The wind howled behind him.
Ash clung to Rein's skin like soot-laced sweat, stinging his eyes, drying his lips. He didn't know how long he'd been running since Zeraka vanished into the haze with that grin that haunted him more than her growl.
"Next time I catch you… I'm not letting you sleep in your own bed."
Her voice still echoed in his ribs.
But she hadn't followed.
Not yet.
Which was worse.
He crested a ridge, legs trembling, boots slick with black mud, and stumbled into a clearing that made him stop short.
A half-buried cathedral stretched before him.
Overgrown and cracked, its marble bones jutted out from the ash and moss like a fossil trying to resurrect itself.
Vines thick as his arm crawled across shattered stained glass.
A spire lay collapsed, half-swallowed by the earth.
Crows roosted in the empty window arches, silent and still.
But the air… the air hummed.
Low. Like a breath held by something older than speech.
Rein staggered toward it.
He didn't think. He just moved.
The broken archway yawned open, a jagged wound of holy stone.
Inside, the light dimmed.
The heat dropped.
The scent of blood and ash faded into something sweeter—clover, candle smoke, rain-soaked parchment.
It didn't feel safe.
It felt like being watched by a cathedral that had once been a god.
Still, he walked down the center aisle.
The pews were long gone, replaced by thorny roots and wild moss.
But the altar remained—weathered, cracked, and lined with glowing scripture he couldn't read.
Above it, a tattered banner fluttered, marked with a symbol long faded: a winged sword piercing a black sun.
Rein stopped in front of the altar.
His fingers brushed the edge.
Crack.
A sharp thorn from the ivy cut his palm.
He hissed and drew back, staring at the fresh blood pooling in his hand.
One drop.
Two.
It dripped onto the altar stone.
And vanished.
Not absorbed. Not stained.
Consumed.
The air snapped tight.
A low vibration shuddered through the floor, through his knees, his ribs.
The script on the altar began to glow—faint gold, then brighter, brighter—until the entire altar pulsed with light, humming like a choir made of bells and thunder.
Rein stepped back.
The stone split down the center.
The vines recoiled. The moss shriveled. The very ground trembled as if the bones of the building were shifting.
Then a voice whispered from beneath.
"You came back."
It was soft.
Feminine.
Joyful.
"My light. My love. My sanctum."
Rein's blood ran cold.
"My husband."
The altar cracked open fully.
And from the depths below rose a figure—glowing, floating, arms wide and hair flowing like moonlit water.
A golden crown hovered broken above her head.
Her armor gleamed with celestial fire, but her smile—
Her smile was cracked porcelain wrapped in longing.
She opened her eyes.
And they were pure white.
"Seraphael," she said, placing her hand over her heart. "Bride of the Sun. Paladin of the Ninth Heaven. And your first wife."
Rein's mouth opened.
But no words came out.
Not another one.