"Cael... the signal’s here."

Jayden rose from the bed in one smooth motion, his sword sliding free with a soft whisper of steel. His eyes found mine, sharp and eager, barely holding back the anticipation that had been building in him for weeks.

"You two, get to your posts," I said.

Kevin didn’t hesitate. He caught Vivianne by the wrist, purple light flaring around them both, and in an instant they were gone, teleported to wherever Marcellus had stationed them.

That left Jayden and me.

Time to make an entrance.

Right through the front door of the Holy Pantheon Church. Elion’s Cathedral itself.

Time to give them a show they wouldn’t forget.

***

The brass cylinder left Marcellus’s hand in a high arc, trailing smoke and sparks through the gray sky. It reached its peak above the church spires and burst apart, a crimson sun blooming against the clouds, visible across the whole Holy City.

The signal.

Jayden moved before the light had even faded, crossing the penthouse in three long strides and kicking the door off its hinges. I followed, shadows unfurling behind me like a cloak, the weight of three thousand souls pressing against my mind.

We took the stairs together, four steps at a time. The other occupants of the building flattened themselves against the walls as we passed, sensing something they couldn’t understand, some instinctive warning that kept them silent.

The lobby erupted when we burst through it. Guests screamed. A waiter dropped his tray. Someone shouted for the guards.

I didn’t slow.

[Black Flame Manipulation]

The front doors ripped from their hinges as we approached, hurled outward by a surge of shadow that sent pedestrians scrambling. Jayden and I stepped into the gray morning, the church’s spires rising overhead, gold leaf gleaming even without the sun.

We could have teleported. But if we wanted the church’s full attention, this was better.

Pilgrims stumbled out of our way, their hymns dying in their throats, their expressions turning from devotion to confusion to fear.

Behind us, the building’s front doors lay shattered. Ahead, the cathedral’s broad staircase climbed in a sweep of white stone, packed with the faithful making their slow way toward salvation.

"Clear a path," Jayden muttered.

"I was going to."

[Shadow Domain]

Not the full force. That would have crushed everyone, and the last thing I needed was to kill pilgrims before we’d even reached the doors.

They weren’t complicit yet.

But we couldn’t avoid it forever.

A pulse of pressure rolled out from my feet, sending pilgrims stumbling aside, opening a corridor of bare stone that ran straight up the stairs. Some didn’t move fast enough.

A woman in grey lost her balance, tumbled sideways, and vanished beneath the feet of the crowd. A child’s scream cut through the hymns, then stopped.

I didn’t look back.

Jayden ran.

I followed, shadows streaming behind me like a funeral shroud, the three thousand souls humming in my chest. At the top of the staircase, the church guards finally reacted, golden armor flashing as they drew their swords and formed a line before the open doors.

"Stop! In the name of Elion—"

Jayden’s blade took the first one through the throat.

He moved like a man who’d been waiting for this moment his whole life. Not with a berserker’s fury, or a soldier’s discipline. Something else. Something that looked a lot like joy.

The second guard fell. Then the third. Then the fourth.

I reached the threshold beside him, half a dozen inquisitors cooling at our feet.

"Feel better?" I asked.

"No."

He kicked the great doors open.

The inside of Elion’s Cathedral stretched before us, vast, golden, and severe. Pillars of white marble climbed toward a ceiling lost in shadow, their surfaces carved with scenes of divine judgment.

Row after row of pews led toward the distant altar, filled with pilgrims who turned to stare at the two figures standing in the doorway.

"Remember, we’re staying here in the main hall while the others deal with the top brass," I said.

"I remember." Jayden’s laugh was hollow, his hands already frosting over, ice crystallizing around his knuckles. "Just make sure to pull me back when my bloodlust takes over."

"Yeah. Don’t worry about that."

"I-Is that Jayden!?" An inquisitor’s shout ripped through the cathedral, his sword clearing its sheath the moment he recognized him.

The final piece of the ritual. The sacrifice whose death would make everything possible. For months, the church had believed they would need to hunt him across the entire continent, a task they had the numbers and resources to accomplish.

And now he’d walked right through their front doors.

All they had to do was kill him.

"Sound the alarm! Now!"

"Jayden..." I said.

"I know." His hand tightened on his sword hilt, but he didn’t move. "Let them sound it. Let them all gather right here while the others redirect the ritual."

The cry echoed off the marble pillars, bouncing through the vast cathedral until it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Pilgrims pressed themselves against the pews, their hymns forgotten, their faces pale.

Mothers pulled children close. Fathers stood in front of their families, uselessly, as if flesh could stop steel.

Jayden’s ice magic crept across the floor in thin, crystalline veins, spreading toward the altar with patient hunger. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"I’ll handle the pilgrims," I said, already priming my magic. "Just handle the inquisitors."

I didn’t say what "handle" meant. I didn’t have to.

Marcellus had been clear during the debriefing. The ritual’s range was tied to the faithful gathered in this cathedral. Every pilgrim inside was a conduit. A battery. A living component of the spell that would kill millions.

They didn’t know that, of course. They thought they were here for a miracle.

But ignorance didn’t matter. Not anymore.

Once the ritual began, every pilgrim in this building would become fuel. And the only way to shut it down, truly shut it down, was to cut the fuel lines.

Permanently.

Evelina’s evacuation had pulled thousands to safety. But thousands more had already made it inside. And they couldn’t leave. Not alive.

"Got it!"

The first wave of inquisitors poured from side corridors, their golden armor gleaming, their swords already drawn. A dozen. Then two dozen. Then more, streaming through every doorway, every arch, every shadowed passage that led deeper into the church.

They formed a line before the altar, shoulder to shoulder, swords raised.

Behind them, the High Priest emerged.

His robes were white, not gold, trimmed with crimson at the cuffs and collar. A mitre sat on his head, tall and ornate, encrusted with jewels that caught the light from the stained glass windows.

In his hands, a staff of polished wood topped with a sunburst that blazed with its own inner fire.

"So," he said, his voice carrying effortlessly through the cathedral, "the sacrifice delivers himself to our doorstep."

Jayden’s grip tightened on his sword. "I’m not a sacrifice."

"You are what the church needs you to be."

The High Priest’s gaze shifted to me, and something flickered across his ancient face. Recognition, maybe. Or the first stirring of unease.

"And you brought a friend."

A pilgrim, an old man in threadbare robes, stumbled from the pews, arms outstretched toward Jayden. "Please," he begged, "I don’t understand what’s happening—"

[Shadow Tendril]

The old man crumpled without a sound.

His body hit the marble floor, blood pooling beneath his grey hair. The pilgrim beside him, a woman clutching a wooden charm, opened her mouth to scream.

[Shadow Tendril]

She fell beside him.

The cathedral erupted.

Screams. Cries. The scrape of pews as pilgrims tried to flee, pressing against walls that offered no escape, climbing over each other in their desperation. A child wailed somewhere to my left. A man bellowed for mercy.

I kept my face blank.

Three thousand souls already weighed on my conscience. What were a few hundred more?

"Shall we?" I said.

"C-Cael... are you sure you can do this?"

"Yeah... I’m sure."