Evin didn't know how long he sat there with the Veil wrapped around his ribs like invisible bandages holding him together. Minutes, hours—time had no shape in the Crimson cell. The silence still pressed, but it had lost its teeth. It no longer dictated the shape of his thoughts.
It merely waited.
And it wasn't alone.
Outside the cell, footsteps approached—precise, controlled, metallic. The air changed with them. Cold at first, then hotter, as if the hallway were reacting to the weight of whoever walked it.
The Observation window—a faintly glowing seam of stone—brightened.
Someone was watching directly now.
Evin opened his eyes.
"You didn't break," he whispered to himself.
Not pride.
Just fact.
Breakage was what they expected. Crumbling was the standard outcome. He had done something else—something the Church hadn't seen before. He wasn't sure what that meant yet, but the Veil shifted quietly behind him as if acknowledging the truth before he did.
He sat up straighter.
The silence pushed back.
He didn't.
Boots stopped outside the door.
Metal scraped. Bolts disengaged. The door slid open with a low groan.
Three figures entered.
But not priests.
Not handlers.
Not even the Inquisitor from before.
These wore robes. Red—not priestly crimson, but a deeper shade, the color of coals after the fire dies. Their faces were covered by veils of fine chain, masks that jingled faintly as they stepped inside.
Evin's heart hammered.
He knew these figures by reputation only.
The Sanctifiers.
Not teachers.
Not soldiers.
Not interrogators.
The Church's final measure.
The Sanctifiers existed for one purpose:
To decide if something could be controlled—
or if it must be removed from existence so completely that even memory could not resurrect it.
Evin's throat tightened.
The Sanctifier in the center spoke first, voice distorted behind the chain veil.
"Stand."
The collar heated instantly, forcing Evin to his feet whether he wanted to or not. His legs trembled but held.
The Sanctifier circled him slowly, not touching him—just observing him the way one might study the cracks in a vessel before deciding whether to repair or shatter it.
"You resisted silence," the Sanctifier murmured. "Describe how."
"I didn't," Evin said honestly. "The silence resisted me."
One of the other Sanctifiers shifted, surprised.
The leader stopped walking. "You speak nonsense."
"No," Evin said, voice steadying. "I speak what you don't want to acknowledge. You think silence is power. But it's just a tool. And tools fail."
The Sanctifier lifted a hand.
Pain stabbed through Evin's throat, forcing a gasp from him as the collar constricted—not physically, but in influence. It pressed into him like a command trying to compress his will into obedience.
His knees buckled.
"No rhetoric," the Sanctifier said. "Only truth."
The Veil pulsed.
Not outward.
Inward.
Evin felt it—pressure expanding inside him against the collar's grip, not fighting the command head-on but absorbing it, thinning it, dispersing it through whatever unseen space it lived in.
The collar's influence faltered.
Just a flicker.
But enough.
Evin straightened.
The Sanctifier stilled.
"You are not following," the Sanctifier said.
"You are not leading," Evin replied.
The second Sanctifier hissed. "Blasphemy."
The leader raised a hand for silence.
The chains on the mask rattled slightly—hesitation.
"Your mark indicates full compliance," the Sanctifier said. "Yet you defy."
Evin laughed softly. "My mark indicates what you want to believe."
The Sanctifier regarded him for a long, cold moment.
Then:
"Very well. New assessment."
Evin's stomach turned.
A Sanctifier never said new assessment unless they were changing categories—moving a subject from questionable to irrecoverable.
The leader extended a hand toward him.
"Let us determine the extent of your infection."
Evin froze.
"Infection?"
The Sanctifier nodded. "Whatever clings to you is not power. It is not blessing. It is rot."
The Veil tightened behind him, almost protective.
Evin swallowed hard. "It's not rot."
"It is consuming you."
"No," Evin said, voice cracking. "You are consuming them."
The Sanctifier's hand lowered.
A dangerous pause.
"You speak of remnants."
Evin felt the Veil shift like a breath behind him. "You call them residue."
"They are nothing."
"They were people."
The Sanctifier stepped closer until the chain veil nearly brushed Evin's face.
"People end," the Sanctifier said quietly. "Doctrine does not."
Evin's chest tightened with fury.
"They trusted you," he whispered. "They trusted this Church. They believed the fire meant salvation. You let them die screaming."
"They served," the Sanctifier replied without emotion. "Even in death, their purpose was fulfilled."
Evin's vision blurred.
Not with tears.
With heat.
The Veil surged inward, then outward, just enough that the shadows in the corners thickened visibly. The temperature in the room dropped. The stone beneath Evin's feet felt less solid—less real—like it feared what stood with him.
The Sanctifier flinched.
Only for an instant—but Evin saw it.
"You felt that," Evin said quietly.
The Sanctifier stepped back sharply. "Containment protocol six."
One of the others moved immediately, retrieving a metallic object from a case. A small cage of silver rods, each etched with scripture.
A Binding Lattice.
Evin's blood went cold.
They intended to cage the Veil—cutting it away piece by piece until only a void remained inside him. Most subjects died long before completion.
Evin backed away instinctively.
"Hold him," the Sanctifier commanded.
The collar ignited.
Agony exploded through Evin's nerves, forcing him to his knees. His scream tore from his throat uncontrollably as the Binding Lattice was activated.
Light—cold, silver, merciless—unfolded from the cage, forming lines around him like a closing net. The scripture hummed, resonating with the chamber walls.
The Veil recoiled violently.
For the first time—
Evin felt it hurt.
"No—!" he gasped, reaching inward. "Stop—stop—this isn't—"
His voice broke into a sob.
The Sanctifier watched calmly. "This is mercy."
Evin's breath failed.
The Lattice closed.
Searing cold pierced through his ribs, his skull, his spine—shutting down thought, thinning memory. Faces blurred. Voices muffled. Even his own pain felt distant, smaller, dissolving—
No.
No.
NO.
With the last spark of clarity he had, Evin reached—not outward, but down.
Into the dark.
Into the remnants the Church had tried to erase.
Into the grief the Veil held for those who were never mourned.
He didn't beg.
He didn't fight.
He remembered.
The chains of scripture froze.
The room dimmed.
The Sanctifiers stopped breathing.
The Binding Lattice cracked—
Once.
Then again.
Then shattered.
The Sanctifiers stumbled back, panic breaking through their trained composure as the shadows in the room rose like smoke, coiling around Evin not as a weapon, but as acknowledgment.
The Veil had answered.
Evin rose slowly, barely conscious, eyes glazed but alight with something the Church had no doctrine for.
The Sanctifier whispered, horrified:
"Impossible…"
But Evin wasn't listening.
Because behind him—felt more than seen—stood shapes in the dark.
Not ghosts.
Not souls.
Not monsters.
Witnesses.
And Evin finally understood:
He wasn't holding them.
They were holding him.