The plains had once been green. Now they were the color of dried blood, a sweep of cracked earth and half buried stone that stretched until it blurred with the horizon. Two figures moved across it like ghosts that had forgotten how to rest. Wind lifted veils of dust around them, whispering through the empty ribs of forgotten fortresses.
Elena kept her cloak drawn tight, though the heat pressed against her skin. The sun here had no warmth in it, only glare, a dull furnace that baked the land without mercy. Each step crunched over bones of old battles, the ground glittering with shards of glass and rusted mail. Somewhere behind them, the mountains had already vanished beneath the haze. South lay only ruin.
They had fled through the night, running until the darkness itself began to thin. Now, exhaustion clung to them like mist. The trees here where dried up, blackened skeletons, stripped bare by war and rot, in their midst rose the ruins of a monastery, a broken spine of stone piercing through the fog.
Adrian walked ahead, his posture rigid beneath the weight of his pack. The cut on his shoulder had reopened in the night; a dark stain spread down his sleeve. She noticed but said nothing. He would only mutter that he'd had worse, and she would argue, and the silence between them would turn to something sharper than the wind.
Twice she tried to speak his name, and twice the words caught in her throat. The betrayal at the pass still sat raw between them. Serin's laughter, the inquisitors' cloaks whipping in the wind, the red flash of her seal – every sound still echoed in her skull.
When she finally found her voice, it came out hoarse. "You shouldn't keep walking on that wound."
Adrian didn't slow. "If I stop, I'll think. I'd rather not."
The answer was a wall, but a familiar one. She almost smiled at the bleak humor of it. "Then at least drink. You're half dust already."
He passed the flask without looking at her. Their fingers brushed, a brief spark through layers of grime and exhaustion. The contact startled her more than the heat of metal. She pulled away quickly, the flask trembling slightly in her grip.
They walked until the sun began to slide west. Shadows stretched long across the ruins, turning the plains into a vast field of iron and memory. Adrian stopped at last on a rise where a tumbled archway jutted from the earth like a broken tooth.
Adrian's voice came, low and rough. "We'll stop here, we can rest here. For a while." As they reach the monastery they had seen from afar.
Elena nodded, too weary to argue. The crossed the threshold where a once grand gate had collapsed. Inside, the air was still and cold, carrying only the faint scent of burnt incense. Arches curved above them, half collapsed. Moss and shadow claimed every surface.
She moved toward what had been the sanctuary, where fragments of stained glass still clung to their leaden frames. One piece caught her eye – a shard of red that glowed faintly when the light struck it, as though holding the memory of the fire.
"The Order did this?" she asked softly.
Adrian's reply came after a moment. "The inquisition calls it purification. They burned anything that questioned their faith – monks, libraries, even prayers written in the wrong tongue." He leaned heavily against a crumbled wall. "You can still hear the echoes if you listen long enough."
Elena knelt tracing her fingers over the stone floor. Symbols were carved there – ancient, faded, the grooves filled with dust. The sigil was faint but recognizable – a circle of flame half erased by time. "They're old." She murmured. "Older than the Order. Maybe even older than the Church itself."
Adrian said nothing. His eyes, shadowed by fatigue and memory, followed the curve of her hands as she brushed away the dirt. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but the words stayed trapped behind his clenched jaw.
At last, she turned toward him. "You're hurt"
"It's nothing."
"It's bleeding through the cloth."
He exhaled, defeated by her tone. "Fine."
She knelt beside him, drawing her small blade. He stiffened, then realized she was only cutting fresh strips from her cloak. When she leaned close, the scent of smoke and rain surrounded her. The wound was deep but clean; her fingers trembled as she pressed the new bandage against his skin.
Elena looked down at her wrist as she tied up the wound – where the Crimson seal still shimmered faintly beneath the skin pulsing like a slow heartbeat. "It feels like I'm carrying death inside me."
Adrian's gaze softened. "Maybe you are. But death isn't always the end of something. Sometimes it's the beginning."
The word hung between them, fragile as glass.
Elena sat across from him, her knees drawn to her chest. The glow painted his features in copper and shadow, accentuating the scar that cut through his left brow. He'd tied his hair back with a strip of leather, but strands fell loose over his forehead. Every motion was deliberate, measured – as if he were forcing order upon chaos by sheer will.
"How long since anyone prayed here?" she asked.
He glanced around the ruin. "Long enough that even the echoes have forgotten the words."
She ran a fingertip along the cracked tiles. "Maybe not all of them."
Beneath the soot, faint lines formed a mosaic: two figures bound by a ring of flame, one kneeling, and the other standing over them with a sword. The image was eroded, but the composition stirred something deep in her. Her heartbeat seemed to answer the old geometry.
Adrian followed her gaze. "That mark—you've seen it before?"
"I think so. In dreams. Or memory." Her voice faltered. "Sometimes I can't tell the difference."
He watched her a long time, the firelight catching in his eyes. "When the Seal woke," he said slowly, "I remembered flashes. Not just of you now, but of… someone before. The same face, the same voice."
He hesitated. "I thought I was losing my mind."
She rose, crossing the few steps between them. The distance closed with the sound of crackling wood and her heartbeat thudding in her ears. "And now?"
"I'm still not sure what's real."
She reached out, brushed her thumb over the edge of his jaw. The stubble rasped softly under her skin. "This is real."
Adrian caught her wrist gently. "Until the Seal decides otherwise."
Something between them cracked then—not anger, but the thin veneer of restraint that had held them apart since the pass. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his. For a breath they simply stayed there, two fugitives suspended in the fragile space between guilt and need.
The fire flared suddenly, sparks spiraling upward. The heat pressed them closer before sense returned and they parted, breath ragged. She turned away, hiding the tremor in her hands.
"Tomorrow," he said after a long silence, "we'll keep moving. South until we find the river. The Order won't follow this far."
"You sound like you believe that."
"I need to."
She wanted to argue, to tell him that the shadow behind them didn't belong to men anymore—that it had no face, no mercy—but the words caught in her throat. Instead she looked back at the mosaic on the floor, the two figures bound by flame. "What were they?" she asked softly. "Priest and warrior? Lovers? Or sacrifices?"
"Maybe all three," Adrian murmured. "Faith makes strange bargains."
Outside, the wind picked up again, moaning through the open arches. The fire bent toward it, guttering, then steadied. In the silence that followed, something distant answered—a single low tone, almost like a bell buried deep beneath the earth.
Elena shivered. "Did you hear that?"
Adrian listened, his expression tightening. "Probably the wind through the catacombs."
But she wasn't convinced. The sound had carried weight, as if the stones themselves were remembering.
Later, when the fire had burned to embers, the world outside the walls settled into a deeper kind of quiet. The plains held their breath beneath a haze of drifting dust. Inside the ruined chapel, the smell of charred wood mingled with old incense and Adrian's blood-damp bandage.
Elena lay awake, staring up at the ribs of the fallen roof where the stars should have been. The darkness pressed close, thick and velvety. Across the fire, Adrian sat with his back to her, his sword balanced across his knees, his posture taut even in stillness.
She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to keep watch—that the world was too broken to be guarded against—but the words died. Instead she rose quietly, crossed to him, and sank down beside the faint circle of light.
"You don't trust sleep," she said softly.
His voice was almost a whisper. "Sleep is when they come."
She looked at him sidelong. "The Inquisitors?"
He shook his head. "The others. The ones that wear my choices like chains."
Elena reached for the flask, poured a little water over his fingers. The gesture startled him; the blade clattered softly as he set it aside. She unwound the bandage and began cleaning the reopened cut. The water turned pink in the firelight.
"You keep bleeding for me," she murmured. "You think it will wash away whatever you owe."
He met her eyes. "And you keep running toward fire thinking it will forgive you for lighting it."
The truth in it hurt, but it also made her smile—a small, broken curve of lips that still held warmth. "We're a fine pair."
His hand caught hers, not roughly this time. "Elena… when I saw you on that porch again, I thought—" He stopped, jaw tightening. "No. I didn't think. I just knew I couldn't lose you a second time."
She closed her eyes. "You say that as if it's a choice."