They didn't speak for hours.
The fire from the temple still burned in the distance—casting a soft, angry glow over the hills like the sky itself had a grudge.
Jung Min drove. Azari sat behind him, arms wrapped tight around his waist, relic strapped to her chest like a bomb that hadn't decided who it hated more.
The road ahead was cracked and winding.
The kind that used to lead to churches.
Now it just led to leftovers.
At a roadside motel built into the bones of a collapsed gas station, they stopped.
No power. No lights. Just dust and memories.
Jung Min kicked open the door of Room 6 and swept it with his pistol.
No threats. No prayers. Just a broken ceiling fan and a dead plant.
Perfect.
Azari sat on the bed, silent.
He handed her a granola bar and a bottle of water. She took both without a word.
He leaned against the wall.
"You're still shaking."
"I'm not scared," she muttered.
"I didn't say you were."
"...It's like it's still singing. In my head."
Jung Min looked down at the relic. It hadn't pulsed since the temple.
"That's not the Choir," he said. "That's memory. It'll fade."
"You sure?"
"No."
She unwrapped the relic slowly, setting it between them on the motel nightstand.
It glowed faintly. Not angry. Not loud.
Just awake.
"You said something earlier," Azari said suddenly. "Back at the church. You said 'There's more than three.'"
Jung Min nodded.
"Then how many?"
He looked out the cracked window, smoke on the horizon.
"Seven."
Azari stared.
"How do you know?"
He didn't answer right away.
Finally:
"Because I saw them once. Long ago. When I was still one of them."
She blinked. "You were… in the Choir?"
"No," he said. "But I was in the room."
He pulled up his sleeve.
There—on his forearm, barely visible beneath old scars—was a faded, incomplete glyph.
A Choir seal.
Unfinished.
Broken.
"During one mission, they tried to bind me. Said I was 'chosen.' Said I could help 'fix' what God abandoned."
He exhaled, like the memory tasted like smoke.
"I shot the man holding the pen before he finished the final line."
Azari whispered, "What were they trying to turn you into?"
His voice was quiet. Sharp.
"A replacement."
A long silence followed.
Then:
"You think they'll try again?"
"They will," he said. "But not with me."
His eyes flicked toward her. Just for a second.
Azari clenched her fists. The relic hummed in response.
"I'm not their weapon," she muttered.
"No," Jung Min said. "You're worse."
Outside, something passed across the moon.
A shape. Slow. Winged.
Dripping smoke. Bleeding light.
It didn't land. Just circled. Watching.
The Choir wasn't hiding anymore.
It wanted the world to hear it.