Lucius stopped.

  In the middle of the chaos, with the tide of armored men surging toward us, he drove his sword point-first into the earth.

  The blade sank deep.

  Then—before Raphael or Azazel could speak—Lucius dropped to one knee.

  And bowed his head.

  For a heartbeat, I thought I was seeing things.

  Raphael stared at him, stunned.

  Azazel’s eyes widened, his grip tightening on his club.

  “Lucius—” Raphael began.

  Lucius didn’t look up.

  He clasped his hands together, lips moving in a prayer I couldn’t hear over the roar of battle.

  The Church host thundered closer now. Boots slammed against the ground. Shields rattled. Shouts rose, hungry and certain.

  Azazel hesitated—then cursed under his breath and followed, dropping to one knee beside Lucius.

  Raphael closed his eyes.

  Slowly, deliberately, he knelt as well, staff laid across his palms.

  The three of them—warrior, wanderer, shepherd—bowed in the dirt while death charged straight at us.

  I stood alone.

  My teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. Fear crept in cold and sharp, crawling up my spine as I stared at the oncoming wall of men.

  This was madness.

  This was surrender.

  My hands shook.

  I thought of Sophie.

  Of Deermarch emptying into the mountain.

  Of the Father’s words in the cave—stay, grow strong, protect my people.

  The distance between us and the enemy closed fast.

  Too fast.

  I swallowed hard and stepped forward.

  Then—

  I drove my broken blade into the ground beside Lucius’s sword.

  And knelt.

  The earth trembled beneath us as the host bore down, steel raised, voices screaming for blood.

  I lowered my head, heart hammering, fear choking every breath.

  If this was faith—

  Then it demanded everything.

  And as the shadow of the Church fell over us, I waited—

  —not knowing whether deliverance or annihilation would answer first.

  I heard myself say a name.

  I didn’t decide to say it.

  It simply tore out of me.

  “Uriel.”

  Something grabbed my arm.

  Not hands—force. Twisting, wrenching, dragging my limb backward as if my body were no longer mine. The pouch at my belt ripped open and the SIN was pulled free, yanked into my palm.

  Heat surged through me.

  Not warmth—command.

  It flooded my veins, my chest, my skull, drowning thought beneath certainty. My knees straightened. My head lifted. I rose to my feet as if hauled upright by invisible strings.

  I tried to resist.

  I couldn’t.

  The SIN burned in my hand, glowing a furious red, veins of light crawling along the metal. My thumb snapped the chamber open. My fingers moved with practiced ease I did not remember learning.

  Loaded.

  Locked.

  My body walked forward.

  Not rushed.

  Not charged.

  Marched.

  The host was almost on us now—faces visible beneath helms, mouths open in shouts that suddenly sounded very far away.

  I raised the weapon.

  The sky cracked.

  Light split the air as I fired.

  The world flashed white-red-gold and the ground shook. Riders collapsed in a wide swath as if a giant hand had swept them aside—men and horses crumpling together, armor screaming as bodies hit dirt.

  One shot.

  Too many fell.

  I laughed.

  The sound startled me even as it came out—high, broken, wrong. I felt it echo inside my chest, hollow and sharp.

  I kept moving forward cackling like a mad man.

  Another step.

  Another.

  The names came then.

  They flooded me.

  Verity names—etched in fire across my vision. Faces I half-recognized. Lives I had never lived. Men and women whose memories burned up inside me like kindling.

  I knew what it meant.

  I knew what I was losing.

  I pressed forward anyway.

  My laughter cracked into something closer to a sob, then snapped back into a cackle as I raised the SIN again, the glow intensifying, the heat unbearable.

  I wasn’t fighting anymore.

  The SIN was eating me alive.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  And somewhere—far away, muffled beneath the roar—I felt the last fragile line inside me screaming to stop.

  But the power didn’t care.

  It only wanted more ground.

  More bodies.

  More names.

  And as I walked forward into the storm of steel and fire, glowing red with borrowed wrath, I understood the most horrifying truth of all:

  The SIN wasn’t dragging me anymore.

  I was letting it lead.

  I pressed forward until the host finally broke.

  Steel turned. Banners dipped. The Church riders fell back toward the border, fleeing in ragged lines, fear overtaking discipline. The red glow still burned in my hand, my breath coming hard and uneven.

  Then I saw him.

  Percival stood apart from the retreat, armor dented and smeared with ash, his perfect composure gone. One arm was wrapped around someone smaller.

  Too small.

  My blood went cold.

  Sophie.

  He had her pulled tight against his chest, one gauntleted hand clamped around her face, forcing her head back. A dagger pressed cruelly into her side, just beneath her ribs. The tip bit enough to draw blood.

  I stopped.

  My body froze mid-step, the heat inside me stuttering, confused.

  Percival smiled when he saw it.

  “Stay back, you devil,” he called, voice shaking just enough to show he was enjoying this. “One more step and I’ll gut her.”

  Sophie sobbed, her hands shaking, eyes locked on mine.

  “She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” Percival went on, squeezing her cheeks together until she gasped. “Soft. Clean.”

  She whimpered.

  “She’d be perfect for the First Calling.”

  He leaned in and licked her cheek.

  Something inside me boiled.

  Not surged.

  Not flared.

  Boiled.

  The roar that had carried me through the host twisted into something tighter, sharper, more dangerous. My grip on the SIN trembled, the red glow pulsing as if it sensed blood yet to be spilled.

  “Thomas!” Sophie cried, her voice breaking.

  I could feel it—the pull.

  One shot would erase him.

  Erase her pain.

  Erase everything.

  And the SIN was hungry.

  My teeth ground together as the anger climbed, scorching my chest, my throat, my thoughts. The world narrowed again, but this time not into power—

  Into a choice so thin it felt like it would slice me in half.

  If I fired, I would forget.

  If I didn’t, she would die.

  And Percival knew it.

  He watched me carefully now, smile widening, savoring the moment.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Show me what your faith is worth.”

  The battlefield held its breath.

  And I stood there, glowing red with wrath, staring at the one person whose life could still pull me back from the edge—

  —or push me clean over it.

  The SIN hummed.

  Not loud—alive.

  A deep vibration thrummed up my arm, into my chest, into my skull, as if it recognized the moment and approved.

  Then the air screamed.

  A red hawk tore through the sky in a blur of flame and wind, slamming into Percival’s shoulder with brutal force. He cried out, staggering, instinctively lifting the arm that held the dagger.

  I didn’t think.

  I fired.

  This shot cracked and sounded like the world breaking open.

  Percival’s arm vanished from the elbow down, torn away in a spray of shattered steel and blood. The dagger clattered uselessly to the ground.

  He screamed.

  Sophie fell free.

  She didn’t hesitate—she ran.

  Straight toward me.

  I caught her with my free arm, pulling her tight against my chest as she sobbed, shaking violently. I didn’t look at her face. I couldn’t. I just held her long enough to know she was alive.

  Then I set her behind me.

  I stepped forward.

  Percival collapsed to his knees, clutching the ruin of his arm, armor slick and dented, his earlier confidence burned away completely. He stared up at me, eyes wide, mouth trembling.

  “Please,” he gasped. “Mercy. I beg you.”

  The SIN was already cocked.

  It hummed louder now, eager, the red glow intensifying until it bled into my vision. The heat crawled up my spine, whispering how easy it would be.

  One pull.

  No more Percival.

  No more threats.

  No more fear.

  I stood over him, shadow stretching long across the dirt.

  He sobbed openly now.

  “I was wrong,” he choked. “Please—I—”

  I raised the SIN.

  The battlefield had gone silent.

  Every breath felt like it might shatter me.

  And in that frozen moment—Percival kneeling, Sophie alive behind me, the SIN burning in my hand—I felt the weight of everything press down at once.

  Faith.

  Rage.

  Love.

  Cost.

  The SIN waited.

  And so did I.

  “Mercy?” I asked quietly.

  Percival whimpered, blood slicking the dirt beneath him, eyes wide and shining with terror.

  I didn’t look at him again.

  “Close your eyes, Sophie,” I said.

  She hesitated—just a breath—then obeyed.

  I turned back.

  The SIN hummed once more, deep and satisfied.

  I fired.

  The crack split the morning, sharp enough to send birds screaming from the trees in the distance. Percival jerked, the sound tearing out of him as his body collapsed forward.

  The SIN did not quiet.

  It demanded more.

  I fired again.

  Something inside me tore.

  Hansel Verity had been erased.

  I staggered, breath hitching—but the weapon stayed steady in my hands.

  Another shot.

  Tobias Verity had been erased.

  My vision blurred. Faces flickered at the edge of memory—names I had never spoken aloud, stories I had never heard, gone like breath on glass.

  Again.

  Edgard Verity.

  Again.

  Cynthia Verity.

  Erased.

  Each shot felt heavier than the last, like tearing pages from a book that had already been burned. The hum finally faded, the glow dimming as if sated.

  Percival lay still.

  The ground was quiet now.

  Too quiet.

  I lowered the SIN slowly, my arm trembling, chest hollowed out as if something vital had been scooped from me and left behind.

  Behind me, Sophie still stood with her eyes closed, shaking.

  I didn’t tell her she could open them yet.

  The first light of dawn crept over the horizon, pale and indifferent, washing the battlefield in soft gold. Smoke drifted upward in thin, aimless lines.

  Night was over.

  And with it, something else had ended too—something I would never fully remember, only feel in the empty spaces where names used to be.

  I stood there as the sun rose, surrounded by silence, knowing with a certainty that cut deeper than any blade:

  The cost had been paid.

  And it would never stop asking.

  ***

  I draped my cloak over her shoulders and took her hand.

  “Let’s go home, Sophie.”

  She nodded, fingers tightening around mine.

  I took one step.

  Then another.

  The world tilted.

  A sudden, blinding pain tore through my skull—sharp and absolute, like something inside my head had finally snapped its tether. My vision smeared, colors bleeding into one another as the ground seemed to lurch upward.

  I stumbled forward.

  “Tho—” Sophie cried.

  Her voice stretched, distorted, slipping away from me.

  Darkness rushed in from the edges, fast and merciless.

  The last thing I felt was her hand slipping from mine.

  Then there was nothing at all.