The room was still trembling.
Not because of the shattered window.
Not because of the residual mana.
Not even because of Aiden's earlier burst of power.
No.
It trembled because the Saintess—this gentle, luminous creature the Church presented as heaven's answer to humanity—was finally unraveling.
And everyone could feel it.
The women kept their distance now—not out of fear of the Saintess, but because they'd never seen Aiden hold someone like this. Not as a lover. Not as a tease.
But as if she were something fragile.
Something breakable.
Something important.
Her tears soaked into his robes.
They were hot.
Painful.
And so silent they felt louder than screams.
She wasn't sobbing like a child.
She wasn't wailing.
She wasn't pleading.
She was breaking quietly.
And quiet things were the ones that shattered the hardest.
Aiden held her until the trembling lessened—until she was no longer in danger of collapsing again.
