jeremiah. You are cast out. Anathema. You will leave this city tonight, and you will never set foot on holy ground again."
He looked at the black blood on Jeremiah's lips and stepped back, crossing himself in fear. "The plague of the witch is upon you. Go. Die in the wilderness where you belong."
Jeremiah didn't flinch. He reached out and took Celestine's hand, his grip surprisingly strong.
"We're going," Jeremiah said, looking Malachi in the eye. "And we take the light with us."
They walked out of the rectory, through the cold rain, and past the heavy iron gates of St. Jude. Behind them, the bells of the cathedral began to toll—the funeral knell for a living man. They had nothing but each other and a death sentence, but as they reached the edge of the city, Jeremiah felt a strange, quiet peace.
He didn't know that high above the clouds, beyond the reach of the Bishop's prayers or Celestine's spells, a different kind of gaze was falling upon them. A gaze that wasn't filled with judgment, but with an ancient, growing curiosity.