The chapel smelled like old stone and tallow.

  Light filtered through narrow windows high in the walls, dust motes drifting through it like suspended ash. The pews were worn smooth by generations of hands and knees. A few votive candles burned near the altar, their fmes small and stubborn in the dim.

  I set the basket of bread down at the foot of the altar.

  The loaves were still warm. The smell of them felt almost intrusive in a pce that had learned to survive on very little.

  I knelt and csped my hands in prayer, listening intently to Lumiere and the vicar converse behind me.

  "It's as you feared," he said quietly. "Padins used to keep this road safe. There were dozens stationed here. And now..."

  He trailed off.

  "There are none," Lumiere said. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  He nodded slowly. "Yes. The crusade took its share."

  It took more than its share, I thought.

  I felt a familiar weight settle in my chest. I had tried to save as many as I could, even as I fought them.

  It still wasn't enough.

  "The rest went to Bishop Halbrecht," the vicar continued. "He offered a generous bonus. Gold. Rank. Favor. To any padin who joined him in the Duchy. Many took it."

  My eyes opened at that. An explicit order to move troops would have triggered a report to the Duke, but a mere recruitment drive would not. Only the Duke himself would have seen it for what it was.

  "His Grace was not there to stop him," Lumiere said softly, echoing my thoughts.

  She sounded guilty for having taken Etienne away. I wanted to steady her, but we had to keep up appearances.

  "Yes. The bishop cited gaps in the city's security. The crusade had dealt him a heavy blow as well."

  "And the ones who stayed?" she asked.

  He hesitated. "They were few. They had families. Shops. They thought the bandits would not touch them if they kept their heads down and their mouths shut."

  "A vain hope," she murmured.

  "Yes. They ran when the first houses burned." He sighed. "Those who could, anyway."

  I looked down at the bread on the altar. Food for the Goddess. Food meant to symbolize abundance.

  It felt obscene.

  "Father, I intend to give a sermon this evening," Lumiere said. "Announce it. Let the town come."

  The vicar's breath hitched slightly. "You will draw their attention."

  "So be it. The good people need their faith rewarded. The Goddess is with us, even now."

  He swallowed.

  "Sister Cire?" Lumiere called to me.

  I lifted my head and rose to my feet.

  "Goddess be with you, Saintess." I turned to the vicar. "Father."

  "She is a traveling nun we met on the road," Lumiere said. "I can vouch for her steady heart and good character. She will serve here for the time being. Helping where she is needed."

  The vicar studied me. The habit. The basket. The way I stood.

  "Yes," he said slowly. "By your recommendation then, Your Holiness."

  I bowed my head. "I look forward to working with you, Father."

  The oil smelled faintly of myrrh and old flowers.

  The vicar and I poured it into a dozen small cy vials, sealing each with a thumb pressed into soft wax. They were warm from his hands when he passed his share to me.

  "I'm afraid this is all we can come up with on such short notice," he said quietly.

  "Thank you, Father," I replied. "It'll be enough."

  By midmorning, the junior priests were ready.

  They were not brave. Most of them were tired, thin, and frightened. But they still wore their robes, and in Crossreach that still meant something.

  We stepped out together.

  The streets had filled a little since dawn. Shop shutters were open now, just enough for business. Smoke drifted from cookfires. Somewhere a child cried, then went silent.

  The bandits were there too.

  I could tell by the way they leaned, by the way they occupied space as if it belonged to them. By the way no one told them to move.

  We did not look at them.

  We moved door to door instead.

  A young priest with trembling hands rang the bell of the first house. An older woman answered, eyes sharp and fearful.

  "The Saintess will hold vigil this evening," he said. "At the chapel. All who are faithful are invited to receive her benediction."

  I stepped forward and held out a vial.

  "Anoint yourselves," I added softly. "Here. Blood on the brow, like the Martyr—Danzig the Brave."

  Her gaze flicked to the street. To the men watching from a corner. To the vial.

  Then she took it.

  "Praise the Goddess," she whispered, already drawing the symbol across her forehead with shaking fingers.

  We moved on.

  At the next door, a baker hesitated. At the next, a weaver closed her eyes and kissed the vial before taking it. At the next, a young father nodded once, jaw tight, and marked himself and his two children with a hand that barely steadied.

  Some doors did not open.

  Some faces looked at the oil and turned away.

  We did not stop them.

  In the market square, a bandit ughed as we passed.

  "What's this, little one? Selling indulgences now?"

  The priest beside me flinched. I did not.

  "The Saintess gives freely," I said. "Those who wish to hear her may come."

  "Yeah?" the man said, smirking. "And what's with the grease?"

  "Anointing," I replied. "Submission to the Goddess's will."

  I parted my bangs to show him the symbol drawn on my forehead.

  He snorted. "Don't think I'm into all that."

  "As you please," I said, bowing slightly.

  He stared at me, then ughed again and turned back to his companions.

  By afternoon, the faithful had begun to change.

  A faint line of oil across a brow. A hastily drawn sigil. A mark half-smudged by sweat or fear.

  It wasn't subtle. It wasn't meant to be.

  They saw one another and nodded. Some cried. Some smiled for the first time in days.

  The unmarked watched them with irritation, with suspicion, with indifference.

  Before long, we returned to the chapel, exhausted from walking all day.

  Lumiere was speaking with the vicar. As I sat down in the pew to rest, our eyes met.

  I gave her a small nod.

  The chapel filled slowly.

  Not with reverence, but with hesitation.

  People arrived in small clusters at first, then in a steady trickle. Mothers with children pressed close to their skirts. Old men leaning on canes. Merchants who had closed their shops early and did not know if they would ever reopen them. Each one paused at the threshold as if waiting for permission to cross it.

  Most of them bore the mark. Some had reapplied it, thick and dark, as if afraid it might fade if they did not.

  Those without it were fewer.

  They came ter, drifting in with the casual arrogance of men who expected to be entertained. A handful who had decided the Saintess was an oddity worth watching. A few local toughs who did not believe in gods but liked spectacles. They leaned against pilrs. They took the back pews. They scanned the crowd with bored eyes.

  I stood near the side aisle, basket on my arm, head bowed like any other junior sister. From here I could see the doors. The side windows. The narrow passages behind the pews.

  I could also see Evelyn.

  She had traded her cloak for a pin wool coat and her knives for smaller ones hidden beneath the hem. To anyone else she looked like a traveler with nowhere to be. To me, she looked like she was counting.

  Etienne's men filtered in behind her. Not together. Not in formation. A borer here. A stablehand there. A man with a merchant's satchel who never opened it. Their brows were smeared with oil.

  They took seats near the unmarked.

  I met Evelyn's eyes.

  Once.

  She inclined her head almost imperceptibly.

  Lumiere stepped to the altar.

  The murmur of the room softened. Not into silence, but into attention.

  "People of Crossreach," she said, her voice carrying easily through the stone. "You have been afraid for a long time."

  No one contradicted her.

  "You have been told that safety is something you must beg for. That faith is a luxury you can no longer afford. That the Goddess has turned her back on you."

  A few heads bowed. A few shoulders shook.

  "That is a lie."

  Her gaze moved through the room, warm and steady.

  "The Goddess does not abandon her children when they are tested. She stands closest to them then. Even when the world grows dark."

  I felt the room lean toward her.

  "Tonight is not a night of despair," Lumiere continued. "It is a night of remembering who you are."

  Her eyes flicked briefly toward me.

  That was the signal.

  I lifted my basket and began to move.

  So did Evelyn.

  So did Etienne's men.

  Not fast. Not obvious. Just a quiet redistribution of bodies. They slipped into the aisles. They stood behind pews. They drifted closer to the unmarked men as if drawn there by chance.

  Lumiere's voice rose.

  "You marked yourselves today not as a sign of fear," she said, "but as a sign of belonging. You told the Goddess and one another that you would not be erased."

  The unmarked shifted, some uneasy now, some amused.

  "Those who bear her sign are under her protection," Lumiere said.

  I was directly behind one of the bandits when she spoke the next words.

  "And those who do not have pced themselves beyond it."

  Her hand lifted.

  The doors smmed shut.

  Bolts slid home with sharp, final clicks.

  For a heartbeat, no one understood.

  Then Evelyn moved.

  A needle fshed in her hand and vanished into the side of a man's neck. He gasped, tried to turn, and went rigid, colpsing into the pew.

  Across the room, Etienne's men struck.

  Small, precise motions. A prick behind an ear. A quick jab beneath a colr. A hand cpped over a mouth before a shout could form.

  Confusion rippled through the unmarked.

  Then it turned into panic.

  "What the hell is this?" someone yelled.

  I drove a needle into his throat before the second word finished.

  He dropped, eyes wide, body locking as the paralytic took hold.

  People screamed. They pressed together, eyes huge, hands csped, oil marks bright on their brows.

  The unmarked tried to fight.

  They were too te.

  Within seconds, men were slumping into pews, sliding to the floor, frozen in pce, alive but helpless.

  While Evelyn and the others gathered them up, Lumiere kept speaking, her voice gentle and steady, as if it were nothing more than a candle being knocked over during prayer.

  I straightened, heart still pounding, and looked up at the narrow bell tower.

  That was my cue.

  I crossed the aisle through bodies that could no longer move, past eyes wide with terror and fury, past the faithful who stared at me as if I were suddenly something else entirely. My hands did not shake as I took the rope.

  Once.

  The bell rang, loud and pure, cutting through the chapel like a bde.

  Twice.

  The sound rolled out across Crossreach, carrying over rooftops and alleys and taverns full of men who thought they were safe.

  Three times.

  For Rocher and Etienne, who waited outside.

  I let the rope fall from my hands and turned back toward the altar, where Lumiere stood in the glow of candlelight, calm as a saint carved in stone.

  The Goddess had been invited to Crossreach.

  Now judgment would follow.