After a few days.
Peace in Leonidus was never real peace.
It was the quiet that lingered after a storm but before a worse one—the kind of silence where even wind felt hesitant, as though the sky itself was waiting to see which of Aiden's lies would bloom into reality next.
Days had passed since the assassins were slaughtered, since the saintess' identity had been rewritten, since the Church had realized something in Leonidus was slipping out of their grip like sand through trembling fingers.
And in those days, Aiden remained Lucifer.
He walked the city's stone roads with his prophet's robes, trailed by whispers and awe. Mothers pressed their foreheads to the ground. Older men cried when he healed their limbs with nothing but a touch. Children followed him in clusters, pointing at the faint glow surrounding his fingertips.
Miracles.
But they were not miracles.
