I pushthe steel doors open without knocking.
The temple interior is cool and dim, filled with the faint scent of incense and polished stone. My footsteps echo sharply as I move down the central aisle, my pulse pounding in my ears louder than the silence around me.
Father Orrick stands near the altar.
He turns as I approach, his expression as calm as always.
Completely unreadable. For a fleeting moment I wonder if I am wrong. If this confrontation will end in embarrassment instead of fury.
Then I spot the tension in his shoulders.
“You took it,” I say.
I do not bother with greetings or pleasantries. My voice trembles, but the words leave me steady and sharp.
His gaze softens with something that almost looks like sadness.
“Yes.”
The admission lands like a blow.
“Why?” The word tears out of me.
He gawks at me for a long moment before answering. “Because you do not understand what you created.”
My hands clench into fists. “Then you could have spoken to me.”
“You would not have listened.” he clicks his tongue.
“You didn’t give me the chance!”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and brittle.
“I did what I had to do,” he says quietly.
“You have the ability to make these monsters disappear from the face of the earth,”
Anger surges hot and fierce through my chest. “You stole from me.”
“I secured a weapon.” he voices with certainty. The word hits like ice.
“It isn’t a weapon.”
“It will be,” he replies. “Everything powerful becomes one eventually.”
I watch him, trying to reconcile this man with the gentle priest who blesses newborns and comforts grieving families.
“What happened to you?” I ask softly.
The question breaks something open in his expression. For the first time since I arrived, his composure cracks.
“My family lived near the southern border,” he says slowly. “Before Bellmere. Before the temple. Before I understood how cruel this world truly is.”
His voice grows distant, as though he is speaking from a place far away.
“One night the forests began to sing. We thought it was beautiful at first. We stepped outside to listen.”
My breath catches.
