The trade tunnel was an artery of forgotten commerce, a brick-lined passage reeking of damp earth and rat droppings. Alaric's key turned smoothly in the rusted grate, and I descended into a deeper dark, the silver pendant cool against my sternum. For the first hour, it worked. The holy power flowed into the focus, a manageable river instead of a raging flood. My frantic heartbeat slowed. I could think.
But a focus is not a seal. It is a guide. And the power within me was not just magnitude; it was a truth demanding to be acknowledged. With every step north, toward the border, toward Kaelen, the truth pressed harder. Memories of Selene's life, of her vows, of her love for a world that betrayed her, welled up—not as regrets, but as convictions. The pendant grew warm, then hot, humming like a plucked string.
I emerged from the tunnel at the edge of the artisan's quarter as the first grey light of dawn bled into the sky. Before me lay the Northern Road, a wide ribbon of packed earth leading to the distant, purple-shouldered mountains. Freedom.
Between me and that road stood a checkpoint.
It was new. Timber barriers stretched across the road, manned by a mixed unit of City Watch and Church Templars. They were checking every cart, questioning every traveler. My description had circulated. The net had been cast wider, faster than Alaric predicted.
I ducked behind a stack of timber from a nearby woodyard, my breath coming in short gasps. The pendant was burning my skin now. The pressure was returning, amplified by the spike of fear. I could feel the holy light bubbling in my throat, glowing behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw, clutching the pendant, pleading with it. Not yet. Not here.
"You there! Behind the wood!"
A watchman had seen me. He gestured to two Templars, and they began striding toward my hiding spot.
Panic, pure and undiluted, obliterated my control.
I turned to run, but my boot caught on a root. I fell hard onto the muddy ground. The impact jarred something loose.
The dam shattered.
It did not explode. It unfolded.
Golden light, soft as dawn but impossibly bright, radiated from my body. Not in a violent burst, but in a serene, expanding wave. It rolled out from me in a silent circle, washing over the muddy ground, the stacked timber, and the approaching guards.
Where the light touched, the mud dried and cracked, tiny, white wildflowers sprouting instantly in the sterile earth. The rot on the timber vanished, the wood seeming to sigh and straighten. The Watchman and Templars stopped in their tracks, not in pain, but in awe. The light washed over them, and a Templar's old sword-arm injury, a chronic ache he'd carried for years, suddenly loosened, the pain melting away. He stared at his arm, his face blank with shock.
The light continued, spreading across the checkpoint. A cart horse, skittish and lathered, calmed instantly, nuzzling its foal. A sickly child in a refugee wagon stopped crying, a healthy pink returning to his cheeks as his mother gasped.
It was healing. Purification. Blessing. On an instinctual, uncontrollable scale.
The golden wave reached the barriers. The rough-cut timber didn't catch fire; it bloomed. Thin vines sprouted from the wood, winding around the posts, bursting with tiny, luminous golden leaves.
Silence fell over the checkpoint. Dozens of people—guards, travelers, merchants—stood frozen, staring at the transformed ground, at their own healed ailments, at the flowering barriers.
And at the source.
I pushed myself up onto my knees in the center of the miracle. The light still poured from me, a gentle, endless fountain. I was no longer a fugitive hiding in the mud. I was a figure of impossible radiance, silver-blonde hair streaming in an unfelt, golden breeze, violet eyes blazing with inner suns.
A Templar fell to his knees, not in submission, but in reverence. "Goddess above… it's a blessing…"
"A saint…" a woman whispered from the wagon, clutching her now-healthy child. "A living saint!"
The watchman who had spotted me dropped his spear, his face pale. "But the orders… they said a heretic… a dark sorceress…"
The contradiction hung in the air, thick and potent. The Church had ordered them to hunt a dangerous criminal. Their eyes beheld a font of divine grace.
The ranking Templar, the one whose arm was healed, was a hardened veteran. He looked from his own pain-free limb to my glowing form, to the awestruck faces of his men and the common folk. Doctrine warred with evidence in his eyes.
He made a decision.
Slowly, deliberately, he sheathed his sword. He walked forward, stopping a respectful distance away, and knelt. He placed his fist over his heart—a soldier's salute.
"My lady," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "Your light… what is your will?"
It was the most dangerous question I could be asked. I didn't want worship. I wanted to escape. I wanted to reach the North. But the power had chosen this moment to speak, and it had spoken in a language of undeniable, benevolent truth.
I rose to my feet, the light around me beginning to gently recede, pulling back into my skin but leaving a palpable, golden aura. The wildflowers remained. The healed remained healed.
"My will," I said, my voice echoing with a harmonic, resonant quality I didn't recognize, "is to go north. The true darkness gathers there, not in the hearts of frightened girls. Stand aside."
My words were not a command but a truth. It hung in the air, simple and irrefutable.
The veteran Templar looked at the healed child, at the flowering wood, and at his own men, who were now looking to him for guidance. He nodded once, sharply. "Open the barrier!"
His men scrambled to obey, not out of fear of him, but out of the shock of what they'd witnessed. They dragged the miraculously overgrown timber aside, creating a path.
The gathered travelers parted like a sea, their faces filled with wonder. Some reached out as I passed, not to grab me, but to brush their fingers through the lingering golden aura, making signs of blessing.
I walked through the checkpoint, down the center of the Northern Road. No one followed. They just watched, a silent, reverent crowd bearing witness.
I walked until the checkpoint was a small cluster behind me, until the road curved into a copse of birch trees. The moment I was out of sight, my legs gave out.
I collapsed against a tree trunk, the last of the radiant light snuffing out like a doused candle. The pendant was ice-cold against my scorched skin. Exhaustion, deeper than any I'd ever known, hollowed me out. I had just channeled a continent's worth of faith and magic.
But I had done it. The manifestation—the accidental, undeniable manifestation—was complete. And it had not gotten me captured. It had… cleared my path.
The sound of hoofbeats, swift and purposefully quiet, came from the road ahead. Not the chaotic gallop of pursuit, but the controlled approach of a small, skilled group.
From the trees, a squad of Northern knights emerged, led by Sir Damien. His usual cheerful demeanor was gone, replaced by grim alertness. His eyes scanned me, taking in my disheveled state, the faint, smoking edges of my cloak where the power had leaked, and the silver pendant gleaming at my throat.
He saw no need for questions. He simply swung down from his saddle and offered me a waterskin. "The Duke felt a… disturbance in the force of things. Sent us to scout the southern road. Seems we're a bit late for the main event."
I drank greedily, the water grounding me. "The checkpoint…"
"We saw. From a ridge. Saw the light. Saw them let you pass." Damien's green eyes held a new, profound respect. "That's not a trick you can teach, is it, my lady?"
I shook my head, too weary to explain.
"Didn't think so." He helped me onto his own horse, mounting behind me to steady me. "The Duke needs to see you. Now. The world just changed, and you're at the center of the storm."
We rode north, the knights forming a protective wedge around me. I looked back once. In the distance, I could just make out the checkpoint, a smudge on the landscape. Around it, I could still see, with my fate-sight, the newly spun threads—shimmering filaments of gold connecting the people there to me. Threads of awe, of faith, of witness.
The Saint was no longer a memory. She was a fact.
And as we rode toward the mountains, toward the man who dreamed of my death, I knew the most dangerous part was just beginning. I had revealed my greatest secret to save myself. Now I had to live with the consequences.
The investigation was over. The war of identity had begun.