"I am breathing."
"You're holding your breath and walking like you're approaching a gallows. You need to look like you belong here."
"I don't belong here. I am, in fact, the thing this entire building was constructed to destroy."
"You belong with me." The simplicity of it, the quiet and absolute certainty, cuts through the panic in August's chest. "And I belong here. So by extension, you belong here too."
It's terrible logic. It's also the most reassuring thing anyone has ever said to him.
They cross the square in front of the Cathedral. The building is even more imposing up close. Massive stone walls, buttresses that sweep upward, the main doors carved with scenes ofTemplars vanquishing dark forces. August doesn't look too closely at those carvings. He doesn't need the visual reminder of what the Order does to things like him.
Vale leads him not to the main entrance but to a side door. Smaller, less trafficked, marked with a symbol that August recognizes as an Order administrative seal. Vale presses his badge to the lock, and the door opens onto a corridor of pale stone and warm light.
The holy energy inside the Cathedral hits August like stepping into a headwind.
It's everywhere. Saturating the walls, the floor, the air itself. Not aggressive, not the targeted, weaponized force of a blessing circle or a Templar's strike, but pervasive. Constant. The ambient holiness of a building that has been consecrated and re-consecrated for a thousand years, soaked in prayer and power until the very stone radiates it. August has felt concentrated holy energy before. In passing. From a distance. This is standing inside the source.
His death magic contracts instinctively, pulling tight against his bones, making itself small. The corruption on his skin, already faded, already diminished by Vale's touch, prickles with discomfort. It's bearable, but only just.
His hand finds Vale's sleeve. He doesn't grab it, just touches it, the lightest brush of fingers against fabric, and Vale responds without breaking stride. He shifts closer, and the warmth of his aura wraps around August, easing the prickle, softening the ambient holiness into something tolerable.
"Okay?" Vale asks, barely audible.
"Okay," August lies.
They move through the corridor. It's early enough that the administrative wing is quiet. A few clerical staff at desks, a Templar in full uniform passing the other direction who nods to Vale without looking twice at August. The corridors are wide,vaulted, lined with oil paintings of historical scenes that August doesn't examine and tapestries depicting the Order's founding that he actively avoids. He's never been particularly interested in viewing artistic interpretations of how his kind were eradicated.
Every instinct he has is screaming at him to run.
It's not rational and he knows it. The rational part of his mind, the part that sat at a kitchen table this morning and weighed the options and chose to be here, understands that walking in voluntarily, with intelligence to offer, under the protection of two Templars, is the best possible scenario. The rational part knows that hiding was never sustainable, that Cael would have found him eventually, that controlling the terms of this introduction is infinitely better than being dragged in by a squad of Templars who don't know what he's done for this city.
The irrational part, the twelve-year-old boy who raised a dead cat and has been running ever since, wants to bolt.
August keeps walking. His fingers stay on Vale's sleeve.
They turn down another corridor, then another. The architecture grows more ornate. Carved stone, stained glass, the faint smell of incense and old wood. They're moving deeper into the Cathedral, toward its administrative heart, and with every step the holy energy intensifies. August can feel it humming in his teeth, vibrating in the roots of his molars.
"The Sanctus's office is at the end of this hall," Vale says, his voice low and steady, pitched for August's ears alone. "He'll sense you before we enter. Don't let it rattle you."
"Too late for that."
"August." Vale stops. Turns to face him. In the quiet corridor, with stained glass casting colored light across the pale stone floor, he puts his hand on the side of August's neck. Thumb against his jaw, fingers curving behind his ear. The touch is warm and grounding and enormously inappropriate for the setting, and August doesn't care. He leans into it the way healways leans into it, because his body has learned that this is where the fear gets quieter, and his body is not wrong.
"I'm right here," Vale says. "I'm not leaving this room. Nothing happens to you that doesn't go through me first."
August's throat is too tight to speak. He nods.
Vale holds his gaze for a moment longer. Long enough to make sure the message has landed, long enough that August can feel the certainty of it settle into his bones alongside the fear. Then he drops his hand and turns back down the corridor.
The doors at the end are heavy oak, banded with iron, carved with the Order's seal. Vale doesn't knock. He pushes them open and walks in with the authority of a man who has three hundred years of institutional investment behind him.
August follows on legs that feel as though they belong to someone else.
***
Sanctus Cael's office is not what August expected.
He'd imagined something austere. Stone walls, bare surfaces, the spartan severity of a man who commands an army of holy warriors. Instead, the room is warm and cluttered in a way that speaks to centuries of accumulated habit. Bookshelves line every wall, overflowing with texts in a dozen languages. A massive desk sits at the center, buried under documents and correspondence. There are artifacts on display: holy relics, blessed weapons, items that radiate quiet power. The walls are hung with maps and diagrams and what appears to be a five-hundred-year-old tapestry depicting the War of Binding.
