The sky had paled to a dull gray, dawn smothered under heavy clouds.
The ruin breathed cold again, each stone sweating with ancient moisture, each silence feeling… expectant.
Caelia knelt by the broken altar before the others stirred.
She still hadn't removed her armor entirely.
She'd only unlatched the pauldron Rein had tended to.
The rest remained sealed around her like penitence.
Her fingers moved with precision, unlocking the seal-case at her hip—a prayer-locked scroll, wax-stamped and cord-bound, tied with the symbol of the Seventh Oath.
It pulsed faintly with divine energy.
A message from the high tribunal.
A direct word from Saint Caelus.
She hesitated.
Then broke the seal.
The wax hissed as if in pain.
She unfolded the letter beneath the altar light, her gauntlets off now, bare fingers trembling slightly as she read.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Knight-Lieutenant Caelia of the Chain,
The Throne-Born grows more dangerous by the day. He has seduced the Scarlet Blade and gathered three confirmed demon hearts in his presence.
You are hereby ordered to bind him using every non-lethal means available—physical, mental, spiritual.
If he resists, your duty is clear.
He must be silenced before the prophecy breathes its second line.
Failure to do so will be considered contamination.
If you do not return with him in custody within two days' cycle,
Your blood will burn white.
-------------------------------------------------------------
She read the last line three times.
Not because she didn't understand.
But because something inside her had begun to break.
Not fear. Not panic.
Contradiction.
The message self-immolated after reading, curling to ash in her hands.
A scent like burnt lilies drifted up.
She didn't move.
Didn't pray.
Didn't speak.
She just sat there with her hands in her lap and stared at the stone beneath her knees, jaw tight, chest hollow.
Two days.
Two.
Behind her, soft footsteps.
She turned her head slowly.
It was Rein.
Still drowsy, shirt hanging off one shoulder, his hair a mess from sleep.
He rubbed one eye with the back of his hand like a boy who'd wandered into someone else's morning.
"You okay?" he asked.
Her throat clicked before she could speak.
"Just… reflecting."
He came closer.
Saw the tension in her shoulders.
Saw the sweat on her brow, even in the cold.
"Nightmare?"
She almost laughed.
Almost.
"Something like that."
He crouched in front of her, eyes level with hers.
There was no suspicion.
No fear.
Just that maddening, disarming softness.
The kind that made you want to confess everything.
Even the parts that would get you burned.
He reached out again—not for her weapon, not her emblem.
Her shoulder.
"You're shaking."
She hadn't realized.
His palm was warm.
Steady.
She hated that it steadied her.
"I have orders," she whispered.
"Everyone does."
"These… aren't good ones."
He didn't push.
Just waited.
Like silence was something that could be shared, too.
Her hand lifted—slow, mechanical.
She didn't touch him. Not yet.
But her fingers hovered, just above his wrist.
Then, "If I fail, I die."
"Then maybe don't fail."
"They think binding you means saving the world."
He tilted his head.
"And what do you think?"
She didn't answer.
But her hand dropped—rested lightly on his.
And didn't pull away.
Caelia didn't return to prayer after that.
She didn't clean her armor.
She didn't open her holy texts or polish the sigil-etched blade that had once defined her entire identity.
Instead… she lingered.
Shadowing Rein.
Not asking questions. Not issuing judgment.
Just watching.
And what she saw began to carve away at her resolve, one slow, maddening moment at a time.
Zeraka was first.
The demoness was always touch-hungry in a way Caelia had once mistaken for animalistic.
But now she saw it wasn't instinct—it was devotion.
The way Zeraka curled around Rein when she thought no one was looking.
How she whispered things in a language no one else understood, and sometimes just rested her forehead against his side like the touch alone was enough to hold her together.
Caelia hated how easily he accepted it.
How effortlessly his hand found Zeraka's crown and stroked her hair without needing to be asked.
Then Valaithe.
Watching her was worse.
Because Valaithe never hid what she wanted.
She flirted with Rein shamelessly, danced around him like seduction was her oxygen.
But beneath the teasing, Caelia saw something raw—a desperation painted over with confidence.
When Valaithe leaned in close, her voice low, her hand sliding up his thigh, she smiled like a predator.
But her eyes?
They looked scared.
Elaris was quieter. But not less possessive.
She spoke little, but always knew where Rein was.
Always stood where her shadow might fall over his shoulder.
Always shifted her blade an inch closer when anyone unfamiliar came near.
She never said the word mine.
But Caelia had never heard anyone scream it louder without making a sound.
And then Iris.
Watching from the ruin's corner.
Silent.
Eyes like twin open wounds.
Sometimes she whispered Rein's name when no one was listening.
Sometimes… when Caelia was.
They surrounded him.
Not like guards.
Not like a harem.
Not like lovers.
Like gravity.
And Rein just… took it.
Not arrogantly.
Not obliviously.
Just with that same steady, maddening calm.
The kindness that disarmed.
The gentleness that didn't ask for anything.
It was the opposite of every sermon Caelia had ever heard.
And that made it infinitely worse.
That evening, the fire crackled higher.
The others lay about in various states of half-dress and comfort, trading stories, insults, touches that bordered on foreplay.
Zeraka straddled Rein's lap while Valaithe braided something obscene into his hair.
Elaris leaned nearby, sharpening her blade in rhythmic motions, and Iris quietly rearranged Rein's cloak over his shoulders as he dozed.
And Caelia sat outside the circle.
Burning.
Not with holiness.
But with the aching, aching need to understand why she wasn't enough to be inside it.
That night, she didn't sleep again.
She walked the perimeter of the ruin in slow steps, armored feet silent despite the weight.
Her pulse didn't calm. Her thoughts didn't still.
And when she returned to the fire...
She found herself watching his mouth as he murmured in his sleep.
Not a prayer.
A name.
"...mine…"