They pressed him again the next morning.

In the upper hall, beneath the stained-glass gaze of saints long forgotten, inquisitors whispered behind clenched teeth.

Inquisitor (under his breath):
“The Warden’s gone soft.”

Another voice:
“No one goes down there that long and comes back clean.”

A third:
“Maybe he never came back at all.”

They didn’t speak to his face. They never would. But the tension was building—tight as a noose.

Inquisitor Varek (harsh):
“You protect the boy like he’s your blood.”

Evander (coldly):
“He’s a child.”

Varek:
“He’s tainted.”

No one said it directly, but the weight of their stares did. Why hadn’t Loran been executed? Why did Evander, always so composed, spend hours alone in the dark?

How was he still sane?

Loran didn’t speak anymore.

The boy sat in the infirmary, hunched on the edge of his cot like he was waiting for something that hadn’t arrived. Or maybe it had. Maybe it was still inside him.

Evander sat across from him for a time, hoping silence might coax something out.

It didn’t.

He reached forward once—hesitantly—resting a hand on the boy’s arm.

Loran flinched, barely. But didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe wrong.

Only his eyes spoke. And what they said was empty.

Evander (quiet):
“I’m sorry.”

But the boy didn’t blink. He just stared—at something that wasn’t there.

That evening, the storm returned.

Rain slashed the windows like claws. Candles flickered in surrender. And something inside Evander cracked.

Evander had stopped trying to convince himself he was unaffected.

He took the stairs down. Alone.

The spiral descent felt longer than before. The air thicker. As if the stone itself was holding its breath.

The dungeon swallowed sound like a throat. The deeper he walked, the more the air pressed in—like something old and buried remembered his name.

His torch flickered.

And then he saw it.

Just before the final archway: a single white petal resting on the ground.

He stopped. Stared.

It didn’t make sense.

It couldn’t be.

He knelt, slowly. Picked it up between gloved fingers.

The softness of it, the faint, lingering scent—it was the same. Exactly the same.

His mother used to grow them. Snowblossoms. Fragile, wild things. They’d grow even through frost, pushing up from dead earth to find the sun.

Until the fire took them. Took everything.

He hadn’t thought about that day in years. Not clearly.

He saw it now.

Flames licking the rafters. His mother’s voice behind the door. Screaming his name.

A white petal stuck to his boot as he ran.

He stepped forward. The door to the cell stood open.

The light from his torch curled into it like a wary animal.

He stepped inside.

No chains. No guards. No cold cell.

Just a room that should have been stone—but felt like something older, like earth carved by hands that remembered things they shouldn't.

She was there, of course. As though she’d never moved.

Hecate sat in the center of the room, her eyes half-lidded, palms open beside her knees like a shrine.

She didn’t speak.

Evander didn’t either.

He stepped forward. Slow. Careful.

The petal still in his hand.

Then he dropped it. Let it fall at her feet.

Evander (hoarse):
“Why do I remember that now?”

No answer.

Evander (bitter):
“You did something to me.”

Still silence.

He drew his sword.

Not in anger.

In fear.

He needed something real in his hand. Something solid. Sharp.

Evander (sharply):
“What do you want from me? What did you do to the boy?”

Silence.

Evander (shouting):
“What are you?!”

No reply. Just her eyes, opening fully now—dark, deep, full of unlit stars.

A wind moved through the room.

But there were no windows.

His torch died.

The door slammed shut.

Black.