Candriela waited. Three hours. Her hands were clasped so tight her knuckles had gone pale, but she didn’t notice. The room the Valval Priesthood had assigned her was far too pristine, too silent, a place designed for obedience. The candles burned evenly, the sheets on the bed were white enough to blind, and outside, through the barred window, she could see the faint shimmer of the Sanctum’s outer lights shifting in steady rhythm. Every few seconds, they pulsed, as if the building itself was breathing.

  She couldn’t sleep. Not because she feared the priests or their soldiers, she’d killed enough men to stop feeling that sort of fear, but because her mind refused to quiet. Every breath was her sister’s name. Every flicker of light a cruel imitation of Virea’s presence.

  When the silence became unbearable, she stood. The faint creak of the floorboards under her boots sounded like thunder in the dead corridor. She waited, counted her heartbeats, and then opened the door just enough to let a line of torchlight fall across her face.

  The hallway was empty.

  Candriela moved like a shadow. She knew how to silence her steps, how to glide with her weight on the outer edges of her feet. Once, she had learned that trick to avoid waking a wounded comrade. Now she used it to betray a promise.

  She walked past two iron doors, each marked with a crest of the Light: a circle enclosed within a square, lines radiating outward. The deeper she went, the colder the air became, until her breath began to mist. Somewhere, deep below, machinery hummed, soft but insistent, like a mechanical prayer.

  Her fingers brushed the walls as she descended a narrow spiral staircase, rough stone slick with condensation. The Sanctum was older than Dromo itself, or so the priests claimed. In truth, it smelled of rust and human hands, a relic built by men who had pretended to be gods.

  At the bottom of the staircase was a wooden door. It looked harmless, even fragile, its surface scarred by time. But from behind it came a low vibration, not the hum of machines now, but something subtler. A pulse.

  Candriela hesitated. Her chest tightened, and for the first time since she’d entered, she considered turning back. But she had come too far. She pushed the door open.

  What she saw hollowed her breath.

  Virea was there.

  Her sister hung suspended several feet above the floor, held in place by a lattice of chains that glowed faintly from within. Dozens of thin tubes coiled from her body into the walls, some embedded into her arms, others into her chest, one cruelly threaded into her scalp, disappearing beneath a nest of pale, matted hair. Her eyes were half-open but vacant, their light dulled to an empty sheen.

  She looked ancient. Not simply aged, but eroded, as though every second of her life had been scraped away with a blade. The once-vibrant woman who had laughed at the edges of battlefields now looked like a ghost stretched too thin to stay whole.

  Candriela’s lips trembled. She stepped closer, one hand rising instinctively, as if she could shield her sister from the sight of her own suffering. “Virea…” The word barely escaped her throat.

  Virea didn’t respond.

  Tears came, slow at first, then uncontrollable. Candriela didn’t cry when comrades fell, when towns burned, when she buried men she’d trained since they were boys. But now, seeing this, something tore open inside her.

  She knelt. Not in reverence, but collapse. Her hand brushed the cold floor, searching for something to hold on to.

  A voice came from behind her.

  “I kept my promise,” said Jacobo.

  Candriela turned sharply. The Grand Vicar stood in the doorway, his robes uncreased, his face illuminated by the faint blue of the tubes. He didn’t carry guards, nor did he seem armed. He simply stood there, as if witnessing a ceremony.

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  Candriela’s grief twisted into fury. “You kept nothing,” she hissed. “You desecrated her.”

  Jacobo tilted his head slightly. “She lives. That, in itself, is a rarity in these times.”

  Candriela rose, fists clenched. “You call this living? Look at her!”

  “I have,” Jacobo said quietly. “Every morning for years. She is… remarkable.”

  Candriela took a step toward him. “I will kill you for this.”

  He didn’t flinch. “Perhaps. But before you do, you should know what it is you’re about to destroy.”

  Candriela paused, blade still sheathed at her hip. The calm in his voice wasn’t arrogance; it was something else: certainty.

  Jacobo walked closer, the hem of his robe brushing against the damp floor. “Your sister was the first conduit we ever found. We didn’t understand it at first. The Light… it doesn’t obey men, but it resonates with them. It answers only to those whose hearts are fractured in a particular way. We called it Grace, though she preferred the term ‘Echo.’”

  Candriela’s jaw tightened. “Stop talking like she volunteered for this.”

  “Oh, she did not,” Jacobo said. “Not at first. But the Light changes those who carry it. It makes them need purpose. Without purpose, it burns them alive. You must have noticed the signs, the shaking, the sleeplessness, the fever that never breaks. The same symptoms your friend Gemma struggles with, yes?”

  Candriela’s eyes widened slightly.

  Jacobo smiled faintly. “Ah. I see you’ve heard of her. Another vessel, though far less disciplined. She has something your sister never did, doubt. That is why the Light resists her.”

  He turned his gaze toward Virea’s suspended form. “Virea learned to surrender. To let the Light flow through her without question. It’s what allows us to channel her strength without killing her. Every beam of faith that keeps this Sanctum alive… passes through her veins.”

  Candriela shook her head. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?” Jacobo spread his arms, looking up at the tubes glowing faintly in the dark. “You feel it, don’t you? The air humming around us. The sanctity people sense when they pray in the upper halls. That peace is not divine. It’s borrowed.”

  Candriela drew her blade. “Then I’ll cut the source and end your borrowed peace.”

  “Go ahead,” Jacobo said. His tone was calm, even welcoming. “But you should know, those tubes you see in her body, they do not merely feed energy into her. They also feed from her. Remove them incorrectly, and her mind will implode. A clean death is something she’s long been denied.”

  Candriela froze. Her weapon hovered midair. “You’re bluffing.”

  Jacobo smiled sadly. “You wish I were.”

  The sound of the chains filled the silence, faint creaks as Virea’s body shifted slightly, perhaps stirred by their voices, or perhaps by nothing at all.

  Jacobo approached the center of the chamber, keeping his distance from Candriela. “I didn’t summon you here for cruelty, Lady Candriela. I meant it when I said I could let her go.”

  Candriela spat the words. “Why would you ever do that?”

  “Because the world is changing,” Jacobo replied. “The Knights of Light grow bolder. Alexander plays his games of politics, thinking himself unseen. The rebellion festers. I need stability, not chaos. Your sister was once the bridge between both sides. She knew how to temper power with understanding. You could do the same.”

  Candriela stared at him, disbelief and disgust twisting her expression. “You want me to work for you.”

  “I want peace,” Jacobo said. “And peace requires compromise. Help me shape it, and I will free her. Not as an enemy. As a sister returned.”

  Candriela’s breathing was uneven now. The tears had dried, replaced by a trembling rage that had nowhere to go.

  Jacobo’s gaze softened. “You have fought your whole life, haven’t you? For honor, for justice, for something you could never quite define. But I see exhaustion in your eyes, Candriela. You are tired. What if the Light could relieve you of that burden?”

  “I don’t want your Light,” she said.

  He smiled faintly. “You already have it. All of you do. You just haven’t realized how deep it runs.”

  She took a step back, sword still raised. “If you think I’ll...”

  Jacobo raised a hand gently. “No threats. Not tonight. I only ask that you think. You will decide what peace means to you. And I will decide what it means to keep my word. I have a plan for you both.”

  The words lingered like smoke.

  Candriela’s eyes went to Virea again. The faint rise and fall of her chest, the translucent skin stretched over bones, the way her fingers twitched every few breathsm signs of life, yes, but life twisted into endurance.

  “I need something for you,” Jacobo said softly. “Do that, and your sister will be free”

  She went to Virea and touched her sister’s arm. It was cold, not the cold of death, but the cold of something drained too long. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m going to fix this. Somehow.”

  No answer.

  A single tear fell, landing on the metal clasp that held one of the tubes. It hissed faintly, as if the Light itself recognized her defiance.