Page 55 of Veil of Ashes

Just friction and fire and the kind of release that makes you forget the rest of the world exists.

We were animals. Wild, driven, barely human. But there was truth in it—brutal and quiet.

When I held her after, she didn’t pull away.

She didn’t sleep either. Neither did I.

We just lay there, two ghosts in a bed that smelled like sweat and something terrifyingly close to trust.

Now, with the microdot beside me and the sun turning blood against the windshield, I know the truth I didn’t want to say out loud.

She’s dear to me.

And that makes everything harder.

Because people like me don’t keep what they care about.

We bury it.

The chapel appears like a scar in the sand.

Whitewashed once, now sunburnt and cracked. One cross leans half-buried near the front, the wood twisted like it forgot what faith looked like. No signs of life. Just the wind dragging grit over stone.

I park.

Pop the glove box. Pull out the case.

It’s light. Feels wrong.

I walk toward the door.

Inside, it smells like dust and memory. Burnt candles long since gone. No pews left that aren’t cracked. The altar’s just a slab now, warped by time, warped by flame. But the weight in the air isn’t holy.

Ettore’s here.

He stands where a priest might once have preached, sleeves rolled up, smoke curling from his hand.

“You always show up when the sky breaks,” he says.

“I’m predictable like that.”

I hand him the case. He opens it, inspects the microdot, nods.

“This’ll do it?” He asks.

“Yes, it’ll bleed Rizzi to the bone,” I say, nodding.

“Then it’s already started.”

I nod. My chest is tight.

He watches me, something unreadable in his face. “And you?”

“I’m still here, fighting.” I think of Sylvara and freedom.

He flicks ash to the ground. “You want freedom? You will have to earn it in pieces. Blood for blood.”

I breathe once. “You always make mercy sound like a goddamn debt.”

---