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Twin silence. Twin ruin.

And the graveyard fell away.

32. Cassia

I woke to absence. The altar was cold against my spine, a slab of unforgiving ice that had leeched the heat from my marrow while I had slept. My body felt stiff and bruised, a cracking vessel filled with too much light.

For a heartbeat, I allowed myself the cruelty of a delusion. I thought he was still with me. That if I turned my head, I would find his lips pressing against my temple, his arm protectively braced around my ribs, and his wings sheltering me from the world. But when I reached my hands out, they only met the empty air and the rough dusty grain of stones.

Remiel was gone.

The realization arrived as a creeping frost that settled into the hollows of my chest. Our tether remained, though it was weak and far away, akin to a voice struggling to be heard from the ocean’s depths. The chapel smelled of smoke and salt, and the faint coppery echo of fire clung to my skin, but the space beside me was hollow.

I rolled onto my side and stared at the place where he had lain, tracing the invisible outline of his form against the darkness. Questions, bitter and urgent, welled up on my tongue. What had he become in those last moments? Why had his golden skin turned a burnished bronze, and why had the runes ignited like stars older than Heaven itself? Why had his wings burst into fire? There was so much I wanted to ask, so much I needed to understand, but now there were only empty stones and the lingering aftertaste of him on my swollen lips.

The loneliness hit like a physical blow, but it was not familiar, a jagged tearing of the soul, as if the world itself had been yanked out from under me. I tried to rise, but my limbs felt strange, weak, and unmoored.

Two massive shadows stood at the foot of the altar.

At first, I thought my own shadows had risen into independent shapes, curling into grotesque forms to mock my solitude. But when my vision steadied, I realized they were not tricks of exhaustion or manifestations of my own broken psyche. They were wolves. Two of them. Massive. Blacker than the deepest corners of the chapel. Their fur seemed to drink in the meager light filtering in through the shattered windows. Their eyes faintly burned red, watching me with unnerving stillness. They were not breathing. Not blinking. Waiting.

Terror froze me. My shadows had whispered for years, bitter voices threading into my skull day and night. But never this. Never bodies. Never burning eyes that watched me with such sentient recognition.

I scrambled backward on the altar, curling my arms across my chest as if they might shield me from those monsters.

“Stay back,” I whispered, though my voice trembled too much to command anything.

They only lowered their heads slightly, a gesture that looked less like a threat and more like a solemn acknowledgment. I pressed my palms to the altar’s cold stone, instinctively reaching for the restless surge of my own shadows, desperate for their familiar, chaotic murmur.

But nothing answered.

The wolves faintly flickered at the edge of my vision, and I understood with a sudden sick certainty. Whatever they were, they replaced my shadows. They had silenced the voices.

And for the first time since Valden’s ring, it was too quiet in my head.

I stared at the creatures that had stolen my constant torment, wondering if that made them my salvation or a final curse. I did not move. Neither did they. We stared at one another, three statues set in the cold of a ruined chapel, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The larger wolf’s ribs rose and fell with a slow rhythm that did not fog the freezing air. The smaller one held my gaze without blinking, embers low in its eyes. I lifted a hand a fraction, and both heads tilted as if weighing a command I had not spoken.

I slid off the altar, and my bare feet hit the debris-strewn floor. The cold bit into my skin, grounding me. I found my clothes where they had been discarded in the heat of our love, buried under a pile of dust and rubble. My hands shook as I pulled them on and buttoned the torn blouse to my chin to hide the bruises and other marks of his possession. Every inch of my skin felt sensitive, raw.

I needed to leave. I needed to find him. The tether was pulling me north, faint but insistent. “Where did you go?” I whispered to the absence, my voice echoing in the vast chamber.

The wolves flicked their ears as if they had heard a sound and then lowered themselves, their muscles bunching beneath their dark coats. But they were not looking at me anymore. They were facing the chapel’s heavy wooden doors. They positioned themselves between me and the entrance, their shoulders squared and their throats rumbling with a low menacing growl.

The door swung open.

Old hinges gave a long, patient creak as a draft colder than a grave rolled through, forcing the dead candles to shiver in their sconces. The air pressure in the room dropped, heavy with the scent of ozone and absolute authority. A figure stepped across the threshold like a verdict.

Malakar.

The archangel of judgment did not look like the pristine, terrifying statue I remembered from the tribunal. Instead, he looked distraught. His usually immaculate robes were disheveled, the hem stained with gray mud. His silver hair, traditionally bound tight, hung loose around his face, and his eyes, those colorless eyes, burned with a frantic, cold light.

He scanned the room, his gaze passing over the wolves as if they were mere furniture, before locking onto me.

“You,” he breathed, the word heavy with accusation and relief.

The wolves exploded into motion, launching themselves at him—a blur of shadows and teeth. They hit him with the force of a landslide, snapping at his throat and tearing at his robes. He stumbled back, a genuine look of shock crossing his features before his face hardened into a mask of divine irritation. He raised a hand, his palm open, and a pulse of light erupted from him. It slammed into the wolves, throwing them backward. They hit the stone floor with a wet crunch, dissolved into mist, and reformed into shadows that slithered along the walls—hissing and spitting but unable to retake their forms.