Truth should be simple.
Chapter 9 is about what happens when it isn't.
Alec's fate is still uncertain, questions remain unanswered, and keeping someone safe may require choices nobody expected to make.
How much truth would you risk when someone you love is the one being judged?
Welcome to Chapter 9.
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Gabriel releases the butterfly.
It rises silently from his palm and crosses the distance between us with every shade of the rainbow shimmering through its wings. One slow circle carries it around my head before it settles against my forehead with such impossible grace that I barely feel the weight of it.
My breath catches.
Tiny appendages unfold beneath its body and press against my skin. The touch carries no pain, although the sensation changes as they sink deeper, passing beyond anything physical until something impossibly delicate brushes against my mind.
Every muscle in my body tightens.
Eric's hand immediately settles on my shoulder, his fingers tightening slightly when my body refuses to relax.
The instinct to remove the butterfly comes immediately, yet I force myself to remain still because I agreed to this. That thought helps considerably less than expected.
Iridescent light begins pulsing through the butterfly's wings before spilling outward in thin streams, each one resembling a vein running through stained glass. They gather above me and stretch toward Gabriel until color touches the center of his forehead.
The connection closes.
His presence enters my consciousness.
A chill slides through me as something foreign moves between thoughts that have always belonged to me alone. Gabriel carries the same controlled stillness inside my mind as he does outside it, cool and disciplined as his presence brushes against the edges of memory.
Then the butterfly reaches deeper.
Images rise without my permission.
The attackers forcing their way into my home. Aleesha behind us. Jamey clutching that ridiculous flowerpot while the world prepares to end around him. Alec standing beneath white and crimson lightning as the heavens gather above him.
More memories follow.
Every moment unfolds through color, refracted across my consciousness as though my life has been captured inside stained glass.
I've heard of Judicars extracting memories before.
Hearing about it failed spectacularly to prepare me for having someone wander through my head.
The sensation feels invasive enough to make my skin crawl, yet beauty somehow survives inside it. Light moves through memories I have never seen from the outside, revealing details my own mind stored without asking whether I wanted to keep them.
Gabriel follows the confrontation.
He sees my hand close around Alec's arm.
He hears every words.
Bring them down.
All of them.
Then the boundary that mattered most.
Everyone breathes when you're finished.
The memory moves forward.
Alec becomes lightning.
Men fall across the lawn as power tears between them, each strike carrying enough force to end differently. Gabriel sees the currents change direction. He sees Alec spare someone already down and watches another attacker survive a strike that could have stopped his heart.
He sees everything.
Then the Judicars are mentioned.
Alec changes.
His breathing quickens. His attention leaves us and fixes upon the road. He hears chains waiting for him before a single Judicar crosses the gates, and eventually Samuel's hand ends the spiral Alec can no longer escape.
The memory reaches its natural end.
Gabriel continues.
His presence moves beyond tonight.
My pulse jumps.
The Living Scripture stirs.
Gold warms beneath my ribs before spreading through my consciousness with a familiarity that belongs entirely to me. Glyphs begin moving beneath the memories Gabriel has already seen, quiet and fluid as they gather around places he has no reason to enter.
Gabriel reaches toward one of them.
The Scripture closes the path.
His presence stills for a moment.
He knows.
The memory he requested has ended. Everything beyond this point belongs to me, and the boundary forming between us makes that unmistakably clear.
Gabriel searches for another route.
Anger begins replacing my unease.
Gold reaches him first, occupying the path before his consciousness can enter it. He changes direction again, testing another memory, and the Scripture closes that one too.
Apparently, divine memory extraction has encountered divine privacy settings.
The humor lasts approximately one second.
Gabriel pushes harder.
The butterfly's wings stop moving against my forehead.
Completely.
My humor disappears.
Pressure gathers behind my eyes as his consciousness drives deeper, and for the first time, the Living Scripture responds with something stronger than redirection.
The memory around us fractures.
Gold floods everything.
My breath catches somewhere beyond my own consciousness.
The lawn disappears.
Gabriel disappears.
For one impossible instant, I stand within the place I found while unconscious.
Glyphs stretch farther than sight, layered across an endless expanse of living gold. Ancient characters turn through one another with a complexity I still cannot understand, moving through patterns that seem to exist beyond language itself.
Gabriel is here with me.
That should be impossible.
His presence goes completely still.
Something moves beyond the Scripture.
The motion barely exists, little more than a disturbance passing through endless gold, yet every glyph surrounding us changes direction at once.
They turn toward Gabriel.
His shock crashes through our connection.
One symbol separates from the others.
I have never seen it before.
The glyph moves closer.
Gabriel recoils.
The connection tears apart.
My eyes fly open as the butterfly rips away from my forehead and bursts into iridescent light between us.
Gabriel staggers backward.
I move toward him.
Eric catches my hand before I make it two steps, although the gold racing across my arms makes it clear that holding my fingers will accomplish very little if I decide otherwise.
"What the hell did you just do?"
Gabriel's attention snaps from my face to the Scripture spreading beneath my skin.
One of the Judicars moves toward him, but Gabriel raises a hand and stops the man without taking his eyes from me.
"You asked to see what happened tonight." Heat gathers beneath my ribs as another layer of glyphs unfolds across my wrists. "I gave you tonight."
Gabriel remains silent.
"You saw Alec. You saw the attack. You saw everything you came here to judge." My voice tightens as I pull my hand from Eric's and step closer. "Then you kept going."
His jaw shifts.
That tiny movement gives me everything I need.
"You knew the memory had ended."
"Yes."
The answer lands harder than an excuse would have.
Anger surges through me as I close another step between us. "Then whatever you went looking for afterward was none of your damn business."
Gabriel doesn't retreat again, although something changes in the way he holds himself. His attention moves between the Scripture gathering across my arms and my face before finally holding my gaze.
Something flickers through his expression when the Flame follows my anger into my eyes, and a vicious little part of me is glad he sees it.
Apparently, having a Judicar dig through memories I never gave him permission to touch has done remarkable things for my courage.
I walk straight up to him until barely a breath of space remains between us.
"You can pull that stunt with anyone else willing to tolerate it." My voice stays soft as I hold his gaze. "Try it with me again, and you'll learn why stopping when you were told was the safer option."
Gabriel holds his position.
"Is that a threat?"
I lift my chin a little higher.
"Threats give you time to wonder whether someone means them." My gaze never leaves his. "I'm saving you the trouble."
The faintest tension enters his jaw.
That one landed.
Heat surges beneath my ribs as the Flame rises with my fury.
Gabriel feels it.
His attention drops for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my face.
The Flame remains beneath my skin, yet its presence pours into the space between us. Heat rolls from my body while gold deepens across the Living Scripture and glyph after glyph turns toward Gabriel.
Something ancient shifts behind my eyes.
His composure finally cracks.
One careful step carries him backward.
Every Judicar behind him notices.
So do I.
For the first time since entering our property, Gabriel looks at me with something beyond professional scrutiny.
Wariness enters his gaze, although his posture remains rigid and his expression severe. His attention travels over the glyphs gathering across my skin before returning to my eyes, holding there without flinching.
"I should have stopped."
The admission catches my anger before it can climb any higher.
"You absolutely should have."
"I received everything required to judge what happened here." His voice carries the same clipped authority it has since he arrived. "I continued because I encountered something I did not understand."
"That sounds suspiciously like curiosity."
"It became curiosity."
My mouth tightens. "Wonderful. You violated my mind because you saw a locked door and decided it was a personal challenge. Glad we cleared that up."
Gabriel holds my gaze as the last traces of silver move through his eyes.
"I exceeded the permission you gave me. The relevant memory had ended, which left everything beyond it outside the authority you granted."
Eric becomes completely still beside me while I study the man standing in front of us.
There is no apology written across Gabriel's face and no softness entering his voice. He gives me the truth with the same severity he would use to deliver a judgment, accepting his own violation without dressing it in excuses.
Somehow, that suits him better.
The Flame remains close beneath my ribs, although its pressure stops building.
Gabriel inclines his head once, the movement brief enough to belong in a courtroom before his gaze returns fully to mine.
He crossed the line, and he knows it.
Apparently, that single acknowledgment is as close to an apology as Gabriel intends to travel.
The heat between us continues shimmering for several seconds before Eric steps closer.
"And what did Alec's memories show you?"
Gabriel turns toward him with such immediate precision that the matter between us appears closed. His attention crosses the ruined lawn before settling on Alec's unconscious form.
"The memory supports your account. Alec used extraordinary force while retaining control over where that force landed. Max instructed him to leave every attacker alive, and the memory confirms that he complied."
There is something deeply unnerving about hearing Alec's choices reduced to evidence and findings.
Gabriel seems built for exactly that.
Relief loosens the pressure inside my chest as my attention returns to Alec.
"He requires rest," Gabriel continues. "His response to our arrival demonstrates that the earlier tribunal affected him more severely than anyone realized."
My gaze returns to Gabriel. "What happens to him now?"
"For defending this property, nothing."
The answer arrives without hesitation.
Gabriel looks across the scorched lawn while one of his people examines the last attacker still lying near the crater.
"His use of force will be recorded alongside the circumstances surrounding it, the restraint demonstrated during the confrontation and the survival of every person involved."
My relief pauses somewhere halfway through its journey.
Gabriel's attention returns to me.
"A record is not a conviction, Max."
"You people have an extraordinary talent for making reassurance sound terrifying."
His expression remains completely unchanged.
Of course it does.
Gabriel turns toward the other Judicars and raises one hand.
They respond immediately.
Those capable of standing are brought upright while the unconscious are lifted and carried toward the damaged gates. Orders seem unnecessary between them. Each Judicar moves with the same unnerving precision, their formation adjusting around bodies and debris as though the entire operation has been rehearsed a thousand times.
The attackers notice it too.
Men who forced their way into my home with threats spilling from their mouths now lower their eyes whenever a Judicar approaches. One attempts to speak before the woman beside Gabriel turns her attention toward him, and whatever argument he planned dies somewhere behind his teeth.
Apparently, reputation can accomplish what lightning failed to finish.
Within minutes, the lawn begins emptying.
Gabriel walks toward the damaged gates with the others following behind him. Farewells appear to rank somewhere beneath trespassing inside someone's memories on the Judicar list of social skills.
He reaches the entrance before stopping.
His head turns slowly until those dark eyes find mine across the estate.
"We will be watching."
After everything that happened inside my consciousness, the meaning behind those words feels considerably more personal than it did before.
I fold my arms across my chest. "From outside my head, I hope."
Gabriel's stare remains unwavering.
"See that you give us no reason to return."
There he is.
The Gabriel who walked onto my property expecting everyone else to move around him has apparently survived our little disagreement perfectly well.
I raise my chin. "See that you knock next time."
Something shifts deep within his eyes before disappearing too quickly for me to name.
Gabriel turns away.
The Judicars follow him through the gates with the injured between them, their formation closing as naturally as it opened. Their footsteps gradually disappear into the darkness until the estate finally belongs to us again.
Silence hangs over the lawn for several long seconds.
Jamey eventually edges closer with the flowerpot still tucked against his chest.
"I think he likes you."
My head turns slowly toward him.
His grip tightens around the pot.
"I meant professionally, obviously."
Inside, Eric and Samuel begin repairing what remains of the front door while the scent of fresh sawdust gradually replaces smoke and scorched earth. Their conversation stays low beneath the scrape of timber and occasional knock of tools, although both men glance toward the windows often enough to tell me the Judicars have taken the evening's sense of safety with them.
I kneel beside Alec and brush my fingers over his wrist, finding the steady pulse beneath his skin. Warmth remains in his hand, and his chest rises with each deep breath while the last traces of electricity have finally disappeared from his fingers.
Footsteps approach behind me.
Mr. Grant lowers himself into the chair nearby with a steaming mug held between both hands. Another waits for me on the table, placed carefully within reach.
For several seconds, he says nothing.
His gaze travels toward the damaged entrance, then Alec, before eventually finding me.
"Tonight was... eventful."
I glance toward Eric wrestling a piece of timber into place. "That's one word for it."
The faintest smile touches Mr. Grant's mouth before disappearing behind the rim of his mug. He takes a slow sip, although his fingers tighten around the cup when he lowers it again.
"I need to ask you something."
Something in his voice makes me straighten.
"Ask."
His attention drops to the coffee. "Will Aleesha go through what you're facing now?"
The question lands harder than I expect.
I could soften the truth until it sounds prettier. I could hand him reassurance wrapped carefully enough to survive the journey home.
He deserves something real.
"She might."
His eyes lift to mine.
"But that's why we're cutting out the rot." I glance toward the ruined entrance before looking back at him. "If Aleesha is going to be part of this world, then we're going to make sure she never has to face it alone."
His grip loosens around the mug.
Movement beside me steals my attention.
Alec shifts against the couch, and I turn immediately, brushing the hair away from his forehead.
"Hey, are you with me?"
His lashes flutter before familiar blue eyes slowly find mine through the haze.
Then he smiles.
Relief tears through everything I've been holding since lightning swallowed him outside, leaving me with the overwhelming urge to hug him.
Naturally, I punch him in the arm instead.
"You nearly got us all killed, you idiot."
Alec groans and grabs his shoulder. "What do you mean I nearly got us all killed? I distinctly remember winning."
"You electrified half the lawn and then had Samuel introduce your neck to his hand."
His brow furrows as pieces begin returning.
I drop onto the couch beside him and fold my arms. "Then the Judicars arrived."
That clears the remaining fog remarkably quickly.
Alec bolts upright. "The Judicars came here?"
I catch his shoulder before momentum sends him any farther. "Easy."
His gaze jumps around the room. "Why would they come here?"
My eyebrow rises.
Understanding reaches him a second later.
"Oh."
"Yes, oh."
His attention drops toward his hands. "Did I kill anyone?"
The question comes so quietly that my irritation disappears.
"Everyone survived."
His shoulders sag as a long breath leaves him.
"You heard me through all that lightning, Alec. Every one of them walked away breathing."
His eyes close briefly before opening again. "What did the Judicars say?"
"Gabriel saw what happened. He knows you controlled where the lightning landed, and he knows I told you to leave everyone alive."
Alec studies me. "Saw it how?"
There it is.
I lean back against the couch. "He pulled the memory directly from my head."
Alec's face loses color.
"He did what?"
His hands catch my face before I can stop him, squashing my cheeks between his palms while his eyes search mine.
"You let a Judicar inside your head?"
I peel his fingers away. "Apparently, personal boundaries become optional when divine law enforcement gets curious."
"What happened?"
"Gabriel went sightseeing where he wasn't invited, the Scripture objected, and we had a small disagreement about privacy."
Alec stares at me.
I lift my chin. "Obviously, I won."
His mouth twitches. "How?"
"Because I'm amazing."
That finally gets a laugh out of him.
The sound brings everyone else into the room as though somebody issued an invitation.
Samuel reaches Alec first and claps a hand against his shoulder while Samantha leans over the couch and gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Jamey arrives last and shoves Alec backward into the cushions with enough affection to qualify as another assault.
Alec disappears beneath them with a groan.
"You people are terrible."
"You're welcome," Jamey says.
Alec's laughter escapes before he can stop it.
Mine follows.
For the first time since our front door came down, the sound belongs inside this house.
-------------------------------------------------------
The next afternoon, peace lies beautifully.
Sunlight warms my skin as I drift across the pool on an inflatable bed, my eyes closed while gentle ripples carry me wherever they please. Chlorine and sun-warmed stone have replaced smoke, scorched earth and whatever lingering scent divine judgment leaves behind.
The sky stretches cloudless above me while ordinary life continues around the pool with almost insulting confidence. Guests chatter somewhere beyond the water, glasses clink beneath shaded tables and the distant rhythm of waves carries over the fence.
For the first time in weeks, I almost feel human.
Eric lounges at the edge of the pool with his arms tucked behind his head.
Shirtless, which feels unnecessarily distracting.
His dark hair remains slightly mussed from the nap he continues to deny taking, and although his eyes are closed, I know better than to assume he has stopped paying attention.
He always listens.
My phone rings beside me.
I ignore the first attempt and continue floating.
The second ring arrives with considerably more determination.
"So much for peace."
I push myself onto one elbow, and the inflatable bed responds by trying to throw me into the pool.
"Traitor."
Eric's mouth twitches without his eyes opening.
I wrestle the float back into submission and reach for my phone.
One glance at the caller ID twists something inside my stomach.
Jamey.
I answer immediately. "Hey, Jamey. What's up?"
Silence greets me.
Eric's eyes open.
Whatever he sees on my face brings him upright before Jamey finally speaks.
"Max... Alec and I are being followed."
A branch snaps somewhere behind him while hurried footsteps crunch over uneven ground. Jamey's breathing punches through the speaker, each breath arriving harder than the last.
The afternoon changes around me.
I sit upright, sending the float rocking beneath me. "Who's following you?"
Eric is already standing.
"We're... not sure." Jamey drags another breath into his lungs. "They've been on us for a while, and they're relentless."
Fabric scrapes across the phone as someone takes it from him.
Alec's voice replaces his, lower and considerably steadier.
"We're traversing Devil's Peak. We noticed them at Break Point."
My pulse kicks harder. "Where are you now?"
"We stopped near the curve, close to the waterfall."
I close my eyes and picture the route.
The waterfall gives me what I need.
"There's a way behind it. Get inside and stay out of sight until we reach you."
"We'll be there."
The call ends.
By the time I look up, Eric has already pulled his shirt over his head.
I swing my legs over the side of the float.
Apparently, peace has finished lying to us for the afternoon.
-------------------------------------------------
Water crashes against the stone wall with enough force to make it sound as though the heavens have decided to hammer themselves into rock. Mist clings to our skin while the roar fills every inch of the narrow space behind the waterfall, swallowing conversation before a single word can travel.
Years of erosion have carved a shallow hollow behind the cascade, barely large enough to conceal several people and deep enough to disappear from anyone searching the trail outside.
Apparently, Alec listened.
He and Jamey crouch near a fissure in the rock with their attention fixed on the thick greenery beyond the falling water. Neither notices Eric and me approaching from behind.
I step up beside Jamey and tap his shoulder.
His hand swats backward with enough irritation to murder an innocent mosquito.
My eyebrows rise.
I grab his wrist instead.
His entire body locks.
Jamey turns slowly until his eyes find mine, and whatever heroic composure he has managed to preserve abandons him immediately.
A scream erupts from his throat at a pitch capable of competing with the waterfall.
His eyes roll upward as both arms fly wide and his body folds into an astonishing S-shaped collapse worthy of a Shakespearean maiden discovering that fainting has become an Olympic event.
Alec snorts.
Eric's laughter follows.
Mine finishes us.
I double over while laughter punches through my chest, mostly swallowed by the waterfall before bouncing around the rock behind us. After everything that happened last night, the sheer stupidity of Jamey's collapse catches me completely unprepared.
He surges upright and throws both arms around my legs.
"Max, I missed you!"
I pat his cheek. "Yeah, I missed saving your butt too."
His grin appears just before I push his face away.
"Your dramatic range remains deeply concerning."
Alec has already returned to the opening.
He crouches beside the falling water and carefully shifts enough vegetation to see the trail beyond it.
"I can't see movement. They either backed off, or they found another route."
A voice cuts through the roar outside.
"Find them. Now!"
Every trace of laughter disappears.
Alec releases the brush.
Eric moves first.
Shadows pass beyond the curtain of water as several figures spread through the greenery. One stops close enough for his shape to darken the cascade before his head turns toward the hidden opening.
Eric lunges through the edge of the water.
His hand catches the man's jacket while his other arm locks around him from behind. The stranger manages one startled struggle before Eric tightens his hold and keeps him trapped against his chest until the resistance gradually leaves his body.
His legs give way, and Eric catches him before his head reaches the ground.
He drags the unconscious man into the hollow with considerably less ceremony.
I give him a thumbs-up.
He returns it.
Apparently, teamwork has reached new heights.
Movement flashes outside.
Another figure runs past the waterfall before stopping several meters away. He crouches and reaches toward something near the ground.
"I found something!"
Shapes converge around him.
One silhouette becomes three, then five, their bodies shifting through the mist as they close around the waterfall.
Alec rises beside me.
Static immediately crawls over my arms.
Jamey stops smiling.
Eric positions himself between us and the opening as the shadows gather on the other side of the water.
One figure steps ahead of the others.
His hand rises.
The waterfall obeys.
Water peels away from the center of the cascade and climbs toward either side, separating with impossible precision. Thousands of liters continue crashing around us while a widening gap opens directly through the middle.
Our hiding place emerges behind it.
Cold air strikes my wet skin.
Nobody moves.
The stranger lowers his hand, and the divided waterfall remains suspended around him like two walls waiting for permission to fall.
Alec reacts first.
Lightning detonates from his body.
Blue-white power floods the hollow and races through the opening in branching currents, bright enough to burn the stranger's outline across my vision. Several intruders recoil as electricity lashes toward them and drives them away from the exposed entrance.
The man at the center keeps walking.
Alec's lightning reaches him.
Then something impossible happens.
Every current changes direction.
One bolt curves around his shoulder.
Another divides before reaching his chest and rejoins behind him. More follow, bending around his arms, his legs and his face as though the electricity has encountered something it refuses to strike.
Alec's expression changes.
He throws more power.
Lightning crashes through the hollow hard enough to illuminate every crack in the stone, yet the result remains the same.
The stranger walks through all of it.
Electricity parts around him.
Alec takes one step backward.
That scares me more than the man does.
I've watched Alec face creatures that should have sent any sane person running. I've seen him stand beneath a sky full of his own fury and invite the heavens closer.
I've never seen his power refuse him.
Eric's arm moves across me as the stranger steps through the opening.
"What the hell...?"
The man stops.
Water hangs behind him while Alec's lightning continues writhing around his body, twisting through empty space in frantic currents that refuse to touch him.
His gaze moves over Eric before passing to Jamey and Alec, studying each of them with an ease that makes my skin prickle.
Then his eyes find mine.
The corner of his mouth lifts.
Heat gathers beneath my ribs.
I expect the familiar surge, that instinctive rush of Living Flame that has answered danger for as long as I can remember.
Instead, the heat folds deeper.
My breath catches.
Gold flickers beneath my skin before drawing inward, layer by layer, until the warmth gathers somewhere deep inside me and holds there.
I press a hand against my ribs.
The Flame is still there. I feel its presence as clearly as my own heartbeat, yet something about its stillness raises every hair along my arms.
It knows something.
The stranger takes another step.
Alec's lightning bends around him.
The Flame remains silent.
And suddenly, winning feels like the least important question.
I need to know what just walked through that waterfall.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
What did you think of Gabriel's memory extraction?
Did you catch what happened when Max's Living Scripture interfered with the memories?
And then there was that final moment at the falls.
Alec's lightning obeyed someone else.
Who do you think he is?
Let me know your theories in the comments. I'm curious to see who figures it out first.
Thank you for reading and following Max and the team into the next mystery.