My heart pounds so loudly I can feel it in my ears.
"That you would rather burn than kneel at their altar."
Enough. I move before he can speak again. The dagger flashes between us, blade aimed for the place where his ribs meet.
He does not step away. My breath catches as the metal meets resistance, as his hand closes around it. Bare skin against silver.
The sound that leaves him is quiet, drawn through clenched teeth. His fingers tighten anyway, smoke rising faintly where metal bites flesh releasing a bitter, almost sweet scent. His palm has split open around the blade; the wound burns white, angry and raw. Blood wells dark and thick, slipping between his fingers, running down over my knuckles.
"See."
His other hand comes up slowly and covers mine where I hold the hilt. The burn of the silver reddens, blistering where it touches.
"It wounds," he says quietly.
He watches my face as he presses the knife closer to his chest, guiding my hand with his, the skin there unsettlingly cold.
The point dimples the fabric over his heart.
"Here," he murmurs.
My arm locks. I cannot move it further. His grip holds the blade steady, his ruined palm wrapped tight around the silver. Pain flickers across his features and vanishes into something calmer.
I push—
Nothing. No rhythm under my blade. No thud against my fingers.
His chest does not answer.
My hand falters, breath leaving me in shock.
He stands there, offering himself, and for the first time, I see him without shadow.
He looks young—younger than the fear he carries. Taller than me by a head, shoulders broad beneath the fall of his coat. His face is pale, yet colour lives in it—in the fullness of his cheekbones, in the vivid brightness of his eyes. Dark hair falls across his forehead, damp from the mist. It brushes his lashes, those casting long shadows along his cheekbones. His features are cut clean and precise, yet softened by the curve of his mouth, a gentleness that does not belong to something that feeds on blood.
Beautiful.
The word flickers through me before I can stop it.
My fingers tighten on the hilt as Popa Vasile’s voice rises in memory.
The devil does not come with horns. He comes dressed in light.
His mouth curves, but pain tightens it. I see it in the fine strain at the corners, in the way his lashes lower and lift again. Still, he presses forward, driving the silver deeper into his own flesh until smoke curls there too.
My father’s blade. My mother’s prayers.
"Do it," he whispers.
His breath brushes my cheek. It smells of earth and rain.
"You wounded me once. Let me feel it again."
My arm trembles under the pressure, the blade sinking a fraction.
"It wasn’t me." My voice comes thin in the air between us. "It was the Lord."
A breath of laughter leaves him.
