The report arrived with tea.
Polite.
Delicate.
Deeply irritating.
Aureline Veskor read it without frown or sigh. Her aides learned long ago that her stillness meant danger sharpening into precision.
The Church was shifting tone.
Soft sermons. Warm reassurances. Gentle reminders… that hope should be supervised, that miracles are safer when overseen, and that grace belongs to institutions.
Most would hear comfort.
Aureline heard jurisdiction.
She placed the paper down.
"So," she murmured, "They intend to do politics with holiness again."
Her aides said nothing.
They valued continued existence.
Aureline did not fear the Church.
She feared wasted time.
"Begin messaging surveillance," she said calmly. "Which parishes escalate. Which populations respond. I want a map of where fear takes root before fear knows it exists."
"Yes, Duchess."
"Publicly, we are dignified and cooperative. We thank them for vigilance. We frame unity. We do not look like challengers."
Her voice softened.
"Privately—support the vulnerable districts. Food stability. medical reinforcement. community presence. If people feel safe, panic becomes… embarrassing."
Aide nods. Scratching pens. Controlled breathing.
Then she added the part that proved Aureline was not a saint.
"And summon the ones I spoke to last winter."
One aide blinked.
"The clergy… Your Grace?"
"Yes," Aureline replied smoothly. "The good ones. The ones who still believe the Church is meant to serve the city rather than rule it. The moral ones. The inconveniently ethical ones. I want them."
"May I ask… to what purpose?"
"To be useful," Aureline said plainly.
She rose from her seat with quiet dignity.
"We will not fight Malvane from outside the Church. We will fight him inside it. Through conscience. Through loyalty. Through faith turned against ambition."
Aides stared. Not with shock. With recognition.
This was Aureline.
She would use anything.
Even goodness.
"Have them meet with civil relief heads. Encourage collaboration. Encourage public trust. Encourage public confidence in the Church's kinder face."
"And the kinder face will slow the harder one," an aide whispered.
"Yes," Aureline said coldly.
"And when Malvane escalates?"
She smiled like winter learning how to sing.
"Then the Church will fracture from inside, and the pieces that still care for people will already belong to me."
Cathedral bells slept high in their towers.
They did not ring.
But it felt like they wanted to.
---
Across the city, someone else laughed.
Not kindly.
Not remotely.
---
Lord Varros loved luxury the way predators loved bone.
Velvet curtains softened the dark. Candlelight kissed gold. Wine the color of memory breathed slowly.
He read the same report Aureline had.
Unlike Aureline,
he smiled.
"This is delightful," Varros said as he closed the last page. "The Archbishop seeks relevance. The Church reclaims fear. Ah—this city remembers how to be interesting again."
His attendant bowed.
"And Duchess Veskor?"
Varros' smile warmed in a way that was not kind at all.
"Aureline is going to do exactly what she always does."
"And what is that, my lord?"
"Be brilliant. Be competent. Be responsible. And absolutely refuse to let the world be worse if she can prevent it."
He sipped his wine.
"It is both her noblest trait… and her most exploitable weakness."
"And if she succeeds?"
"Oh, if she succeeds," Varros said cheerfully, "we make success frightening. We let the Church whisper of unseen threats. We let Malvane imply danger. And then we stand beside the frightened and say—Look! We understand. We are reasonable. We are safe."
"And if fear is slow to build?"
Varros' eyes glinted.
"Then we help it along. Not chaos. Chaos is crude. Merely… unease. Slight instability. Just enough uncertainty to make nuance impossible."
He leaned back.
Content.
"People don't abandon strength in fear. They abandon subtlety. Aureline is subtlety. Force people into absolutes… and she becomes the villain simply by being correct."
The servant bowed.
"And the Church?"
Varros smiled.
"I hope they enjoy their righteous spectacle. They think Malvane is dangerous because he is ambitious."
"And he isn't?"
"Oh, he is," Varros said happily. "He's simply not the most dangerous ambition in the room."
He raised his glass toward the distant cathedral.
"To faith."
He smirked.
"To governance."
Then, softer.
"And to the first wish I ever made… still paying dividends."
He drank.
Somewhere, between Church bells, civic resolve, bright goodness, and deliberate cruelty…
the city inhaled very, very carefully—
as something unseen smiled
and leaned closer.
---