Three days passed with agonizing slowness.
Damien managed them better than the previous isolation – Elara's visit had given him a baseline of humanity to hold onto, a memory of what feeling something other than cold calculation was like. But the fog still crept back in gradually, emotions dulling, people becoming abstract concepts rather than individuals.
By the third evening, as he prepared to meet Elara in the eastern garden, he could feel himself slipping again. The anticipation of seeing her was purely strategic – maintaining the anchor, preventing complete corruption, securing his survival.
That he recognized this as wrong was the only thing keeping him from complete detachment.
He dressed in dark clothing and left the estate at midnight, using shadow manipulation to blend with darkness as he navigated toward the Church compound. The city was quiet, guard patrols predictable, and his enhanced abilities made infiltration almost trivially easy.
