The training grounds were quiet—eerily so.
They sat in a low basin carved into the edge of the sanctuary's outer tier, surrounded by towering bones and warped columns that resembled fossilized trees. The ground underfoot was hardened, dry sinew shaped into cracked tiles, and the surrounding wall curved like a broken ribcage. The light here filtered through slit-like openings in the upper flesh-ceiling, where sunbeams cut down in clean shafts and made the ash-dust sparkle faintly as it drifted through the air.
It almost looked beautiful.
Noah had found the warmest patch and claimed it without apology. He was sprawled across a smooth section of stone-flesh, one arm flung over his eyes, his outer robe hanging loose and open at the chest. His hair was a lazy halo around his head, catching light like ink in water.
"I think I'm evolving," he muttered.
Abel, ten feet away, didn't answer. He was shirtless and barefoot, training with a weighted staff carved from blackened bone. Each movement was fluid, deliberate—sweat trailing along the lines of his back and glinting as it caught the sun.
Noah peeked through his fingers. "Seriously. This is the first place in this whole freakshow world with actual warmth. I'm adapting. Like a lizard. I might start sunbathing on rocks."
"You already are."
Noah let out a dramatic sigh. "Exactly. And yet somehow you're over there doing shirtless weapon dancing like a brooding fire god. You're making me look unproductive."
Abel didn't stop moving, but his voice had that flat dryness Noah liked to provoke. "You are unproductive."
"I'm in recovery," Noah countered, stretching his legs out. "Spiritually. Emotionally. Possibly medically."
The silence that followed was soft. Not hostile. Just... thoughtful.
Abel finally lowered his staff and leaned against one of the bone pillars. "You've been quiet since the meal."
Noah groaned and flopped onto his side, squinting at Abel. "It's nothing."
Abel waited.
Noah rolled onto his back again and stared up at the slits of light. "Okay, it's not nothing. That priestess—Linnéa—when she asked about gods, it felt like... I don't know. Like she already knew the answer. Like she was testing me."
Abel crossed his arms. "She was."
"Yeah, but not in the 'do you believe in the holy truth' kind of way. More like, 'are you lying to me about something ancient and terrifying.'"
Abel's gaze sharpened. "Do you think she knows?"
Noah hesitated. "I don't know. But she looked at me like I was a riddle she already half-solved. And I hate that."
The training ground fell quiet again.
Noah shifted to his side and propped his head up on his hand. "Anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about you and how you insist on training shirtless like some tragic romance novel hero."
Abel raised an eyebrow. "It's hot."
"Exactly," Noah grinned. "Cruel and unusual punishment. Do you know how hard it is to look mysterious when I'm sweating through my spine?"
"You were never mysterious."
Noah gasped, hand to chest. "Wounded. Betrayed. Unbelievable."
Abel shook his head but didn't look away.
For a moment, it was just the two of them, bathed in flickering dust-light and quiet warmth, suspended in something almost peaceful.
And then the footsteps came.
Soft. Deliberate.
A child's voice spoke from the edge of the courtyard:
"The Saint would like to speak with you."
Noah sat up slowly. "Of course he would."
The Kindle One tilted his head. "Alone."
Noah gave Abel a look—half sarcasm, half unease—and rose to his feet, brushing ash from his robe.
As he followed the child out of the training grounds, the warmth lingering on his skin didn't fade. If anything, it clung tighter.
The pathway curved gently upward. Bone archways loomed overhead, casting latticed shadows over the living tiles beneath his feet. The deeper they went, the brighter it seemed to become.
That was when Noah noticed it again.
He slowed his steps.
Above them, slits in the ceiling poured golden light down in clean shafts that glimmered with dust and heatwaves. Not torchlight. Not firelight. Sunlight.
But they were underground.
He looked up harder, then to the glowing walls, the way the air shimmered faintly in the heat.
This isn't magic, he realized. At least, not the kind I've seen before.
There were no arcane distortions, no woven illusion fields, no trace of spellcraft. The light was real. The warmth was real. The shadows moved the way true sunlight shifted across stone and skin.
A miniature sun? A divine construct? A buried relic?
His heart beat faster. His breath hitched slightly.
This isn't a sanctuary. It's an ecosystem. Something living. Something ancient. Something impossibly wrong.
Whatever powered this cavern—this "Womb of Creation"—was beyond mortal.
And he was walking straight into its heart.
The palace of the Saint wasn't built so much as grown. Noah stepped through the archway with the Kindle One trailing behind him, and immediately felt the temperature shift. It wasn't hotter—it was cleaner. Sacred. Every breath tasted like ash filtered through incense, and the walls shimmered faintly with pulsing veins of gold.
The room he was led to was circular and hollow, carved with divine symmetry. No windows. Just a single pillar of golden light descending from above and washing over a figure who stood at the center.
The Saint.
He looked much the same as before—tall, robed, veiled in that eerie linen mask that clung to his grotesque, half-melted face like a second skin. The light bathed him from above, illuminating every ragged thread and every crack of glowing embers beneath his surface.
Noah stood just inside the threshold, spine straight, heartbeat heavy.
"You came," the Saint said, voice warm but layered with something ancient. Something cracked.
Noah offered a cautious smile. "Hard to turn down a personal invite. Especially from the local sun god."
The Saint tilted his head. "You see it. The light."
"It's hard to miss when it's cooking me alive," Noah muttered. Then quickly added, louder, "Yes. I noticed."
The Saint gestured, and the Kindle One vanished silently into the corridor. The door closed behind them with a hush.
"You're curious," the Saint said, stepping forward, robes whispering against the floor. "Good. Curiosity is the sign of a living mind. The others here—most of them only breathe to obey."
Noah's lips twitched. He'd fit right in at a startup, he thought grimly.
"I suppose you want to know how," the Saint continued. "The sun. The warmth. The breath of fire in a place that should be dead."
Noah shrugged, playing casual. "I mean, I've seen some weird stuff. But sure. Go ahead. Impress me."
The Saint reached out his hands slowly, letting the light pour over his fingers. "It is a gift. From my divinity. When the Trial cast me aside—through error, through blindness, not because I was unworthy—I was not stripped of my flame. I was changed. Branded by fire, yes, but not broken. I am still what I was. A god, misnamed as failure. And from my flame, I shaped this light. I gave the people warmth again. A sun for those forgotten by the heavens."
Noah blinked. Something didn't add up.
He crossed his arms. "Wait. You're divine? But... we were all told the gods are gone. That the ones chosen now—us—were sent to replace them. So how can you still be...?"
The shift in the Saint was immediate.
The warmth in the room stilled. The light dimmed. Just slightly.
Noah felt it before he saw it—the crackle of tension, the flick of anger like a match about to catch.
The Saint's voice came sharper, deeper. "Do not mistake what I am."
Then, just as quickly, it vanished.
He straightened, tilting his veiled face once again with a serene, almost fatherly grace. "The path is never as straight as they tell you. Some are broken and burned. Others rise from ash. And some," he said, looking directly at Noah now, "are meant to return again and again, until they understand."
Noah swallowed hard.
Okay, he thought. Definitely still insane. But scary-smart insane. Which is worse.
The Saint stepped back into the pillar of light. "I would like to speak with you again. Daily, if you can bear it. I believe you will find answers here. In time."
Noah offered a small nod. "Sure. I love daily existential check-ins."
The Saint let out something that could've been a chuckle. "Go, then. Rest. The Womb watches. And so do I."
The door opened again, silently.
And Noah, pulse thrumming and thoughts racing, stepped back into the hall—more uncertain than ever whether he'd just been blessed or marked for death.