“I killed her.” The words come out between sobs. “I actually—she was—I?—”
“You saved my life.” I hold her tight, feel her shaking against me. “You made a choice. The hardest choice there is. And you chose right.”
“I don’t feel right. I feel?—”
“I know.” I pull back enough to meet her eyes. “You’ll feel wrong for a long time. That’s normal. That’s human. But you’re alive, Circe. And so am I. Because of what you did.”
She nods. Can’t speak. Just holds onto me with the desperate grip of someone who has discovered what violence actually costs.
Which is when Zrynok finds us—standing over Maret’s body while smoke rises from the burning pews.
He doesn’t ask for details. Just takes in the scene with a single glance—the body at the altar’s base, Circe’s shaking form, my bloodied blade still clutched in my hand—and takes charge.
“We need to move. The fire’s spreading.”
He takes Circe’s other arm, supporting her so I don’t have to carry her alone. We move toward the chapel’s rear exit—theservants’ entrance, narrow but passable. The smoke thickens with every step. The flames climb higher. Behind us, the altar catches fire, the blood-stained marble cracking from the heat.
The courtyard is chaos when we emerge.
Survivors stream toward the monastery’s outer wall, guided by Cael and the handful of freed prisoners capable of walking. Lady Marceline coordinates from the wall’s base, directing traffic with the calm efficiency of someone who has managed far worse crises. The fire has spread beyond the chapel now—consuming the east wing, licking at the tower where we found her cell.
“Move!” I grab Circe’s arm, guide her toward the fleeing survivors. “Everyone move now! Head for the tree line!”
She stumbles. Catches herself. Looks back at me with eyes too haunted for seventeen years old.
“Go with them.” I press her forward, find a woman who looks steady enough to help. “Don’t stop until you reach the trees.”
They go. I turn back toward the burning monastery.
Zrynok is supposed to be right behind me. He said he was checking the cells, making sure no one was left behind. But the main structure is fully engulfed now—flames pouring from the windows, the roof collapsing in places.
If anyone is still inside?—
He emerges from the smoke like a demon rising from hell.
Blood and soot cover him from head to toe. His armor is scorched, his sword notched and dulled. Burns mark his arms where flying sparks found gaps in his protection. And beneath the grime, beneath the exhaustion, his skin shows the dark flush I’ve learned to recognize: the infection still running hard, the chapel spores having compounded what Maret’s shattered vial already seeded in the staircase. He is upright. He is moving. But the Bloom has taken its price.
The open air is already helping—I can see it in the steadying of his stride, the way the flush beneath his skin cools as he moves away from the building. The staircase exposure wasn’t enough to break him. The chapel wasn’t enough either. But it has cost him something, and his body is still paying the bill.
I run to him.
He catches me before I can crash into him fully. His arms wrap around me—bruising, desperate, the embrace of someone who isn’t sure we’ll both survive. I press my face against his chest and breathe in smoke and blood and the particular scent that’s just him.
“Everyone’s out.” His voice rumbles through his chest. “The cells were empty. The basement was clear.”
“Then it’s done.”
“It’s done.”
Behind us, the monastery screams—stone cracking, beams collapsing, centuries of horror finally being consumed by flame. The Thornwood waits beyond the outer wall, dark and twisted and more welcoming than any palace.
We don’t separate. Just turn, his arm around my shoulders, my arm around his waist, and walk toward the trees.
We catch up with the survivors half a mile from the monastery.
Cael has organized a rough camp in a clearing—far enough that the fire’s glow is just a distant orange smear on the horizon, close enough that we can still smell the smoke. The wounded are being tended. The able-bodied are gathering supplies from the forest.
Lady Marceline sits on a fallen log, the documents from the Abbot’s hidden chamber clutched to her chest. When she sees us approach, her expression shifts from worry to relief.
