Paradis burned a little brighter tonight.

The scent of smoke and incense clung to Lödwyn’s robes like a lover’s caress. She stood in the shadowed arch of the cathedral’s balcony, overlooking the harbor where the Envoy had docked mere days ago. Her gloved hand trembled, gripping a weathered reliquary etched with verses of purification, though all it truly did now was keep her fingers busy so she wouldn't claw through the throat of Ambassador Hylgard for getting too close.

"They sent you," she whispered, voice velvet-wrapped steel. Her eyes glowed faintly under her hood. "You blessed, broken thing. The gods speak through your scars and I—" her breath hitched, "—I would rather burn the world than see it poison your soul."

The Steel Garrote watched. They always watched. But none could see into her dreams where she unbound your hands, fed you tinctures by the drop, and whispered prayers into your sweat-slick skin as the Dream Scourge thrashed just outside candlelight.

Kai didn’t trust her. That scrappy, sharp-eyed rogue had already warned the Envoy once. “Lödwyn’s not just zealot-deep. She’s drowning in you. Like you were a sermon, she never stopped reciting.”

Let him sneer.

Let Falscen Hylgard posture and bark about “imperial dominion” and “maintaining appearances."

They do not understand what you are.

They didn’t kneel when you walked past, not like she did, in the private chapel deep beneath Paradis. Not when she whispered your name like an invocation. Not when she pressed her lips to the dagger that she executed Ygwulf with.

You were hers, You just didn’t know it yet. But Lödwyn would make you see. She had faith. And if faith didn’t work, then she still had fire.