[ Ayame's POV ]
A brief flare of hope ignites in my chest at the sight of his hidden face, then immediately drowns in a cold flood of betrayal. The two feelings war, leaving me numb and sick.
Why is he here? Is this an act? A performance for them? Or is he truly one of them? Did he lead me all this way, through the mountains, through the cold, sharing warmth and blood, only to bring me to this place of bones and purple fire? Was I a sacrifice from the very beginning? What was the point of all the kindness? The talking? The hand holding? The shared warmth? Why?
He moves forward through the crowd of cloaked figures. He chants their prayers, his voice blending with theirs. His movements have a strange, deliberate grace. It is not his normal walk. It is a practiced, ritual step.
The other robed man who holds the boy shoves the child forward, toward the fogged figure. He gestures, as if offering the boy for Lucid to perform the final deed.
A fresh wave of panic and fury gives me strength. I shake against my shackles, the metal links rattling violently. The chain around my neck bites deep. I almost break free. Almost.
"Oh Mother Alisia, we are grateful for your benevolence!" a cultist shouts, his voice fervent.
"That is what salvation is about!" another cries.
The fogged figure, Lucid continues. His speech is odd. It sounds delayed. He is reciting words rather than saying them. It is as if someone is speaking the lines to him, and he is repeating them a beat later. The rhythm is wrong.
"Alisia demands our absolute faith," he intones, the words flat, "and we shall follow her teachings. For she shall grant us salvation."
My brief hope flickers and dies. What if he has actually become one of them? The drugs, the capture… could they have broken his mind? Replaced the kind, chattering man with this hollow, chanting thing?
He takes the boy from the other cultist. His hands, shrouded in dark sleeves, rest on the child's small shoulders. The boy is trembling, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his face.
"Throw him in!" a voice yells from the crowd.
"Yeah!" others take up the cry. The crowd grows restless, hungry for the spectacle, for the purple flame to feed.
Who am I to have hope? I am chained. I am helpless. Nothing good is going to come from this. I have been led astray. Betrayed by the very person I chose to follow.
He was so warm. A warmth I have feasted on greedily.
He was so kindhearted. A fatal thing amongst our kind.
He was believable. A rare sight... for a human.
He was... funny, a feeling I never felt before.
He seemed fragile despite seeming capable, something to be protected... is it my instincts? I remember that it's a custom in our species to protect fiercely a family member, a suitable mate...
A mate? My mind immediately flushes in... discomfort? What is this feeling? It is new...
He was someone I pictured spending the rest of my days beside. A new purpose after failing… after failing what? The question echoes in my empty memory once more, but the feeling of failure is solid and real.
He raises the boy. Not roughly, but with a terrible, ceremonial slowness.
I falter. My strength leaves me. This is it. This is the end of this strange comforting journey... though brief it made me forget about the world's cruelty for a slight moment.
*No.* I yell inside my mind.
But something else happens.
The fogged, cloaked figure does not throw the boy.
He cradles the boy close as if he is prepared and turns.
He jumps.
He leaps into the purple flame himself, taking the boy with him, cradling the child against his chest, turning his own back to the fire.
I am taken aback. My mind cannot process it.
*What? How? Why?*
Gasps and shocked cries erupt around me. The chanting stops, replaced by confused whispers.
The purple flame should consume him. It should vanish him in a silent, violet flash as it did the old woman.
It does not.
The dark silhouette within the flame does not disappear. It stands there. The boy is a small, sheltered shape against the robed chest. Then, a light begins to shine from within the flame. Not purple, but a brilliant, blinding white. It erupts from the center of the fire, flooding the entire ruined cathedral, bleaching the color from everything, drowning the sickly violet in pure, clean radiance.
From within the light, I hear a shout. A voice I know, filled with strain and will.
"The Chain of Heart!"
The purple flame winks out, instantly, as if snuffed by a giant's breath. Darkness plunges back for a single heartbeat before the space is illuminated again, this time by countless strands of glowing, white chains. They erupt from the spot where Lucid stands, shooting out like radiant serpents. They wrap around the wrists, the ankles, the throats of the cloaked cultists, binding them where they stand. The chains are not solid metal, but light given form, and they hold with impossible strength.
The figure standing amidst the bones and the extinguished fire pushes back his hood. Messy hair. A face shrouded in familiar, swirling mist. It is him.
The betrayal, the cold dread, it shatters.
He did not lead me here to die. He did not become one of them. He walked among them. He chanted their words. He let them think he was one of their own. All to get close to the flame and the disturbance around this town. All to save the boy and what's left of the traveller's. He did all of that... despite being able to walk away from it.
My duty my vow to protect had been for nothing. Instead he was fulfilling his own.
He never betrayed me. But I… I have betrayed others. The thought surfaces, unbidden, heavy with guilt I cannot place. *Them.* Who are *they*? The memory is a shadow, but the feeling is a stone in my gut.
Chaos erupts. From the broken arches and shadowed doorways of the cathedral, men pour in. They are clad in polished steel armor, their capes a deep blue, marked with a symbol I do not know. Soldiers. They overrun the place, grabbing the chained cultists, forcing them to the ground.
"By the authority of the Kingdom of Vex, you are all hereby arrested for conspiracy and mass murder!" a commanding voice booms.
"Father!" the little boy screams. A man wearing normal clothes, a civilian accompanying the blue armored guards rushed from the cathedrals gates, sweeping the child into a fierce embrace. The man had reunited with his son.
Lucid looks around the chaotic scene. His eyes, behind the mist, scan the room. They find me.
"There!" a soldier shouts, pointing not at a cultist, but directly at Lucid. "Get that one!"
The guards clad in armor turn. They do not see a savior. They see a masked man standing in the ritual circle, a stranger at the center of a nightmare. They run toward him.
Lucid does not hesitate, he runs toward me.
He reaches my side in moments, his hands are quick on the heavy lock of my shackles. There is a soft *click* of a mechanism, not breaking, but unlocking. He knew how to open it. He pulls me to my feet. My legs are weak, still heavy with the remains of the drug.
"Hold on," he says, his voice his own again, tight with urgency.
He wraps one arm around my waist. With his other hand, he gestures. A single, glowing white chain shoots out from his palm, not to bind, but to anchor. It snakes across the cavernous space and wraps around a thick, wooden beam high in the crumbling rafters.
He pulls while he leaps of the ground.
We are yanked off our feet, soaring up and across the chaotic scene. We swing in a wide, dizzying arc over the heads of shouting soldiers and bewildered cultists. The chain releases its hold at the peak of the swing, and we land, stumbling, in a dark, shadowed alcove near a broken rear wall.
In that moment, clutched against him, flying through the air, I feel a storm of emotions too complex to name. Astonishment. Surprise. A lingering, sharp anger from the blow he gave me. A fierce, warm admiration. Someone like him fragile, loud-hearted, kind had not just saved a boy. He had unmasked a cult, faced a cursed flame, and orchestrated a rescue for travelers disappearances. He had played a dark part perfectly.
But the way he hit me… I cannot let that go. The memory of his fist connecting with my jaw, the blankness in his hidden eyes, the pain it sits beside the awe, a discordant, bitter note. I will have my revenge.
He sets me down, his breathing ragged. He peers out from our hiding spot, watching the soldiers begin to round up the last of the cultists.
"We need to go," he whispers. "Now. Before they decide to ask us too many questions."
He looks at me. "Can you run?"
I meet his gaze, my own face a mask of conflicting feelings. The lingering chain is still cold around my throat, but I am free. He is here. The vow is unbroken. But the taste of betrayal, even if it was false, is still in my mouth, i couldn't help but think this is a coward's act but a noble one too. And the ghost of his punch still aches on my skin.
I nod once, a short, sharp motion.
"I can run."