When Vivian drifted back to consciousness, she mistook the absence of pain for Paradise.

  The agony that usually clung to her marrow was gone, replaced by a warmth as docile as a lamb. She felt weightless, like a cicada that had just shed its heavy, earthen husk.

  She nuzzled her cheek greedily against the pillow, trying to linger in this painless dream.

  But memory shattered like stained glass, shards raining down into her mind: the Holy Fire breaching its containment, the all-consuming torture, and... the kiss.

  That kiss. Tasting of iron rust and cool mint.

  In that moment, Guardian and Mortal had fused. This was the ultimate mystery: God is Man, and Man is God.

  She sat up abruptly, fingers ghosting over her lips. The force that had dragged her back from the inferno seemed to still pulse there.

  "The Guardian... has returned."

  She slid off the bed, gathered her skirts, and ran barefoot out of the chamber.

  But she did not find the yawning Guardian. Beyond the empty corridor, in the small garden, she found only Mother Mora, hunched in her wheelchair, back turned to the world.

  "Where is the Guardian?" Vivian scanned the garden. "I need to serve him..."

  Mora turned. Her brow was a knot of tension, her nasolabial folds carved deep like scars.

  "He is not here, Vivian."

  Vivian’s heart hammered. "Did he run away again?"

  "No. The Privy Council took him." Mora’s voice was gravel. "Two days ago, while you slept. The Silver Knights stormed in and threw him in the dungeon. The charge is 'Heresy.'"

  Vivian froze. Then, a laugh bubbled up from her throat.

  "Heresy? They chain a True God and call him a heretic? Have those blind fools lost their minds?"

  Mora refused to meet her eyes, staring instead at the great oak. "They say a Lower City man named Oba accused your Guardian of being a drug dealer scamming The Drop. They claim he put Oba's son in a coma. They claim... he has killed many believers."

  "Impossible!" Vivian lurched forward. "I will go to the High Priest! I will scream the truth! He is suffering for me!"

  "Stop!"

  Mora clamped a hand onto Vivian’s wrist. "Vivian! Think! Crow has gone to investigate. If you run out there raving now, you will only hasten his execution!"

  Vivian halted. Slowly, she peeled Mora’s fingers from her arm.

  Time stretched, viscous and slow.

  The prayer room was unlit, illuminated only by candles and the cold starlight overhead. The crackle of wicks and the cloying scent of incense filled the air.

  She knelt on the obsidian floor, palms pressed together.

  Before her loomed the statue of the Silver Mother.

  "How perfect you are..."

  She remembered the day of her canonization.

  She was still in the First Sanctum then. Surrounded by Mothers, Cardinals, and Lamplighters. They looked at her just as they looked at this statue: a fragile, holy, exquisite vessel to be polished and preserved.

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  No one dared disobey her. No one dared look her in the eye.

  She was enshrined high on the altar, walled in by flowers and cold incense. They feared her "Miracle," not her.

  It wasn't until her exile to the Third Sanctum that she became something resembling a living creature. Only because Mora and Crow refused to abandon her did she retain the title of Fire Keeper.

  They never said it, but Vivian knew.

  This was her home. She was the daughter of this house.

  And now, her Guardian had come home too.

  Vivian closed her eyes, a tender, unseen smile gracing her lips.

  He was different. He didn't kneel; he led. He looked at her with criticism, scrutiny, even... disdain.

  He called her a lunatic. He told her to scram. He rejected her service, pushing her away with rude hands.

  He had a mortal side. She had suspected him, despised him.

  But when the fire consumed her, when she was melting into light, he was the one who held her.

  It was the first time he had actively reached for her.

  "Oh, Silver Mother..." Vivian looked up, tears sliding silently down her face. "Is this your grace? To let a God who respects no gods give me the love of a mortal?"

  They are mistaken. He is no heretic. He is a God pretending to be a man, or a Man who became God. The blind cannot understand the sighted.

  Footsteps. Crow and Mora.

  Crow looked wrecked. Half his face was swathed in bandages oozing blood—the glory of the Holy Fire’s kiss—but his posture was rigid steel.

  "How is the Guardian?" Vivian abandoned all decorum, her voice trembling.

  Crow’s voice was a low rasp. "The Privy Council has Oba's testimony. Other believers have corroborated it. Even a low-ranking Lamplighter turned state’s witness."

  He paused, his single eye boring into Vivian’s chest.

  "Your Highness, stop calling him Guardian. His name is Leo. He is a dealer who diluted The Drop to survive his own supply. He deceived me. He deceived Mora. He deceived you. He is no Unstained One. No Savior. He is a mercenary, back-alley quack."

  CRASH.

  Vivian grabbed a heavy gold candlestick and smashed it at Crow’s feet.

  "Silence! You blind crow!"

  She shook with the fury of blasphemy.

  "If he is fake, then who calmed the Holy Fire? Who saved you? Did you save yourself?"

  Crow did not flinch. He glanced coldly at Mora, then locked eyes with Vivian.

  "He didn't save you." Crow’s voice was terrifyingly steady. "You thought he saved you."

  "What?"

  "It was your mind..." Crow said, delivering the truth with suppressed brutality. "That liar's arrival shook your faith, causing the Ark to leak. In the critical moment, it was your duty as the 'Seraph of Blazing Flame,' your miracle of Endurance that contained the Ark. He... was just a bystander."

  He took a step closer. In that lone eye, Vivian saw not just indifference, but a deep, resolve-hardened sorrow.

  "Wake up, Your Highness. That lowborn man used you. He cannot help you walk the Lunar Rite. He will only destroy you."

  "This is... preposterous!" Vivian swayed, dizzy.

  The Ark inside her sensed her rage and hummed.

  A stream of ghost-blue plasma flowed from her fingertips, scorching a black scar into the obsidian floor.

  "Your Highness, endure!" Mora lunged, pinning Vivian’s hand. "This is not the time for debate! Crow and I will find a way—"

  Vivian ignored Mora. She stared dead at Crow—her most loyal Gatekeeper.

  "Crow. Why do you harbor such hostility toward Lord Leo? Why must you deny his miracle?"

  Crow was silent for a long time. Finally, he whispered, "Because I hoped... it would be me. Not that man. I hoped I would be your Shadow Servant, to walk the path of the Rite with you."

  "Insolence! Arrogance!" Mora hissed.

  But Vivian understood.

  She looked at Mora’s shifting eyes. At Crow’s desperate rigidity. She suddenly realized that this Sanctum was built on secrets she had never been told.

  They are hiding something. Plotting something.

  But none of that mattered.

  In that moment, the fear of losing the Guardian crushed every rule she had ever been taught.

  "Enough!"

  Vivian raised her hand. Holy Fire danced on her palm—a precise, terrifying control she had never displayed before.

  "I don't care about your plots. I don't care about the Privy Council's evidence."

  She looked at Mora, and a smile broke across her face.

  "Mother, you always taught me to Endure."

  She made a fist, then splayed her fingers, sending a pillar of blue fire shooting toward the ceiling.

  "But I have endured enough."

  Mora’s face drained of blood.

  "Do not speak to me of the Lunar Rite." Vivian’s voice was a chant in the wind. "If I cannot protect my own Master, what use is protecting this fire? Even if I burn away the source of darkness... without him, I will light the Holy Fire right here. I will light the sky for the entire Silver Ring to see."

  Thud.

  Mora fell to her knees.

  This Mother Superior, a veteran of a thousand power struggles, looked up with the primal fear of total annihilation.

  "Vivian... you are blaspheming the Holy Fire!"

  A flicker of panic crossed Vivian's heart. Yes. She was holding the Sanctum hostage with her holy mission.

  She immediately knelt, facing the void.

  "Oh Supreme One, I have sinned."

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, but her eyes hardened into diamonds.

  But... I will take him back. Even if I have to burn this world to ash, I will not hesitate.

  【Post-Chapter Log: Dr. Leo's Crisis】

  Status: Detained.

  Log Entry:

  Author into writing an Engagement Ceremony for us?

  Wait.

  her.

  — Dr. Leo