The hall still smelled of fear.
Not blood—fear.
Sharp. Hot. Chemical.
It clung to the marble like smoke after a fire.
Evin stood alone in the center of it all, trembling. The remnants had retreated to the edges of the hall like a silent congregation, indistinct shapes watching him with patient, unbearable attention.
He wiped at his face and realized he'd smeared Rell's blood across his cheek.
He didn't clean it off.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
Behind him, Rell's body lay where it had fallen. The shadows kept a perimeter around him—the only mercy left in a world that had denied him every other.
Evin stared at Rell's face.
Soft.
Relaxed.
Wrong.
"You always stepped in front of me," Evin whispered. "Even when I didn't want you to."
His throat tightened painfully.
"I told you not to come," he said. "I told you…"
His voice broke.
The hall felt bigger suddenly—too big, too empty, too quiet. Without Rell's breathing, without his stubborn voice and relentless defiance, the silence felt cavernous. Crushing.
The remnants shifted behind him, sensing the spiral.
They didn't approach.
Didn't touch.
But their presence—layered grief, unfinished will, unhealed endings—settled around him like a blanket of heavy air.
One remnant stepped forward.
Evin looked up instinctively.
A faint outline of a young man took shape—tall, broad-shouldered, familiar in a way that made Evin's breath hitch.
He knew that stance.
He knew that posture.
He knew—
The remnant flickered—
and became someone else.
Then another.
Then another.
Not Rell. Not anyone specific.
Just echoes of those who once had something worth fighting for.
Evin exhaled shakily. "I'm not ready."
The remnant didn't respond.
It didn't need to.
Because the Veil itself whispered the truth:
You never were.
Evin dragged a hand down his face. The pain in his chest wasn't fading. It was growing—pressing outward, filling the space Rell used to fill.
He was drowning in it.
Slowly.
Methodically.
Without resistance.
He didn't know how long he stood there—seconds, minutes—but eventually the remnants shifted in warning.
Someone else was coming.
Not many.
Not an army.
A single presence.
Footsteps approached from the far end of the hall—measured, deliberate, unhurried. Evin tensed, shadows rising reflexively, preparing to strike, to rend, to swallow.
But the Veil pressed gently against him.
Hold.
Evin froze.
The figure emerged from the corridor—a woman dressed in white robes traced with gold filigree. Not an Inquisitor. Not a Sanctifier.
A Bishop.
One of the highest-ranking officials of the Church.
Her hair was pale silver. Her expression serene. Her hands folded neatly before her.
Eyes closed.
Not out of blind devotion.
Out of something far more dangerous—
Confidence.
"You have made quite a mess," she said softly.
Evin didn't respond.
She stopped a dozen paces from him, her gaze sweeping the hall with mild interest, as if examining spilled ink instead of broken men.
"So much waste," she murmured. "So much noise."
Evin snarled, "He was my friend."
"Yes," she said simply. "And yet he stands in your way."
Evin's vision blurred with rage. "Say his name."
The Bishop tilted her head slightly. "Why? He has no more use. The living should not cling to the dead."
The remnants behind Evin surged, dozens of shapes rising sharply, ready to break the air itself. Evin's breath stuttered as their fury merged with his.
The Bishop smiled faintly.
Unmoved.
Unshaken.
"You misunderstand," she said gently. "I do not condemn your grief."
Evin blinked.
She opened her eyes.
They were silver.
Not human.
Not natural.
Not safe.
"I expect it," the Bishop said.
A pulse of cold power radiated from her, and every remnant recoiled, shadows scattering like frightened birds.
Evin felt the Veil wrench violently, crushed inward by a presence that was not doctrine—
—but something older.
Something deeper.
The Bishop stepped closer.
"You think the Church fears you," she whispered. "But we fear the Veil far more than we fear the boy who carries it."
Evin's stomach turned to ice.
She stopped an arm's length away.
"Tell me, Evin Veylan," she said softly. "Do you even know what you are holding?"
Evin forced air into his lungs. "I'm holding them."
"No," the Bishop said, smiling sadly. "You are holding the door open."
Evin's heart dropped.
The Bishop leaned in, her voice barely more than a breath.
"And we must close it. No matter the cost."
She raised her hand—
—and every shadow in the hall bent away, screaming silently.
Evin braced, barely conscious, preparing to fight, to run, to survive—
But the Bishop did not strike him.
She struck Rell's body.
Light exploded outward in a brilliant column, violent and absolute. The remnants wailed. The Veil convulsed. Evin felt something inside him tear open—a pain so sharp and blinding he collapsed to his knees.
"NO—!"
The light shattered marble.
Shattered stone.
Shattered everything it touched.
When it faded—
Rell's body was gone.
Nothing remained.
Not cloth.
Not ash.
Not even blood.
Just a clean, perfect absence.
The Bishop lowered her hand.
"You cannot cling to your tether," she said softly. "You will break. And when you break, the Veil breaks with you."
Evin didn't breathe.
Couldn't.
He stared at the empty marble.
At the place where his friend used to be.
The Bishop stepped back, unhurried.
"This is mercy," she said quietly. "For him. For you. For the world."
Evin's throat closed, grief and horror and rage twisting into something jagged, something unstable, something he couldn't contain.
"You…" he whispered. "You erased him."
The Bishop nodded once. "Now you may mourn without illusion."
Evin's vision darkened. The remnants behind him seethed, writhing, screaming—not in sound but in raw pressure that cracked the marble beneath his feet.
The Bishop turned to leave.
"Do not follow me," she said calmly. "You are not ready."
Evin's breath shook violently.
"Don't tell me—what I am."
The Bishop paused.
Her voice drifted back lightly, almost pitying.
"Child… I am not telling you."
She stepped into the shadows beyond the hall.
"I am warning you."
Evin collapsed forward, hands scraping raw against the stone, chest heaving with sobs he could not stop. The Veil closed around him like a shroud—not to protect, but to hold him together as something inside him fractured beyond repair.
Rell was gone.
Truly gone.
Not even a remnant.
Nothing left to witness.
And in the hollow space where his friend had been, something awful and hungry began to grow.
Not fury.
Not power.
Not vengeance.
Purpose.