The image haunted him—more than the corpses, more than the battle, more than even the monsters howling in the woods.

  Sol’s chest rising in broken rhythms. No smirk. No retort. No performance.

  Just pain.

  And something in Caelus wouldn’t shut up about it.

  That wasn’t fake. Wasn’t some calculated act to rattle him. Sol hadn’t even known he was watching.

  That was real.

  That was Sol—accidentally exposed, raw beneath the mask. A man, not a monster. Not untouchable. Not holy. Not unholy.

  Simply… suffering with something he couldn’t fathom.

  And for some reason, that silenced even the anger.

  He sat upright on his cot, armor half-donned, fingers clenched tight around his belt strap like it might anchor him to sense. It didn’t.

  His thoughts spun.

  Back. Always back.

  To that moment at the pyre.

  To the bundle.

  The Ember Pearls. The Dawnmark oil. The Sun’s Breath.

  Why?

  Why would someone who despises Aurenos, who wears his hatred like a crown, offer him the most sacred materials a Templar could ask for?

  Not with gloating.

  But… kindness.

  Why would he do that?

  Was it pity?

  Was it strategy? An attempt to look better? To seem trustworthy?

  Or worse—was it genuine?

  Cael’s stomach twisted.

  If it was a trick, he could handle it. Predict it. Counter it.

  But this? This uninvited decency? This recognition of his faith?

  It cracked something.

  Because now, he couldn’t call Sol a demon without lying to himself. Couldn’t blame it all on deception. Couldn’t stop remembering how tenderly he’d tucked that flower into a refugee’s hair. How softly he’d laughed. How grief-stricken he looked when he thought no one could see.

  Cael dropped his head into his hands.

  “What are you doing to me?” He muttered into the dark. “What the Rot are you?”

  He prayed for clarity.

  But the god was silent. Always was.

  Only the memory of gold-tinted eyes stared back. Quiet. Human. And not at all easy to hate anymore.

  He didn’t sleep.

  Couldn’t.

  Every time he closed his eyes—there he was.

  Not in blood. Not in battle.

  But there, at the camp, next to that damned tree, in the lake.

  Moonlight tracing every curve of his bare skin like the sky itself had chosen him. Droplets gliding down collarbones in divine punctuation. That one strand of silver hair trailing down his back. The way his eyes found him. Held him.

  That mouth—

  Caelus sat bolt upright like he’d been punched in the throat.

  “No.”

  NO.

  Absolutely not.

  He shot out of bed so fast the cot groaned in protest. Stared at the tent wall like it personally offended him.

  This wasn’t real. It wasn’t him. It was the magic. The demon’s magic.

  That cursed blood-soaked forest. That red fog. That lake. It had worked.

  Of course! It worked after all! It made him doubt! The demon’s plan disguised as softness and bare skin and–

  He made a sound. Low. Feral.

  “I knew it,” he muttered, pacing now, half-armored, full-unhinged. “I knew he was trying to break me. This is spiritual sabotage. Psychological warfare.”

  He clutched at his medallion like it might snap in half.

  “I need cleansing,” he breathed. “I need a ritual.”

  And then—

  Brilliance.

  There was a temple nearby. The abandoned one. The cursed one. The same damned place Sol had bled himself in like it was performance art.

  Perfect.

  He would go there.

  He would cleanse himself. He would perform a self-purge if it killed him.

  If he had to scrub the memory of that Beast off his soul with divine salt, so be it.

  Even if it meant asking Anders.

  He grimaced.

  The mage was irritating. But necessary. The boy could fill the basin with ice magic if asked.

  He would kneel in the water. He would chant the psalms. He would rid himself of the fog in his mind, the ache in his chest, the—

  He paused.

  The image of Sol laughing into the fire—warm, soft, safe—flashed behind his eyes.

  Caelus made a strangled sound.

  Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow he would fix this.

  Cleanse it.

  Tomorrow, he would drown this madness in holy water if it was the last thing he did.

  Morning came cruelly gentle.

  A warm breeze. A pale sky. And the light scent of someone roasting fruit over coals nearby.

  Caelus marched through the camp like a man doing what must be done, and hating every breath of it.

  He found Anders by the stream, sleeves rolled up, conjuring frost over the surface of a pot just for fun.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Caelus didn’t look him in the eye.

  “I need your help,” he muttered.

  Anders blinked. “Sure. What with?”

  A beat. A slow inhale.

  “I need you to freeze a basin of water.”

  Silence.

  Caelus cleared his throat.

  “For… ritual purposes,” he added quickly, like that made it better.

  Anders stared at him. Then slowly nodded. “...Okay.”

  He didn’t ask. Didn’t laugh.

  But he looked very concerned for Cael’s well-being.

  An hour later, Caelus knelt in the ruined temple’s old purification basin, bare-chested, skin raw from ice Anders had summoned at his grumbling protest. The boy had watched him with worry, muttered something about brain damage before leaving.

  Cael hadn’t answered. He couldn’t. Not with the thoughts clawing behind his eyes.

  The ice cracked along the stone edge like brittle glass.

  Every inhale felt like needles. Every breath, a punishment. Waist-deep in a ceremonial bath that hadn’t seen proper use in decades, the ruins echoed with his voice as he recited rites he hadn’t spoken since childhood.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  He dipped his palms again. Rubbed the frozen water over his skin like holy oil. Whispered verses through clenched teeth.

  A prayer for purification. A hymn for clarity.

  A plea to forget the shape of a moonlit collarbone.

  This wasn’t devotion. Not really. This was punishment disguised as piety.

  He didn’t want forgiveness. He wanted forgetting.

  “Holy Light of God, cleanse my heart. Holy Light of God, cleanse my hear—”

  The words splintered in his throat.

  He swallowed. Tried again. Louder.

  This time it came out like a sob.

  It wasn’t working.

  His hands shook. He splashed his face again. Gasped. Froze. Prayed harder.

  The water had stopped being cleansing ten minutes ago. Now it was just pain.

  His lips were cracked. His voice shredded raw.

  His teeth chattered between syllables. Skin turning pale. The water bit him, gnawed at the bone, and still he stayed. He dug his nails into the stone edge and refused to stop driven not by faith but fury. At himself. At him.

  The image wouldn’t leave him.

  That cursed lake.

  That cursed body.

  The scar.

  The way Sol had looked right at him—like he knew.

  Solferen would be purged from his mind.

  Body and soul.

  Even if he had to drown in his god’s name.

  Over and over again, he whispered the lines. His throat burned. The same phrases, the same mantra—

  “Cleanse me of demons. Cleanse me of false gods. Cleanse me—”

  He repeated them until they no longer sounded like words, only noise scraped from his lungs. Water numbed his body, but not his shame.

  He bowed forward, forehead brushing the water. His shoulders trembled. His voice, barely a whisper now.

  “This is not about him. It’s not. It’s the scar. The visions. That’s why—”

  He couldn’t finish. His chest ached. He struggled to inhale.

  The lake.

  The moon.

  The—

  No.

  He slammed both hands into the water. It splashed up, cold biting at his face.

  And just when he thought he was done—

  When his vision blurred from pain and cold—

  When his mind was quiet—

  He felt it.

  A presence.

  Every nerve in his body lit like struck flint. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Slowly—so slowly—he turned his head.

  And there—just beyond the edge of the basin, half-draped in darkness as if he belonged there—

  Solferen, framed by dead columns and sunlight. Leaning casually against the archway, arms folded, head tilted, expression utterly unreadable.

  No guilt. No remorse. No shame.

  Just that look, like he’d walked in on a particularly delightful private performance.

  Silent.

  Watching.

  Hunting him like his consciousness.

  How long had he been there?

  Caelus lurched back, splashing violently, nearly slipping under the water. His body screamed from the temperature shift—but his face was burning.

  Shame. Rage. Embarrassment. Everything.

  “You—” His voice broke. “How long—”

  Sol didn’t answer.

  Didn’t need to.

  He stepped forward with the kind of ease Caelus hated. The kind of grace no one should have while witnessing a knight of the holy order attempt to exorcise intrusive thoughts.

  And then—

  He smiled.

  Not evil. Not cruel. Just... amused. Infuriating.

  Like this was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.

  “Didn’t know you were so devout,” he murmured, voice smooth as satin soaked in sin.

  “I could’ve helped, you know. If you wanted me gone that badly.”

  “You—!” Caelus made a sound. Undignified. Mortal. “Leave!”

  “By the gods.” Sol laughed, low, soft. “I didn’t yell at you when you were the one watching.”

  “I wasn’t—Get OUT—!” Cael’s voice shook. Anger or cold, he didn’t know.

  That smile deepened, slow and lazy. Not malicious—pleased.

  “Easy, Holy.” Sol’s voice dropped, a purr at the edge of laughter. “Hard to look away when you’re like this.”

  “Like what.” The knight hissed through his teeth.

  Sol didn’t answer immediately. Tilted his head. Let his gaze linger.

  Down his throat. His chest. The water beading across his skin. The curve of muscle. The edge of bone. The heavy rise and fall of his chest.

  And then—back to his eyes.

  The moment stilled—no sword, no Holy Writ, no dogma could have saved him from what came next.

  “Beautiful.”

  Caelus froze over.

  Completely.

  His skin prickled hotter than fire—bright, humiliating heat flooding every nerve.

  The water didn’t feel cold anymore. It felt like nothing.

  The word echoed in the ruins like a bell struck too hard.

  Sol didn’t wait for a reply.

  He just turned. Walked off as if nothing happened.

  No explanation. No apology.

  Only that voice, smooth as honey.

  Caelus sat in that basin for another full minute, breath caught, fists trembling under the water, steam curling from his skin now that the ice was melting around him. His skin was too tight, his chest too hollow.

  It felt like he'd been stripped bare and laughed at—then kissed on the forehead right after.

  The ritual was ruined.

  The prayer was ruined.

  The purification shattered.

  He didn’t finish the rites.

  Didn’t even try.

  Caelus stumbled out of the basin like a man surfacing from battle—wrung out, raw, and shaking.

  His briefs clung to his body, the fabric stiff with cold. The breeze hit him like a whip.

  Everything felt sore.

  Like the cold water had bruised him from the inside out. He stripped the damp underclothes with sharp, frustrated movements, drying himself with whatever cloth he could find. The touch of fabric on his skin felt like penance—no longer ice but still biting.

  Well deserved.

  He dressed in silence, slowly, mechanically. Linen shirt. Trousers. Belt. Tunic over it, loose and still smelling faintly of forest smoke. The church-issued linens sat with a weight of a vise.

  He ran a hand through his hair, squeezing the excess water out until it trailed down his wrist.

  No armor today.

  Not because he didn’t want to wear it.

  But because it felt wrong somehow—too stiff. Too loud.

  Instead, he belted his sword to his hip, adjusted the tunic, and pulled the long cloak over his shoulders.

  The knight was still there.

  Just… quieter.

  He looked down at himself once before leaving—half-dry, half-broken, half-saint, half-sinner. Not a man purged of demons, but one haunted by their laughter.

  He walked.

  Too fast. Too tense. Too deliberate.

  The sun glared down with judgment. His skin burned—equal parts frostbite and shame—and the longer he walked, the more everything itched.

  Not just his skin.

  His conscience.

  He passed the old altar without looking.

  Pressed a trembling hand over his eyes the moment it loomed in his periphery.

  He could feel it there—its cracked stone, the smear of dried blood, the memory of a throat slit like a sacrament.

  For whatever half-righteous, half-insane reason that drove that man to take a blade through his own neck, it didn’t change what Caelus saw.

  He hadn’t forgotten the way the elf looked when he fell.

  And he hadn’t forgotten that he’d woken up, alive. As if it were nothing.

  Just a scratch.

  The thought alone made Cael pick up pace, feet slamming harder into the marble.

  Don’t look. Don’t think. Don’t remember.

  But his foot caught.

  Just slightly. The smallest drag on the edge of a stone.

  He stumbled, hissed, and instinctively looked down.

  A knife lay half-buried in the moss.

  Elegant. Still wet at the blade.

  He blinked.

  Then noticed the drag marks in the dirt—deep, fresh. As though something had been pulled.

  Or someone.

  A thin trail of blood. Barely visible. Leading from where he’d been kneeling toward the outer perimeter.

  He stared.

  No sound in the ruined temple. Only the beating of his heart.

  This wasn’t some lost weapon. It had been thrown.

  And from the angle, the distance—Cael could see it now.

  Whoever—or whatever—had approached the outer wall had been stopped.

  Cleanly. Quietly.

  Right behind him.

  Right when he was at his weakest.

  His mouth went dry.

  “…That’s the second time,” he whispered. He didn’t know whether to curse or thank him.

  A chill prickled up his spine. His heart stuttered in his chest.

  He hated the way that felt.

  He wasn’t supposed to owe him anything.

  He wasn’t supposed to feel...

  Ashamed.

  He turned sharply. Almost fled the ruins.

  The sunlight outside was too bright. Too hot.

  He didn’t belong in it. Not after this.

  But even as he walked back toward camp, boots sinking into soft moss, his mind was still tangled in shadows. Still caught on the image of a throwing blade embedded in stone. Of a scar on a chest that wouldn’t heal. Of a song sung in the lone dark.

  And worse—of the look in Sol’s eyes when Caelus had yelled at him to leave, and he hadn’t flinched.

  He had only smiled. Like he’d expected it. Like it wasn’t the first time someone he protected spat in his face.

  He ran both hands down his face with the air of a man one step from screaming.

  He hadn’t even noticed Sol standing there.

  Not until it was too late. Not until he’d already made a fool of himself.

  And yet—

  He wasn’t just there to ridicule him.

  He was guarding the ruin. Guarding him.

  Cael stared down at his hands, flexed them once.

  “How many times…” he murmured to himself, barely audible. “How many times has he done that—without me knowing?”

  He had nothing to say.

  But his steps slowed at the edge of camp.

  This was a mind game.

  It had to be.

  But if it was…

  Why did it feel like he was the only one being tricked… by himself?

  And worse—why did part of him not want it to stop?