Noah left their quarters alone, the air warm enough to feel like breath on his skin. Dust-motes hung in the light like lazy constellations, drifting whenever someone passed. Far off, the soft clack of wooden practice weapons and the murmur of chants bled together into a single, obedient hum.
He wasn't late, but the temple loomed in his mind the way a needle looms in a doctor's hand: inevitable, precise, faintly cruel. Abel had said he'd wait—eyes open, blade close. If it smells wrong, walk out. Noah had promised he would. Then he'd immediately started thinking about how bad he was at doing what he was told.
He turned under a rib-arch and nearly collided with a grin.
Cassian lounged against the bone balustrade as if he'd grown there, all sun-browned skin and easy posture. He had traded armor for a lighter jacket and a plain shirt, the collar undone; a strip of ash cloth was wrapped around one forearm like a lazy bandage. He looked impossibly alive in a place that worshiped slow dying.
"Going somewhere important, pretty boy?" he asked, voice bright enough to pretend nothing in this place ever bled.
Noah glanced down at himself—cleaned robe, fresh belt, hair finger-combed into submission. "Why? Do I look like a heretic on a date?"
"More like a saint-breaker on an errand." Cassian's eyes flicked over him, amused and a little too attentive. "You clean up dangerously."
"Tragic. I was aiming for harmless."
Cassian pushed off the rail and fell into step beside him without asking. They walked a few paces in companionable silence; the corridor funneled them through slats of gold and shadow, their footsteps a soft counterpoint to the settlement's distant pulse.
"So," Cassian said, light as thrown ash, "what's the errand?"
"Temple visit." Noah kept his tone flat. "Devotional stuff. I'm practicing my pious nod."
Cassian barked a laugh. "Show me."
Noah tilted his chin and arranged his face into serene emptiness. "Mmm. Warmth. Light. Obedience."
Cassian clutched his chest. "Convincing. I'm almost converted."
"You would be," Noah said, mouth quirking. "You fold like a bad hand when someone smiles at you."
"Only when they're my type." Cassian's glance turned deliberate. "Annoying. Clever. Trouble."
Heat skittered under Noah's skin. Flirting with Cassian was like stepping onto polished stone—too easy to slide, too easy to forget how far you could fall.
He slowed, turning slightly to face him. "Did you stop me for a reason, or is this a drive-by compliment?"
"A reason." Cassian's voice softened. "You look… wound tight. Come out with me after your prayers. A walk. Maybe a hunt if you need to hit something that deserves it. No Choir, no sermons. Just air."
"Air," Noah echoed. "In a cave."
"We have tunnels the Saint doesn't parade through," Cassian said. "The old veins. Quiet. You can even insult the sun where it can't hear you."
Noah huffed a laugh. He didn't answer immediately. Abel's voice threaded through his thoughts—Distance. He believes too hard to see the edge he's standing on. And yet Cassian's offer wasn't a trap lined with ritual; it was a door, crooked and tempting.
"Alone?" Noah asked.
"Completely," Cassian said. "I'll even leave the hero act at home." He tilted his head. "Unless you want the hero act."
"I'm allergic," Noah said dryly. "Hives. Swelling."
Cassian smiled without teeth this time. "Walk with me then. Nothing stupid. I swear."
Noah let the silence stretch long enough to prove to himself he'd actually considered saying no. Then he nodded once. "After the temple. If nothing… breaks."
"Nothing will break," Cassian said, and for a moment the confidence wasn't performance—it was belief. He reached out, quick and gentle, and straightened the fold of Noah's collar with two fingers. "There. Now you look like you might behave."
"I never behave," Noah said, softer than he meant to.
"I know." Cassian stepped back. "That's the point."
They stood like that a heartbeat longer, balanced between impulse and sense. Somewhere behind them a Kindled bell chimed—three clear taps on metal—and the corridor stirred with movement.
"I should go," Noah said.
"Mm. Don't keep your priestess waiting." Cassian's grin returned, lighter again, as if none of the heaviness existed. He walked backward a few steps. "I'll find you after. Try not to convert."
"I'll do my worst."
He watched Cassian turn the corner, all careless grace and quiet blades, and felt the world tip a few degrees. Then he breathed, smoothed his robe, and headed for the temple—toward answers, or at least toward someone who promised to speak the same language as his doubt.
The closer he came, the more the settlement arranged itself around the sanctum like a body around a heart. The streets narrowed into processional lanes; offerings—ribbons, bone tokens, bowls of ash-marked seeds—clustered at the bases of pale columns. Worshippers drifted in small currents, some murmuring blessings, some simply standing with faces upturned to the fixed light.
Noah kept moving. He wasn't here to pray. He was here to listen to a woman who'd told the truth without saying it.
At the plaza edge he paused, glanced once over his shoulder—no Cassian, no Kindled escort—and mounted the shallow steps.
"Alright," he told the gold-drenched doorway under his breath. "Let's see what you really are."
The temple's double doors loomed ahead, their surfaces inlaid with pale bone and faintly glowing veins of gold. When Noah pushed them open, the first thing that hit him was the quiet—deep, deliberate, the kind that swallowed footsteps whole.
Inside, the sanctum stretched upward like the hollow of some ancient creature's ribcage. Tall pillars arched overhead, their surfaces carved with spirals that drew the eye toward the ceiling, where the false sun's light poured through a round aperture. The glow here was softer, filtered by thin sheets of crystal, casting the room in shifting patterns.
The priestess stood at the altar, her hands poised above a shallow bowl of water that reflected the ceiling's fractured light. She spoke in a calm, steady rhythm, each word falling like a drop into the water, sending ripples across its surface. A small cluster of worshippers knelt before her, their faces hidden in the shadow between light and stone.
Noah lingered at the back, leaning against a column, watching. She never once glanced his way, but somehow he felt she knew exactly where he was. Her final blessing was short, almost abrupt, and the congregation dispersed in silent order.
When the last worshipper left, she looked up. "Come," she said simply, her voice carrying with quiet authority.
He followed her through a narrow side door into a private study. The walls here were lined with shelves, stacked not just with books but with small carved figures, glass jars of powders and herbs, and rolled parchment tied with sinew. A low table sat at the center, and upon it she placed a small crystal sphere.
Without a word, she touched its surface. A faint hum resonated through the air, and a shimmer spread outward from the sphere, forming a translucent dome around them. The outside sounds—distant chanting, footsteps, the temple's breath—vanished entirely.
She sat, gesturing for him to do the same. "Now we can speak," she said, her tone shifting from formal to personal in a heartbeat.
Noah settled across from her, leaning back in his chair. "I take it this is about the sun? Or the sacrifices?"
Her eyes softened, but her voice remained steady. "It's about everything. You're not the first to look at this place and see a cage. And I… am not what I pretend to be."
She began to speak slowly, as if testing each word for cracks. "I wasn't born to this place," she said. "I found it—by accident, or maybe it found me. I walked into the Womb so long ago I can't tell you if it's been years or centuries. Time doesn't behave here." She glanced toward the crystal sphere, then back to him. "I had magic even then. Enough to catch the Saint's attention. He clothed me in silk and devotion, called me priestess, but it was just another set of chains." Her voice lowered, almost a whisper. "I've tried to leave, more than once. Every time I cross a certain point, the world folds in on itself, darkness takes me, and I wake here again, as if nothing happened."
Her gaze locked with his. "I've been waiting for someone like you. Someone who isn't blinded by the Saint's light."
Noah hesitated, recalling the Kindled Ones' eerie, unquestioning zeal. The adults' compliance, quiet but edged with the kind of fear that came from knowing those children would enforce the Saint's will without hesitation. Even Cassian, all golden-retriever charm, became someone else entirely when the Saint's name was spoken—just as he had coldly justified leaving that injured boy behind during the hunt, saying he'd have to prove himself to deserve survival.
"You want me to help you escape?"
"Not just me," she said, leaning forward. "The children. The families. All of us. We play along because there's no choice. But with you and your companion… perhaps there could be."
He studied her, searching for any sign of deceit. But all he found was weary hope.
"I'll think about it," he said at last.
"Good." She dispelled the dome with a flick of her fingers, and the world's noise bled back in. "That's all I ask—for now."