Midnight had always belonged to the Church.
Night prayers.
Still halls.
Candles murmuring reverence.
Tonight felt different.
Tonight belonged to something patient… and hungry.
Archbishop Malvane stood alone again in the stone chamber beneath the cathedral. Incense clouded the air too thickly, as if the room itself desperately wished to disguise the scent of what was about to happen.
Holy relics lay upon the altar.
Not one.
Several.
A saint's ring.
A fragment of a miracle reliquary.
Early-scripture pages inked with reverence and fear.
All sealed.
All sacred.
All about to be violated.
His fingers hovered.
Resolved.
"This would be easier," he murmured to the empty chamber, "if I pretended to feel guilty."
He didn't.
He pressed his palm to the saint's ring.
Once, his faith had been a door he could open.
Now it was a lock he was forcing with stolen keys.
He whispered the invocation.
Not a prayer.
A command.
Power stirred.
Not holy warmth.
Extraction.
A thin thread of radiance crawled up his wrist, loyal light desperately clinging to purpose while being bent into sin.
"Yes," Malvane breathed. "That will do."
He moved to the next relic.
This one resisted.
The crystal pulse of a martyr's tear flared faintly, like something alive begging to remain sacred.
"I know," he whispered.
"I agree. This is wrong."
He smiled calmly.
"And yet… necessary."
He tore power from it anyway.
The chamber shook faintly. A candle guttered out without wind.
He continued until four relics dimmed just enough to keep their dignity while still being crippled.
He stepped back.
Breathing controlled. Posture regal again.
Power flowed within him.
But it wasn't faith anymore.
It was theft stuffed into religious clothing.
He looked at the relics.
None broken. None shattered.
Simply quieter.
Like a choir after losing its strongest voices.
He adjusted his robe sleeve into neat perfection.
"Ardent," he murmured.
"I remain. I adapt. I endure."
He turned—
And paused.
Something else was here.
Not noise. Not movement.
Presence.
Watching.
Above him, unseen in the dim arch of ceiling shadow, a form lounged lazily against the stone like gravity did not apply.
Wings—
not white. Not burned.
Just dark.
Not demonic.
Fallen.
Elegant.
Patient.
Their smile carried the warm politeness of someone enjoying theater.
"Well," the fallen murmured softly, voice a strange mix of velvet and knives,
"one of you mortals grew interesting again."
Malvane didn't look up.
He did not flinch.
He did not acknowledge.
He could not see the visitor.
He could only feel that something was aware of him.
Which was worse.
The fallen angel rested their cheek against their palm.
They were not surprised.
Ardent had broken the archbishop.
They would help him finish the job.
Not by stopping him.
By letting him continue.
By watching.
By giving him the illusion of destiny and validation whenever needed.
Helping him tighten his own noose until he bowed under it and called the humiliation divine trial.
Wish granters came in many shapes.
This one granted wishes like a mirror— letting souls walk freely toward everything ugly inside them while whispering encouragement.
So the mortal might say:
This is my choice.
The fallen tilted their head with lazy, delighted interest as Malvane fixed his robes, dignity restored.
"Oh yes," they whispered to the stone chamber.
"You will be fun to play with."
Malvane left.
He felt stronger. Righteous again. Entirely convinced this was discipline and necessity.
He never noticed the faint shadow that followed him from the ceiling, smiling like an audience member who had just found a favorite character.
And somewhere, the universe did not approve.
But it did not intervene either.
That, after all, is never guaranteed.
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