The city of Sbelto was burning.

  Smoke moved like breath between the narrow streets, rising from the plaza where the fountain had turned black. The hymn of the Light had broken into screams and clanging steel. The rhythm of faith had become the rhythm of death.

  Aros pushed through it all, blade in hand, breath sharp, heart steady.Every movement was clean, deliberate. Each strike felt inevitable.

  He had forgotten what this felt like, the terrible, exhilarating clarity of battle. For years he had fought out of duty, out of necessity, but this was different. He enjoyed it. The chaos, the control, the heat of decision in the span of a heartbeat, it was a language he had always spoken better than peace.

  A Custodian lunged from the left, armor glinting through the smoke. Aros stepped aside and cut low, the blade slicing through the man's thigh and up through his hip. The soldier collapsed with a sound like split wood. Blood spattered across the cobblestones, steaming in the cold air.

  He didn't stop to watch him fall.

  The square was an inferno of motion, Rethal's soldiers advancing in disciplined wedges while the white-armored Custodians broke into fragments, shouting prayers that dissolved into panic. The black water from the fountain ran through the gutters like veins, darkening everything it touched.

  Aros drove forward, using the momentum of the crowd. He struck, parried, kicked a man down the church steps, then turned to deflect another blow. His muscles sang with pain and purpose.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Digiera: wild, grinning, her blade flashing in arcs of silver and flame. She laughed as she fought, a sharp, unholy sound that cut through the battle like song. For a moment, Aros envied her. There was no doubt in her. Only motion.

  He turned just in time to see Latis fall.

  The young archer was sprawled across a vendor's cart, an arrow buried deep in his throat. His eyes were still open, reflecting the fire. His hand clutched his bow as if refusing to let go of it even in death.

  Aros stopped beside him only long enough to whisper something that wasn't a prayer."You did well."

  Then he moved on.

  Around him, the fight was tilting, Rethal's men closing the gates, Talon's squad forcing the Choir procession into chaos, smoke rising from the carts that once carried incense. The air itself shimmered with heat, light, and fear.

  Sbelto was dying beautifully.

  And then he saw her.

  Through the smoke, Gemma was in the lower street, back against a house, her white hair almost luminous in the chaos. Five soldiers circled her. One grabbed her wrist, another closed in with a blade. She fired an arrow that grazed one, then another that struck armor and ricocheted.

  Aros's blood ran cold.

  He didn't think. He ran.

  He tore through the melee, cutting a path of blood and cloth. His blade found ribs, throats, joints. He felt every impact in his arm, every fracture in the edge. He didn't care. He only saw her, a small figure trapped among men who would break her like they broke anything they feared.

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  "Hold the square!" someone shouted behind him.He ignored it.

  He vaulted over a toppled statue, the marble saints now stained red. He shoved a dying soldier aside and slammed his shoulder through the wooden door of the house Gemma had entered. It burst open with a crack of splinters.

  Inside, the air was thick with dust and candle smoke. A beam of light cut through a broken window, slicing across the ruined room. Furniture was overturned; a bookcase lay smashed against the wall. The floorboards were slick with blood.

  Gemma was in the corner, still and pale, her bow at her feet. Her eyes were open but empty, unfocused, as if she was somewhere else entirely. The soldiers surrounded her, blades raised.

  Aros didn't shout. He moved.

  The first soldier turned, too slow. Aros's sword went clean through his neck, shearing halfway to the spine. He kicked the body away, pivoted, and met the second with a parry that jarred his arm to the shoulder. He twisted, drove the pommel into the man's jaw, and cut him open at the collar.

  The third came from behind. Aros spun, caught the blade on his gauntlet, felt it bite through leather and skin, and drove his sword backward through the man's gut. The soldier gasped, eyes wide, then folded over Aros's shoulder and crumpled to the floor.

  Silence.

  For a moment, the only sound was Gemma's shallow breathing.

  Aros turned, still panting, the sweat cold on his neck. "Gemma," he said.She didn't move.

  He crossed the room, stepping over the fallen men, and crouched before her.Her eyes flicked toward him at last, dazed, trembling.

  "You're safe," he said, softer now. "It's over."

  She blinked, as if trying to wake from a dream. Her lips parted but no words came.

  He reached out and pulled her into his arms. Her body was shaking, not from fear, but from exhaustion, shock, something deeper. He felt her breath against his neck, quick and uneven. For an instant, the chaos outside faded.

  He had been protecting her for years. In that single heartbeat, he let himself believe it had meant something. That maybe, just maybe, he had done enough.

  He didn't see the movement behind him.

  A shadow crossed the doorway, one of the Priesthood soldiers, burned and bleeding, but not dead. His sword trembled in his hand as he stepped into the light. His armor was cracked, his eyes wild, his mouth muttering something that might once have been a prayer.

  Aros sensed it too late.

  The sound was sharp, a hiss of metal through flesh.For a moment, he didn't feel pain, only pressure.

  He looked down. The tip of the blade had come clean through his abdomen, the steel slick and red. The soldier behind him grunted, twisting the hilt. The heat of it spread through Aros's body like fire under the skin.

  Gemma gasped, a sound torn from her lungs, and tried to reach him, but he held her back with one hand, steady even as blood poured from him.

  The soldier's breath rasped in his ear. "The Light... sees you."

  Aros turned, slow, deliberate, and met the man's eyes. There was no fear there, only contempt. "Then tell it," he rasped, "it's too late."

  He drove his elbow back, crushing the soldier's nose with a sickening crack, then twisted free. The blade tore from his body in a spray of blood. Aros swung once, clean, precise, and split the man open from collarbone to chest.

  The soldier fell.

  Aros staggered, leaning on the wall. The pain came rushing in now, white-hot, total. His hands were slick, his breath shallow. He could feel the warmth spilling out of him, soaking through the cloth beneath the armor.

  Gemma was crying, holding his arm, trying to keep him upright. "Aros..."

  He smiled faintly, blood on his lips. "Don't... don't stop now."

  Outside, the battle still raged, the sound of swords, of fire, of men screaming the names of gods that had already abandoned them.

  Aros took one breath, then another. The world tilted.

  "You'll be fine," he whispered.

  Then the strength left his legs.

  He fell to his knees, the sword slipping from his hand. The light from the broken window caught the blade's edge as it hit the floor, and for a moment it gleamed, not gold, not divine, just metal, cold and honest.

  "And you too..."Gemma said.

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