The priest falls, but he does not stay down. He runs blindly, limbs striking against curtains, against walls, leaving streaks of fire where he touches them, the flames catching, taking hold. His hands claw at himself,at the burning cloth, tearing at it, pulling skin with it, his screams breaking into something that no longer resembles anything known.
His body convulses once, twice, then it stops. It hits the floor hard, the impact sending a breath from him that does not return.
The fire does not stay where it is given.
It crawls.
From cloth to flesh, from flesh to floor, from floor to beam, it finds every place that will take it and claims it without hesitation. The wood drinks it in, dry and eager, the boards blackening, splitting, opening beneath the heat as the flame spreads in long, hungry tongues across the ground.
The altar flickers.
The shadows tremble along the walls, stretching, bending, distorting into shapes that do not hold.
Lucian stands behind me, but I do not leave. Not yet.
There is something left.
The heat gathers around my legs as I walk, the edge of my dress catching briefly where embers brush against it, then dying just as quickly, as though the fire does not know what to do with me. The floor gives slightly beneath each step, weakening, yet still it holds.
The altar stands ahead. The candles there still burn, their small flames steady despite the larger ones rising behind them, as though they belong to something else entirely.
She is there. Mother.
She has drawn herself into the corner, her body drawn inward, her hands lifted as though she might shield herself from what has already found her. The smoke curls around her face, her hair clinging damply to her temples, her breath coming in shallow, broken pulls that do not seem to fill her lungs.
Her eyes find me. They widen, then soften.
Tears spill all over her face, cutting clean lines through the ash that has settled against her skin. Her lips tremble, trying to form something, trying to hold onto it long enough to give it shape.
"Forgive me," she whispers.
Her voice is smaller than I have ever heard it.
"Forgive me, copilul meu… feti?a mea…"[32] she says, hands shaking as they press to her chest. "I was afraid, God, I was so afraid. I thought it could save you—"
Her arms fall open.
"I am sorry," she says again, the words dissolving even as they leave her. "I am so sorry…"
A breath.
"Puiul meu[33]," she whispers, softer now, the old name slipping free without thought, without guard. "My little girl…"
The fire climbs behind me. The heat deepens. The wood groans again, louder now, a long, low sound that runs through the structure, through the air, through everything that still stands.
She looks at me as though I am still hers, and for a breath, something tightens in my chest—a memory without shape, a warmth without place. Something that remembers the shape of her hand smoothing my hair, the sound of her breath beside mine in the dark. The weight of being held without fear. Protected.
But then I see it.
It is slight. A shift more than a movement—her shoulders drawing back, her body leaning away, her fingers faltering in the space between us as though something unseen has risen there. Her breath catches. Her eyes remain on me, wide, shining, pleading—
and afraid.
Afraid of me. The same way they were. The same way they all were.
She still weeps, still looks at me as if I am hers, as if I could be gathered back into her arms if only she speaks the right words. But I have seen it now.
Behind her, the shadow gathers. He is already there.
