They didn't leave Orrin's circle like fugitives.
They left like bored nobles who'd gotten what they wanted.
Mireya smiled, dipped her head, and drifted away with Stellan at her shoulder. No hurry. No sharp turns. No obvious glances back. She let her cracked mask angle toward the chandelier like she was admiring it, like she hadn't just heard The Prince wants it bound in a corridor meant for servants.
Stellan played his part too—hands loose, posture indifferent, eyes half-lidded like he'd never cared about anything in his life.
Mireya knew better.
She could feel him vibrating beside her. The bond didn't need to be loud to be honest. It tugged at her ribs, tightening with every second he held his temper down.
Only when they crossed into a corridor beyond the portrait gallery—where music thinned into muffled bass and servants moved fast with their eyes down—did Mireya loosen her Silence enough to hunt.
Not for laughter.
For logistics.
A tray clinked once. A servant murmured, "Chapel's full again."
Another voice answered, quick and annoyed. "Confessor's doing late blessings."
Stellan's head turned a fraction. Mireya felt his attention hook hard on the word blessings. His jaw flexed once, tight.
"Chapel," he murmured, barely moving his lips.
Mireya didn't nod. She just moved.
Servant trails were easy if you respected them. Don't block. Don't stare. Don't look rich. Just look like you belong to someone who can fire you.
Mireya stole the sound of their steps and followed the smell of incense.
Wax. Smoke. Sweet herbs meant to suggest purity.
They passed a doorway where two footmen argued in whispers, shoulders tense.
"…Lord Vale's orders—back stairs only—"
Mireya snagged that thread and let the rest go.
Back stairs.
Good.
She slid past them without acknowledgment, Stellan shadowing her. The footmen didn't challenge. No one challenged a noble who didn't bother to see them.
The back stairs were narrower and older, stone worn into shallow dips by centuries of feet. The air cooled as they descended. The walls changed—less polished plaster, more palace bone.
Mireya's Silence stayed close, a filter. She allowed just enough sound through to stay oriented: the soft brush of her own sleeve, the faint shift of Stellan's coat, the occasional drip of water in the old stones.
At the bottom, the corridor opened into a small antechamber.
Candles. Icon carvings. A basin of water that looked black in the low light, surface perfectly still as if it feared to ripple.
A chapel.
Not the grand public hall with stained glass and sweeping arches.
This one was private. For people who wanted forgiveness without witnesses. For people who wanted the appearance of being cleaned.
Mireya eased them to the archway and stopped just inside shadow.
Stellan stopped beside her, body still.
His Pulse-sight rose in him like a reflex he couldn't swallow. Mireya felt the shift through the bond—the way his attention sharpened, the way his ribs tried to remind him they existed.
He ignored the ribs.
He always did.
Inside the chapel, nobles knelt in rows.
Masks were gone.
Faces bare, eyes closed, mouths moving with prayers that sounded more like bargains than worship.
Some clasped hands so tight their knuckles were white. Some looked serene. Some looked hungry.
At the front stood Confessor Iriant Sable.
He wasn't tall. He wasn't imposing.
That was the trick.
Plain dark robes. Clean hands. Hair pinned back neatly. A voice like warm water poured into a cup.
He moved down the kneeling line and touched foreheads one by one.
"Blessed," he murmured. "Blessed. Blessed."
A young lord shivered when Iriant's fingers met skin. A woman's breath hitched like she'd been kissed.
Mireya watched hands.
Always hands.
Iriant's fingers weren't simply touching.
They were pressing—two points, specific, practiced. Thumb near the brow ridge, fingers tracing a tiny arc.
Like placing a seal.
Stellan's Pulse-sight tightened.
Mireya heard his breath change—small, sharp.
He'd seen something.
"Stellan," Mireya mouthed, not giving her voice to the chapel.
He didn't look away from Iriant. His reply came low, barely air. "That's not a blessing."
Mireya's stomach went cold. "What is it."
Stellan swallowed. "A seal."
Mireya didn't ask him to explain. Not here. Not now. She watched instead.
Iriant moved to the next noble.
Thumb brushed the brow.
Fingers traced that small, deliberate arc again.
A candle flame flickered—just once—as if the air had been tugged by something invisible.
The kneeling man exhaled and looked… lighter. Like a worry had been taken away.
Or like something had been put in.
Mireya's Silence wavered with her pulse. She forced it steady.
Stellan leaned closer, not touching her, but near enough that the bond anchored hard. Mireya's stomach dipped. Nausea threatened.
Stellan's hearing sharpened through her. He caught things she didn't mean to give him—her swallow, the faint rasp of her throat wound, the tiny hitch she hated.
He tasted her tension like metal.
"Stop," Mireya breathed, voice barely shaped.
"I'm not doing it," Stellan murmured back. "It's flaring."
Mireya's jaw flexed. "Then control it."
Stellan's eyes didn't leave Iriant. "Try."
Mireya shot him a look that could've cut glass.
He didn't smile. He rarely did.
In the chapel, Iriant reached the end of the kneeling row.
A nobleman stood waiting—older, heavy signet ring on his finger. Sunburst around a crown.
Mireya's pulse spiked at the sight.
The ring again. Always the ring.
The nobleman bowed his head. Not deeply. Just enough to perform humility.
Iriant placed his fingers to the man's forehead with an almost tender calm.
"Peace," Iriant whispered.
Stellan's Pulse-sight flared so hard Mireya felt it like a pressure wave.
Stellan went rigid.
Mireya's vision flickered—unwanted—into his.
Pulse-sight wasn't "seeing" the way her eyes saw. It was reading the room as rhythm and structure. It turned people into patterns.
In Pulse-sight, the nobleman didn't glow warm like the others.
He glowed layered.
Charm-thread over charm-thread. Fear hidden under perfume. A bright seal pressed into him like wax.
And Iriant's touch—
It didn't soothe.
It latched.
A thin pattern sank into the nobleman's aura and tightened, like a collar made of light.
Stellan's jaw clenched.
Mireya opened her eyes back to the archway and kept her face blank. She didn't let the nausea show. She didn't let her breath hitch again.
"Stellan," she whispered. "What did you see."
His voice came out tight. "They're making them… writable."
Mireya's fingers curled. "Rewriteable."
Stellan nodded once, hard. "Easier to graft. Easier to twist. Easier to—" He stopped, swallowing something ugly. "Obey."
Mireya's mouth went dry.
So Orrin wasn't alone.
He was a craftsman.
And the Confessor was the hand that prepped the bodies.
A holy varnish over horror.
In the chapel, the nobleman stepped back. His eyes went unfocused for a second—then smooth again. Composed. Grateful.
He kissed Iriant's ring like it was the only safe thing left in the world.
Mireya's stomach turned.
Iriant lifted his gaze.
Not toward the kneeling nobles.
Toward the shadows near the archway.
Toward them.
Mireya froze.
Stellan's body went still beside her.
Iriant's expression didn't change. His eyes were pale and calm, like he was looking at something he'd already decided the price of.
For a heartbeat, Mireya thought he'd call them out.
Instead, he turned his attention back to the room like a performer choosing his moment.
His voice carried softly down the chapel.
"Some of you fear the bind," he said.
A murmur rolled through the nobles—shame, hunger, relief.
Iriant continued, gentle. "Some of you crave it."
Mireya's Silence tightened reflexively, then eased—she needed to hear this. She couldn't afford to block any of it, not when the words were the shape of their enemy.
Stellan heard it through her too. Mireya felt him latch on, his focus sharp and dangerous.
Iriant folded his hands at his waist.
He began to pray.
Not loud. Not theatrical.
Intimate. Like confession spoken into someone's ear.
And because Mireya's ears were open—because she'd loosened her filter just enough—Stellan heard every word clean through her.
"Bind the Concords," Iriant whispered.
Mireya's blood went cold.
His mouth barely moved.
"Breed them."
Stellan's grip tightened on nothing. Mireya felt his anger spike like a hot wire, a surge that made her own stomach flip.
The bond trembled—warning of escalation, warning of punishment if they let emotion get too big.
Mireya forced her breath steady.
In that candlelit chapel, surrounded by kneeling nobles and holy seals, Mireya understood exactly what the Prince meant.
Not just bound.
Made.
And made again.
And again.
Until no one remembered what choice felt like.
She swallowed once—quiet, controlled—then leaned toward Stellan without looking at him.
"We leave," she mouthed.
Stellan didn't argue. His gaze stayed on Iriant for one last beat, as if trying to burn the man's face into memory without letting his hatred show.
Then he nodded once, sharp.
Mireya tightened her Silence and pulled them back into the servant corridor, letting the chapel's murmurs fade into a dull hush behind them.
But the prayer didn't fade.
It stayed in Mireya's skull like a brand.
Bind the Concords. Breed them.
And somewhere above the chapel ceiling, in a palace that kept pretending it was holy, the program kept running.