The first time, he found him seated on a fur-draped chair like some lounging tyrant, legs crossed with inborn elegance, a pile of fabric in his lap. A needle glinted in his fingers, gold thread trailing as sunlight across linen.

  He didn’t even look up.

  Caelus stopped three paces away, armor catching the light like a warning.

  “We’re supposed to go to the farmland.”

  “I’m busy,” Sol said simply.

  “Busy with what?” Said as a challenge.

  “Tending to Camp business.” He hummed with all the grace of a village elder.

  Sol looked up briefly, thread still between his fingers, smile half-formed. The sunlight turned the thin gold strands into liquid, and for a moment his movements had the stillness of ritual.

  He wasn’t doing it for vanity. Every careful stitch was penance for something he couldn’t quite name. He’d shoved the man into cold water earlier, and spent the rest of the evening wrestling with guilt he’d never admit aloud.

  The shirt was his apology, awkward and wordless. He’d pricked his fingers more times than he’d counted.

  Only then did Cael notice what was in his hands.

  Thread. Fabric. A shirt.

  “Is that—are you embroidering?” The knight cringed visibly.

  Sol hummed, threading another careful loop.

  “Shhh.”

  The sound was nearly affectionate.

  “You’ll make me mess it up.”

  Caelus stood there for a heartbeat too long. Then left.

  The second time, Sol was perched atop a boulder, boots kicked off, two children on either side of him braiding flowers and bits of colored ribbon into his hair as if he was some forest bride. One of them laughed when he turned his head. The other called him “King Kitty.”

  Caelus approached slower this time. Grimacing. Bracing.

  “You’re still embroidering?”

  Sol didn’t even open his eyes. “Unlike your ego, this stitchwork has structure.”

  Cael bit the inside of his cheek. “The farmland.”

  “My people are tired,” Sol said, reclining further. “They need to rest.”

  “Rest from what?” Caelus barely held himself.

  This time, Solferen did open his eyes, his slit pupils digging into Cael from under his eyelashes.

  “From you,” he purred.

  A voice rang from behind—Bellas, unmistakable.

  “Ouch.”

  It shouldn’t have hurt. He wasn’t supposed to care. But the words found a place beneath his ribs and lodged there.

  Caelus didn’t reply. He just turned on his heel and walked away. Faster.

  The third time, Sol stood at the cliffs above the camp, watching Anders chuck rocks into the misty void below like he was trying to skip stones across oblivion. He had his arms crossed, back slightly arched, posture lazy—but there was a stillness to him that made Cael pause again.

  He almost didn’t go.

  Almost.

  But he did.

  “It’s too late now,” Sol said before Caelus even opened his mouth.

  “…It’s not even dusk.”

  “Exactly.”

  A pause. No sarcasm. No smirk. Only that same infuriating calm.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Caelus, silenced once again, just stood there. Motionless. Pulse roaring in his ears.

  A vein twitched visibly at his temple.

  Then he exhaled—sharp and slow, a man releasing venom through gritted teeth—and turned away.

  Maybe tomorrow.

  That’s what he was left with.

  That. And a full day wasted in the shadow of a man who would rather embroider shirts and play dress-up with children than obey the Church.

  The camp danced with flickering firelight and the low murmur of evening.

  Smoke curled up from cookfires, wrapping the air in the scent of charred meat and damp earth. Laughter echoed. Steel clinked. Someone was snoring against a tree.

  Caelus moved through it all like a shadow cast in the wrong direction—rigid, overdressed, overarmed.

  He hated it here.

  Worse—he was starting to recognize the routines.

  He was starting to understand the people. The rhythms. The jokes.

  And that? That unsettled him more than any beast lurking in the woods.

  He passed a few mercenaries huddled around a pot. One of them looked up, nodded, then went back to picking bones from his teeth.

  They weren’t laughing at him.

  Not this time.

  That should have brought him peace.

  It didn’t.

  Peace meant acceptance. Acceptance meant belonging. And belonging meant—what? That he was one of them?

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Gross.

  He kept walking.

  But then something made him stop dead in his tracks.

  From the shadows at the edge of the clearing, something moved.

  Something… wrong.

  A shape emerged from the tree line—graceful, but heavy. Its hide was black as wet ink, its steps unnervingly quiet. Muscles rolled beneath its skin like water trying to mimic flesh—a four-legged beast, sleek and predatory. The flickering torches caught on something wet dripping from its mouth. Something red.

  Caelus stiffened, every inch of his body locking into combat mode.

  His hand flew to his sword.

  “What, in all the creatures of the Pit, is that?” His voice cut through the murmuring conversations around the fire.

  A few heads turned, but no one reacted with the urgency he expected.

  The creature stalked into the light, its unnervingly feline movements at complete odds with its equine frame.

  It had fangs. Actual fangs. And clamped in its bloodied maw was something’s ribcage, stripped clean.

  Caelus recoiled, gesturing at the thing. “Are you just letting magical beasts wander into the camp now?!”

  Someone glanced up from their meal. Didn’t even blink.

  “Not horse.”

  No elaboration.

  Caelus turned sharply, his heart speeding up.

  “I can see as much!” He snapped “That’s all you have to say?!”

  The man shrugged, tossing a bone into the fire. “What? You’re new here.”

  Cael gritted his teeth so hard they screeched. “You can’t seriously expect me to ignore that thing—”

  “What is your problem now, templar? It’s grazing! Horses do that.” A voice nearby, casual and cruel.

  “Y’know, he’s been here long before you were.” Another, chimed in lazily from the other side of the fire. “And compared to you, he’s a good boy.”

  Caelus slowly turned his head, every nerve in his body coiled tight. His hand was still on his hilt. “Come again?”

  The creature—the not-horse—walked straight to other horses as if it belonged there, lowered its head to gnaw lazily on what Caelus was now certain was a human rib bone. Its ears flicked, unbothered.

  Then its eyes found him, no whites, only slitted deep blue.

  For a moment, he felt seen.

  Not watched. Seen.

  Judged.

  It didn’t blink. Just stared. Like it knew him.

  Like it recognized the part of him he spent his life trying to burn clean.

  Cold slid down his spine, a perfect, deliberate touch—as if the creature’s gaze had weight.

  Solferen stepped into the firelight.

  Same stride. Same unnatural stillness between movements. A beast pretending to be a man.

  The not-horse’s ears shot upright like a hound spotting its master’s steps.

  Its head rose, alerted. Its lizard-like, long tail gave one small wave.

  “There’s my boy,” Sol crooned gently, the kind of voice that didn’t belong in a mercenary camp.

  “You’ve been gone for days.” He opened his arms as though expecting an embrace.

  The creature answered. Immediately.

  Its entire posture shifted from predator to partner.

  It trotted forward gleefully and rammed its head into viper’s chest with all the affection it can muster—careful not to hit him with its two small, curved horns, one stacked above the other.

  Caelus refused to breathe.

  Sol staggered, laughing. Wrapped both arms around its bloodied face, undisturbed by smearing his arms with gore.

  He pressed a kiss just behind its ear.

  Whispered something in a tongue that sounded like music rotted with time.

  Something old. Almost Elvish. Crooked. Feral. A language Cael didn’t recognize.

  He felt the vibration in his ribs before he understood it was sound.

  “Khaliin ossen, vahn oraen.”

  He ran his hands over its neck, wiping the blood away with slow, reverent strokes. The creature—massive, terrible, fanged creature—pressed into his touch like a child begging affection, eyes closed.

  Caelus could only watch. Horrified. Enchanted.

  It was wrong.

  And beautiful.

  There was love there. Unmistakable. A bond so intense it felt wrong to witness. It felt like watching a god embrace his own curse.

  “Careful staring too long.” Came a soft voice beside him.

  Cael jolted. Belladonna had appeared beside him, arms crossed, dress rustling softly.

  Her violet eyes were trained on the pair—Sol and the beast—with a look Cael couldn’t decipher. Something between tenderness and sorrow.

  “That’s a Velmari Strider,” she said, like she was telling a bedtime story. “People used to call them cursed unicorns. Most were hunted down when the borderlands burned.”

  She tilted her head as the not-horse gently nudged Sol’s chest again, receiving a chuckle in return. “No idea where this one came from.”

  Cael looked at her, confused and lost.

  “They say,” Bella continued, her voice soft, almost dreamy, “that when they bond with someone, it’s like their souls link. Rider and beast. They communicate on feeling alone.”

  She lingered.

  Then added, almost too casually.

  “But then again, legends say only demons can ride them.”

  She smiled then—not unkindly, not kindly either. Just someone delivering a truth she knew Caelus didn’t want to hear. But somehow that last part made the most sense for the templar.

  He said nothing. She didn’t need a response.

  “So… Take that how you will.” She didn’t leave right away.

  Simply stood beside him, quietly. Watching.

  Only when Sol leaned his forehead against the creature’s and murmured something too quiet to hear did she finally walk away.

  Cael remained frozen, sword still half-drawn, heart hammering like he’d just glimpsed something he was not supposed to survive.

  So THAT’S what he meant when he said his horse is lost in the forest. He should have expected no less than a freakshow.

  And now he was rethinking every decision that led him to this point in his life.

  That night, the fire crackled softly.

  The mercenaries laughed somewhere behind him. Someone strummed a broken lute. Distantly, someone else cursed while butchering the last of the boar.

  But Caelus just sat there. Still in his armor. Still in borrowed oversized clothes underneath. Still rattled by what he’d seen.

  One day. Just one day without a reality-questioning disaster—apparently too much to ask for.

  The images wouldn’t leave his mind.

  The way the beast leaned into Sol’s touch.

  The way Sol smiled like the creature was his only tether to this world.

  He tried prayer once—murmured half-remembered lines under his breath—but the words felt foreign now, brittle in his mouth. The only image that came to him was Sol’s hand against the creature’s neck, and that didn’t fit in any scripture he knew.

  ‘Only demons can ride them.’

  Bella’s words clung to him.

  And yet—what he’d seen didn’t look demonic.

  It looked like loyalty.

  Like adoration.

  Like... love.

  Caelus didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

  He sat by the fire with his knees drawn up and his pride crumbling quietly beneath him.

  Until Nolan dropped down beside him, drink in one hand, lopsided grin already in place. “Oh, by the way.”

  Caelus blinked.

  A soft fwump landed in his lap.

  A shirt.

  Simple. Soft. Light blue.

  This one was perfectly folded.

  The hem glimmered in the firelight with golden thread, turning it into sunlight—delicate embroidery trailing in familiar, holy patterns.

  He stared at it like it might catch fire.

  “…It that my shirt?” He asked, voice quieter than he meant it to be.

  “Mhm.” Nolan raised his cup in mock salute.

  “The Mercenary King says you’re welcome.”

  Caelus didn’t respond.

  He just stared.

  At the needlework.

  At the glint of gold.

  At the thread that traced symbols he’d sworn to die for.

  This wasn’t teasing.

  This wasn’t mockery.

  This was worse.

  Because Sol had taken the time.

  Because Sol had remembered.

  Because now his faith was folded into a gesture he didn’t understand.

  And somewhere beneath all the confusion, all the frustration, all the fury—

  His heart skipped a beat.

  This was some new level of torture.

  His thumb brushed the edge of the thread—barely. And still, it felt like a betrayal.

  To whom? The Light didn’t answer.