The murmurs faded slowly as the crowd dispersed, leaving only the echo of boots and whispers beneath the cracked dome. The candles guttered, their smoke twisting into faint halos before vanishing.
The man who had named him stood at the altar, watching Aros with a gaze that was neither hostile nor welcoming, only curious, as if testing the shape of a memory.
"Leave us," he said at last.
Broko hesitated, glancing between them, but Talon's tone allowed no discussion. The others began to file out, murmuring to one another. When Gemma made to follow, Aros touched her arm.
"She stays."
Talon raised an eyebrow. "You don't trust me?"
"I don't trust anyone who greets me like a saint," Aros replied.
Talon smiled faintly and gestured toward the benches near the altar. "Then sit, both of you. The saints can wait."
They obeyed. The air was heavy with wax and damp stone, the faint sound of rain dripping through the broken roof. Talon leaned against the altar, hands clasped behind his back.
"My name is Talon," he said. "My parents spoke of you when I was a child. They called you the Kingslayer. Said you ended the line of Maraleo and broke the back of the Priesthood's armies. To some, you were a murderer. To others, salvation."
"I was neither," Aros said quietly.
Talon nodded. "Maybe not. But your name still makes people listen. And right now, I need people to listen."
Talon was in his mid-thirties, though the way he moved made his age uncertain. His skin had the pallor of someone who rarely saw the sun, but his eyes, a pale, almost translucent gray, carried an intensity that made others avert their gaze before they realized why.
He wore layered robes of faded crimson and black, cut from fine fabric but frayed at the seams, suggesting a man who had once owned wealth and abandoned it deliberately. His hair was long and the color of ash, tied loosely at the nape, and thin silver chains hung from his wrists, not as jewelry, but as reminders.
There was something unfixed about him: a man half here, half elsewhere. His voice could be gentle one moment and feverish the next, like a prophet caught between revelation and exhaustion. When he spoke, he rarely blinked. When he smiled, it never seemed meant for the person in front of him.
He moved closer, his steps soundless on the stone. "I'm raising something new. Not like the old rebellions, those were all teeth and no mind. This one will be different. A movement without martyrs. An idea that can't be burned."
Aros met his gaze without flinching. "You want me to lead it."
"I want you to remind them it's possible."
Aros gave a low, humorless laugh. "And if I refuse?"
"Then we'll try to stop you," Talon said evenly.
Aros smiled, the kind of smile that held no joy. "You could try. But what would that change? Another death for another cause. You'd still be preaching to corpses."
Talon's expression didn't shift. "You're not wrong." He paused, studying him. "The girl, is she your daughter?"
Aros shook his head. "She'll tell her story when she wants to. Until then, I'll only speak for myself."
"Then speak," Talon said. "Why refuse us? You ended a king. You led armies. You made the Light tremble. And yet here you are, hiding like the rest of us. What happened to you, Aros Kevis?"
Aros looked down at his hands, the scars along his knuckles faint under the candlelight. "What changed?" he said softly. "Everything. And nothing. I killed a king, and the next man called himself chosen by the Light. I burned their temples, and they built higher ones from the ashes. The world didn't shift, Talon. It just found new words for obedience."
Talon listened in silence, eyes half-closed as if savoring the sound. "You sound like a man who's forgotten why he began."
"I remember too well," Aros said.
Talon's gaze drifted to Gemma, who sat quietly beside him, her small hands folded in her lap. "And you? What do you remember, child?"
Gemma hesitated. "You want my help," she said finally. "I can help, but not here."
"Where, then?"
"There's a city to the south. Bondrea. I need to go there first."
Talon tilted his head, intrigued. "And what waits for you in Bondrea?"
Gemma looked down. "Answers."
Aros didn't move, but his jaw tightened. He knew what she meant: the voices. The call. The same hum that would eventually tear her apart.
Talon turned back to him. "And if we take her there, do I have your word that you'll stand with us?"
Aros studied Gemma. Her eyes met his, steady and solemn. She nodded once.
He exhaled. "You have it."
Talon smiled: a small, distant smile, the kind that didn't reach his eyes. "Good. Then we'll prepare a group to escort you. You'll have protection, food, and what passes for faith in this place."
He turned toward the altar, tracing one of the cracks in the stone with his fingers. "We've been waiting for the world to change on its own," he murmured. "It never will. Maybe it's time we build a new one."
Gemma stood. "And if it burns again?"
Talon looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Then let it burn brighter."
The church was silent again, long after the others had gone.Outside, the rain fell without rhythm, whispering against the roof like something trying to get in. Aros sat on a bench near the doorway, watching the flicker of a single candle that hadn't yet burned out.
Gemma stood a few steps away, drying her hair with a scrap of cloth. The firelight painted her in fragments, a hand, a cheek, the thin outline of her breath in the cold.
"You shouldn't have agreed," Aros said finally. His voice carried little more than a sigh.
Gemma looked up. "You were going to say no."
"I still should have."
She walked toward him, sitting on the edge of the bench. "They're not the Priesthood," she said.
"No," he murmured, "but they'll learn the same prayers soon enough."
For a moment, neither spoke. The candle trembled as if straining to listen.
Then Aros turned to her. His expression softened, not paternal, but weary. "You know you don't have to do any of this. We could leave tonight. Find some place that the Light doesn't reach. You could live quietly. Forget this."
Gemma smiled faintly. "You can't forget something that speaks to you."
"Maybe you could try."
"I don't want to." She looked straight ahead, her voice steady. "If it's calling me, then I have to know why."
Aros exhaled through his nose, the sound halfway between frustration and resignation. "Curiosity will kill you faster than faith."
"Then I'll die knowing what it wanted."
The candle went out, leaving them in the dim pulse of moonlight spilling through the cracks in the dome.Aros rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed a hand over his face. "You sound like someone I used to know."
Gemma tilted her head. "Was she right?"
He didn't answer. He just stood, placed a hand lightly on her shoulder, and said, "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we go south."
When she lay down on the floorboards, her small frame wrapped in the cloak, Aros stayed awake a long time, listening to the rain. The city hummed faintly beneath them: alive, dreaming, and dangerous.