Three days had passed since the catastrophe at the cathedral, yet the city remained entirely without answers. The hooded man had vanished into the ether. The anomalous entity responsible for obliterating half of the structure’s outer stone wall had evaporated just as completely. The subsequent investigation by the high guards had produced nothing, no credible witnesses, no magical traces, and no arrests.
Nuri lay motionless on his mattress, staring blankly at the shadows stretching across his ceiling. Sleep refused to come, though he had long since stopped expecting it. Every time he permitted his eyelids to close, his consciousness ruthlessly dragged him back down into the suffocating depths of that shifting labyrinth. He was trapped in a relentless loop of memory: the hidden iron cages, the gaunt, hollow faces of the captives, the fresh blood filling the altar’s jagged, unholy grooves, and the questions. Especially the questions.
With a tired sigh, he buried his face deeply into his pillow, wishing he could shut out the noise in his own head. He had always known the gods weren't perfect; Captain Caelan had stated that explicitly when they first joined the Knight Order. Divine beings weren't all-knowing, nor were they all-powerful. They committed errors. They possessed flaws. Nuri had accepted that framework as a recruit, or at least, he had convinced himself he did. But intellectually entertaining a concept and personally colliding with it were two vastly different things.
The memory still felt like a jagged blade twisting between his ribs: the moment he had desperately called upon the God of Fate within that changing corridor, only to receive absolutely nothing in return. There had been no subtle guidance, no divine warmth, and no sudden epiphany. There was only a hollow, terrifying void. For a brief second, it had felt as though the very air had been ripped from his lungs, as if the entire foundation of his reality had cracked and given way beneath his boots.
Now, he was terrified to pray again. What if nothing answered? What if that suffocating silence was permanent? He didn't know which outcome frightened him more, the cold indifference of the gods themselves, or the reality that they weren't at all what he had spent his entire life believing them to be.
Nuri rolled onto his side, his thoughts drifting toward the people they had rescued, toward the nonbelievers. A bitter, sickening sensation settled deep in his stomach. He loathed what had been done to them. They had been treated like stray livestock, locked in damp pens, starved, and systematically drained of life. And for what crime? Simply because they did not project their faith toward a seat in the heavens?
The more he analyzed it, the less sense the world made. Everyone possessed different origins, different perspectives, and different ways of interpreting the universe. Wasn't that disparity fundamentally natural? Then why did society treat nonbelievers as though they were a lesser tier of humanity? Why did the populace simply accept it as the natural order of things? If the gods were truly just, shouldn't they have spoken out against such blatant cruelty? Shouldn't they have stopped it from taking root in their own sanctuaries?
Then, a horrible, intrusive thought pierced his defenses: Had I ever done the same thing?
Nuri frowned, wanting desperately to offer himself a clean, reassuring denial. He truly did. But the easy answer refused to materialize. How many times had he walked past a destitute nonbeliever on the city cobblestones without giving them a second glance? How many times had he blindly absorbed what the preachers said about them without ever interrogating the logic? How many times had he remained silent simply because the rest of the crowd did?
He had never personally raised a hand against anyone. He had never thrown a citizen into a cage or stripped them of their dignity. Yet, the realization still made him deeply uncomfortable, because he was beginning to understand that cruelty didn't always require an active blow. Sometimes, cruelty was just looking away. Sometimes, it was doing nothing at all.
Nuri squeezed his eyes shut as the heavy weight in his chest grew nearly unbearable, and another agonizing question surfaced: What would my parents think if they could hear my mind right now?
The thought made his stomach twist into painful knots. Would they be deeply, fundamentally disappointed in him? Would they believe he had entirely lost his moral compass? His mother had been the one to guide his hands through his very first prayers; his father had escorted him to the grand temple when he was barely old enough to reach the altar. Everything he understood about virtue had started with them. If they heard the heretical doubts running through his mind today, would they still look at him with that unconditional love, or would they see a stranger they no longer recognized?
He pressed his face harder into the fabric. The doubts just kept multiplying, spawning one after another, each leading deeper into a dark, uncharted uncertainty.
Perhaps placing absolute, unquestioning trust in the heavens wasn't the right way to live. The thought alone made him flare with intense guilt. In a kingdom bound by divine mandates, thoughts like that were dangerous. People called them sinful. Heretical. Broken. If anyone within the high districts caught wind of what was transpiring in his head, Nuri didn't even want to imagine the fallout. Was he truly losing his mind, or had he simply never been brave enough to question reality before?
Against his will, another silhouette entered his thoughts: Lucien.
The man who followed no master. The man who seemed completely unbothered by the very concepts that terrified everyone else. Nuri frowned into the dark. Lucien lived exactly as he pleased, spoke whatever unfiltered thought crossed his mind, and casually ignored the rigid, sacred boundaries that everyone else bound their souls to. And somehow, despite his volatility and blatant disregard for order, he seemed freer than anyone Nuri had ever encountered. Granted, the man was also directly responsible for a staggering amount of structural property damage and localized chaos; that part couldn't be ignored or excused. Still, there was something undeniably enviable about the way he existed. A life entirely insulated from the fear of divine judgment. A life lived without the constant, draining need for a god's approval.
Nuri let out a low groan, shifting restlessly. Nothing made sense anymore. He desperately needed to talk to someone. His sister, perhaps. Alina would listen; she had always been his anchor.
But even then, he hesitated. Alina was devoted, more fiercely committed to her path than anyone he knew. What if these dark deductions hurt her? What if she was already secretly suffocating under the weight of her own silent doubts? Ever since they had escaped the cathedral, she hadn't quite seemed like herself. She spent every spare moment checking on the rescued nonbelievers, visiting the clinic whenever she had a free hour between duties. She made sure they were eating, made sure their bodies were recovering, and ensured their safety. She never complained, and she never voiced her internal thoughts, but Nuri could read her posture. Something fundamental had shifted within her, the exact same crack that had formed inside him. Maybe she was questioning the heavens, too. Maybe she was hurting, and the absolute last thing he wanted to do was add his own burdens to her shoulders.
Lately, it felt as though everyone was hiding behind a mask, the gods, the Holy Church, the citizens around him, and even Captain Caelan.
Nuri stared back up at the ceiling, the captain's behavior after the cathedral raid only intensifying his unease. It was blindingly obvious who had dismantled that sanctuary; it was Lucien. There was no point in pretending otherwise, and anyone who had witnessed the pristine, localized devastation of the outer wall would have reached the exact same conclusion. And yet, Captain Caelan had actively chosen not to pursue the matter. Not seriously, at least. Not with the ruthless, systematic focus he typically applied to high-profile threats.
The realization deeply bothered him, because once he began tracking the thread back through his memories, a distinct, troubling pattern emerged. Time and again, Caelan seemed to intentionally overlook the smaller disasters Lucien left in his wake, as though he were quietly minimizing the diplomatic fallout and shielding him whenever possible.
Why would an elite captain of the Order protect an unaligned rogue? Nuri didn't know. And the more questions he asked, the fewer answers the city provided. Everyone carried their secrets. Everyone hid their true faces in the dark. Perhaps that was simply what it meant to be human in a world caught between flawed mortals and silent gods.
Or perhaps... the truth was far more frightening than any of them dared to realize.