Page 69 of Veil of Ashes

He meets my gaze.

“Dante Veyra,” he says. “Dead. Public. Unmistakable.”

Sylvara exhales sharply. The sound cuts through the chapel like thunder in a closed fist.

“That’s suicide,” she says. “You’re asking him to walk into the lion’s den with a knife and come out holding the king’s head.”

“I’m asking him to finish what he started,” Ettore says calmly. “What they started.”

He turns to me.

“For what Rizzi did to your brother,” she says, steady and low. “And for what Dante let happen. For what he covered, twisted, and used. For what he’d still do to me—if you let him.”

I say nothing.

The silence isn’t indecision.

It’s acceptance.

I look at Sylvara.

She already knows what I’m going to say.

Her shoulders lift, once. Tight. Then drop again.

“Kieran,” she says, voice low and fierce. “You said we’d face this together.”

I nod. “I’m facing it to keep you free.”

She stares at me, and for a second, I think she’ll walk out. Leave the chapel, the plan, all of it behind.

But she stays.

Because she knows there’s no running from this anymore.

Ettore steps forward, voice softer now.

“One life,” he says. “For a thousand ghosts. For her. For Benedetto.”

He doesn’t mean himself.

He means my brother.

I swallow hard.

My voice comes out like gravel. “Then let it be mine.”

The candles flicker. The dusk deepens. The chapel holds its breath.

Sylvara turns away, shoulders shaking once—barely—but enough.

I watch her walk toward the far wall, where broken stained glass paints red and gold across the floor. Her silhouette is framed in light that feels too much like blood.

Ettore doesn’t smile. But his voice carries the weight of something sacred.

“Then you’ll have asylum,” he says. “Once Dante is dead, the path opens. You disappear together, clean.”

“No,” I say.

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