The interior of the Grand Chapel was marble-wrapped arrogance.

  Gold beams. Holy sigils. Tapestries depicting battles against monstrous gods.

  It all smelled like false piety and powdered stone.

  Rell stared at it with quiet disdain.

  He didn’t fight when they dragged him in. Didn’t resist when they threw him into the cell.

  Let them think he was broken. Let them believe the chain was heavier than the will.

  From the corridor, Thessia leaned on the wall outside the bars, arms crossed, voice low.

  “You don’t even flinch. You think you’re right?”

  He didn’t respond at first. The dust in the air clung to his tongue. His focus still strained, keeping the illusion intact — even from afar.

  Then, softly:

  “Church… trade kids. You wrong side.”

  “Bad men. Hurt girl. Must stop.”

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  Thessia folded her arms tighter.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. That girl’s a thief.”

  But the silence that followed made even her question it.

  Later still, guards flanked Rell as they brought him into the Sanctum — the heart of the cathedral.

  The marble floor was etched with divine script, winding like vines between statues of the Five Saints: Flame, Scale, Stone, Wing, and Silence. Each one stared down from their pedestal with empty eyes — carved to judge, never to protect.

  A veil of prayer beads hung in shimmering strands near the altar.

  Behind them, a man sat cloaked in ceremonial shadows.

  “You think you’re brave, boy?” the Deacon asked, his voice slithering across the chamber like incense smoke.

  “You know what happens to martyrs?”

  Rell didn’t answer right away.

  He let the moment stretch. Then smiled — a cold one.

  “They become myths.”

  From behind the altar, a new figure stepped forward.

  Not cloaked. Not veiled.

  He didn’t need to hide.

  His robes shimmered with silver-threaded scripture, draped across him like sacred armor.

  His skin was sun-bleached ivory, stretched taut over bones that moved too precisely — as if every gesture was rehearsed. Veins crawled beneath the surface like ink sketching fanatic devotion.

  His hair was braided tight, each lock ending in a blackened tip, like ash left behind after a prayer burned too long.

  And his eyes — pale gold — never blinked unless it served a purpose.

  The air itself bent politely around him.

  He smelled of old myrrh and wet stone.

  Like a tomb sealed with ceremony.

  When he spoke, his voice was velvet left in the sun too long.

  “You’re wasting your breath,” he said, almost bored. “You free one girl. We take ten more.”

  He walked with theater, but not for show.

  It was ritual. Every step declared he was chosen.

  “You are judged before the Saints.”

  He motioned toward the statues overhead. Their carved gazes watched without warmth.

  “Resist again… and be marked heretic. Enemy of the Five.”

  Rell held his gaze.

  And answered with one word:

  “Good.”

  The Deacon stepped forward again, unrolling a scroll that shimmered with red ink.

  “In the presence of Saint Flame, Saint Scale, Saint Stone, Saint Wing, and Saint Silence —

  you are condemned to die at dawn.”