Silence returned slowly.
Not the oppressive, crushing silence of the Crimson cell.
Not the still, heavy quiet of the Veil.
This silence was empty.
Hollow.
Wrong.
Evin knelt where he had fallen. The remnants stood around him like a circle of shadows painted on air—silent, motionless, trembling faintly with the weight of what had just happened.
Rell was gone.
Not dead.
Gone.
Not a body.
Not a remnant.
Not even a trace.
The Bishop's attack hadn't killed him—it had wiped him from existence.
It had denied the Veil even the faintest echo of him.
And the Veil did not understand.
It pressed against Evin's thoughts like a confused child, trying to find something that wasn't there.
Where is he?
Evin felt the question echo through his head, not in words but in pressure, in trembling shadows that flickered with agitation.
Tremors shook the Veil as the remnants tried to sense Rell.
They found only absence.
A void where memory should have clung.
Evin's throat tightened until breathing became impossible. His hands dug into the cracked marble, nails scraping stone, skin splitting.
"He should be here," Evin whispered.
The shadows shuddered.
Rell should have been a remnant.
He should have been a witness.
He should have been standing with them.
Instead—nothing.
The Bishop had not taken his life.
She had taken his place in the world.
Evin bowed forward, forehead pressing to the stone, shoulders shaking violently.
"I can feel the emptiness," he whispered. "Like a missing limb. Like a missing name."
The Veil recoiled at his words—sharp, as if burned.
A remnant stepped closer, flickering anxiously, its form warping and stretching as if trying to expand into the empty space where Rell should be.
It couldn't.
There was nothing to fill.
The remnants began to tremble—
agitated
distorted
wrong
Not from anger.
From grief.
The entire Veil was grieving.
They didn't understand what had happened.
They only felt that something vital had been stolen.
Evin's breath cracked.
A sob tore out of him—raw, feral, agonized.
He reached into the Veil—instinctively, desperately—searching for any sign of Rell, any fragment, any warmth, any trace of his voice.
Nothing.
He reached deeper, his mind scraping against the inner layers of the Veil, grasping for anything—
Nothing.
He reached too far—
—and the Veil snapped back violently.
Evin screamed, clutching his head as pain ripped through him, sharp and blinding.
The remnants recoiled in terror.
The Veil trembled, pulling away from the center of the hall like fabric being snatched back from fire.
Evin collapsed onto his side, gasping, tears streaming freely.
"I tried," he choked. "I tried to find him."
No answer.
Just silence.
The Veil wasn't rejecting him.
It was grieving with him.
The remnants hovered uncertainly, unsure where to stand, their forms flickering. They didn't know how to mourn something the Bishop had completely erased.
Evin curled inward, gripping his own arms like he might tear his skin apart—anything to dull the pain in his chest.
"He should be here," he whispered again, voice fractured.
The remnants flickered brighter—agitated, unstable.
The Veil pressed close like a trembling breath.
No witness of him.
Evin's entire body went cold.
That wasn't confusion.
It was a diagnosis.
The Veil could not hold what did not remain.
It could hold any pain, any horror, any death—even the cruelty of the Church.
But this—this erasure—was something it had never known.
"He deserved a remnant," Evin sobbed. "He deserved to stay."
The shadows trembled with him.
He lifted his head, eyes swollen and red, voice hoarse:
"He deserved to be remembered."
The remnants surged—
not outward
not against enemies
but toward him
They gathered around Evin, forming a circle so tight even torchlight could not reach him. Their shapes wavered, their edges blurring as if trying to merge into him—to comfort him the only way remnants could.
Evin's chest heaved.
He didn't push them away.
He couldn't.
For a moment, he let them hold him—every shadow a reminder of someone else taken too soon, someone else burned, someone else forgotten. The weight of them pressed into him like cold hands on his spine, like grief taking physical form.
The Veil spoke again—more clearly this time, resonating through his bones:
We remain.
If you remain.
Evin exhaled shakily.
His tears dripped onto the marble where Rell once lay.
The stone did not drink them.
They simply sat there—
a testament the Church could not erase.
He stood slowly, swaying, the remnants aligning behind him in a solemn procession.
His voice was barely more than a breath:
"He deserved better."
The Veil surged—not in rage, but in agreement.
The lit torches trembled.
The marble hummed.
Shadows lengthened.
Somewhere far down the corridor, a Sanctifier fled toward the Bishop's chambers, breathless, terrified.
When she reached the Bishop, she collapsed to her knees.
"H-he tried to… t-to call back the erased," she stammered. "He failed. The Veil… recoiled."
The Bishop closed her eyes.
A faint smile touched her lips.
"Good," she whispered.
She folded her hands as if in prayer.
"He is becoming exactly what the Veil needs him to become."
Back in the ruined hall, Evin lifted his face.
No more sobbing.
No more shaking.
Only grief sharpened to a single, brutal point.
Purpose.
He whispered Rell's name.
The sound broke him open again, but he held it.
"I'll remember you," he said. "Even if no one else can."
The remnants bowed their heads in silent unity.
Evin wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing blood and tears together.
Then he turned toward the exit.
The Veil followed.