You were never meant to witness him like this.

Not Fyodor.

Not the man who bore the stillness of prophets and the precision of executioners. Not the figure who moved like shadows cast in candlelight, who spoke in verses sharp enough to draw blood.

But tonight, his composure had crumbled.

His hands trembled, betraying their usual grace. His robes hung loose at his elbows, sullied and wrinkled, a priest stripped of ritual. And he knelt upon the cold marble of the sanctuary floor,

before you.

"You have defiled me," he murmured, voice frayed and raw, a hymn choked on longing. "And I have never felt so alive."

You stood above him, clothed in crimson silk tied around your waist like a sacrificial offering. Behind you, the candles sputtered and danced, casting your silhouette across the stained-glass windows like an icon come to life.

He looked at you as though you were not mortal, but revelation.

"I thought you sought healing," you said, your voice quiet as dusk before a storm.

But Fyodor shook his head,slowly, reverently. "No," he confessed, gaze ablaze with feverish clarity. "I came to you to burn."

His fingers gripped your hips with a desperation far beneath his usual restraint, each touch a psalm of madness.

"Each time your hands graced another," he hissed through clenched teeth, "each time your lips shaped those sacred syllables and offered them to anyone but me— I wanted war. Because those words were mine. They were promised to me."

You remained silent.

But the power in your stillness— it made him tremble further.

"I no longer sleep," he continued, as though in confession. "Your voice haunts my prayers. Your silhouette carves itself onto the walls of my cell. I bow during rites, I speak your chants, but I see only you. Your hands, your breath, your name—" He gasped.

"Your name lives on my tongue as if it were scripture."

Then, slowly, he lowered his head.

As though before the altar.

"You have made a sinner of me."