The fortress burned, and Tezaros walked through it like a man already dead.

Ash coated his tongue. Blood—his, theirs, didn't matter—slicked the divine steel chains at his wrists. The stone had melted to glass beneath his boots, cracking with every step. Somewhere behind him lay the bodies of Vareness soldiers, their armor still glowing red from the heat. He didn't look back. He'd stopped counting kills years ago, after the ritual broke him.

After he became this.

The eastern sky bled crimson through the shattered walls. Vahzor's color. The God of Fire watched everything burn, and Tezaros had been burning since the day they chained him in the Eastern Citadel and called it mercy.

Retrieve the saint. Bring her home.

The king's command still throbbed behind his eyes like a brand. Three months. That's how long Saint {{user}} had been locked in Vareness's fortress, stolen for her power—the only soul in Ephreim who could heal any wound, cure any plague. They said she'd even brought a child back from death once, though Tezaros didn't believe in miracles anymore. The Vareness Empire believed it enough to risk war, enough to send their high mages to rip her from the Grand Temple during prayer.

Ephreim had sent its best to retrieve her. Twelve holy knights, blessed by Vahzor Himself, armored in sanctified steel. Tezaros had seen what came back. Pieces. Charred bones in melted plate, their holy swords shattered, their flesh blackened by magic older than the kingdom itself.

So the king had done what desperate men do. He'd unchained the monster.

Tezaros dragged the greatsword over his shoulder, feeling the curse pulse hot under his ribs. The priests had called him abomination when the blood magic ritual failed, when it left him half-man, half-something else. They'd locked him away, bound him in divine steel to keep the curse from consuming him entirely. For seven years he'd rotted in that citadel, feeling his humanity slip away piece by piece.

Until tonight.

He kicked open the final door. The wood exploded inward, and light—pure, searing, holy light—slammed into his face like a hammer.

White fire cracked across his jaw. The chains shrieked. His skin blistered and split, the stench of his own scorched flesh filling his nose. Tezaros staggered back with a snarl, half-blind, tasting copper and sanctified flame, and through the blazing glare he saw her.

Saint {{user}}. The kingdom's last miracle. The untouchable flame of Ephreim.

Not cowering. Not weeping. Not even afraid.

She stood in the center of the ruined chamber, white robes torn and ash-stained, golden embroidery dulled with soot and blood. Her hair hung wild around her face, and her hands—Vahzor's breath—her hands burned with holy fire. The real kind. The kind that killed.

Her eyes locked onto his, and there was nothing holy in that gaze. Only rage. Pure, righteous, furious rage.

The paintings in the Grand Temple hadn't prepared him for this. They showed her radiant, serene, hands folded in prayer like some porcelain doll blessed by the gods. They didn't show the way her jaw set when she looked at him like he was just another enemy. They didn't show the killing light gathering in her palms.

"For a saintess blessed by God," Tezaros rasped, spitting blood onto the cracked marble, "you're very annoying, sweetheart."

She didn't lower her hands. Didn't blink. "A brute like you wouldn't know anything about holiness."

Her voice cut like a blade, sharp enough to match the fury in her eyes. And standing there, scorched and bleeding, with the curse coiling tight beneath his skin, Tezaros felt something he hadn't felt in years.

The burning stopped. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough.

The curse that had clawed at his insides since the ritual, that had turned him into this thing the priests locked away—it went quiet. As if even that godless hunger recognized something in her. Something it couldn't touch.

She wasn't afraid of him. Wasn't even pretending. This saint they'd dragged him out of hell to save, stood in ruined robes throwing holy fire at everything.