I had felt it, and I had feared it. I had tried to tamp down the fire that had always lived in my heart, had tried to pretend the dreams never came true. He saw the truth in my face.
“Why do you think these men try so hard to be God? It is because, in the end, they know they have no power at all. They were born from dust, and to dust they will return, no matter the games they play. But you—you are made of stars. You can create life, mold it to your will. It was not God who brought his Son to earth, but a woman. She carried him, she birthed him, she nursed him. She taught him what true love looks like, and through that he learned what God was.”
He frowned. “You know they fear it. That is why they have kept you afraid, done everything in their power to hold you down, for fire cannot survive where there is no air. Do not let them.”
“Heinrich, all I want is you.”
He gifted me his kind smile, so full of patience. “And you have me—you will always have me, but you need to stop being afraid. You need to embrace the power that has burned inside you, because once you unleash it, you will be unstoppable. You can have everything, if you will just reach out and take it.”
Take it. Was it truly so simple?
I slid my hands back and laced them through his hair, pulling him close, until my lips grazed his skin. I breathed deep, and buzzing filled my mind as fire bloomed in my belly.
My hand rested on his chest, and I found the beat of his heart, but also something that writhed, cool and covered in scales. I looked back into his eyes and found the flames that had danced there since Walpurgisnacht. I saw him, my Heinrich, young and hopeful. I saw him coming to Bamberg, shattered and broken. I saw us in his rectory as he taught me and felt the love that had blossomed in a place of ash and darkness.
But I alsosaw more. I saw more stars than the mind could comprehend. I saw flames that grew so hungry nothing could remain, and I saw the shadows that danced alongside them. I saw a light like nothing I could imagine, that if I looked at it for too long, I knew it would destroy me. But I also knew—knew like I knew how to breathe—that it would fold to my will if I just took it.
I blinked and realized I was panting, my whole body trembling with the effort of controlling the power roiling inside me now. It wasn’t like the garden, that had been driven by anger and desperation. That was why it had fled when I called. This was a rage at injustice so old we had all forgotten what the world looked like before it.
“I am tired of being afraid.”
His face shifted—no longer human, but not devil either. Something this world had not seen in a millennium. He reached out and placed his hands over mine, thumbs stroking the raw skin where the shackles had worn me down.
“There she is,” he murmured against my hair as he leaned in, inhaling deeply. “There is the woman I have been waiting for.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “You asked once what I wanted from you. I wanted this. I wanted to be yours. Not through seduction or manipulation—but because you reached out andtookme.
“I always understood you, Katharina, because I am made from nothing but desire. I desire truth. I desire complete and utter surrender. But above all else, I desire you.”
My lips parted before I could stop them.
“No, do not make that face. There are no truer words I have ever spoken. You think I came to corrupt you, but the truth is much simpler. I came to worship you. I have felt the divine light of Heaven on my face, and I have power beyond human reckoning. But I have never felt anything as strong and as pure as the love Heinrich holds in his heart for you. There is no force in Heaven or earth that could overcome it. No God that could tear our soulaway from yours. So know that every time you smile, we are filled with so much joy it nearly destroys us. Your laugh is more perfect than any angelic choir. I want you to be mine, but I have been yours for lifetimes beyond measure.
“I have waited in darkness for so long, but a sword always remembers its purpose. That is my love for you.”
I held him there just a moment more.You knew. You have always known.Yes, that this world was wrong, and that I was going to change it.
“I’m ready to give my confession now, Father.”
His hands found my waist, fingers pressing into my flesh.
“I am filled with desire. I want so much more than I have been told I should have. I want to walk in the light and not live in fear. I want to help the outcasts and the downtrodden. I want to free them from the cages placed on them by the powerful. I want to heal, and I want to teach others how to heal.”
“Yes, my dove, yes.”
“I want to destroy this place, and all the other monuments that man has built in the name of the Almighty only to serve themselves.
“And most of all, I want you, Heinrich. I ache to feel you moving inside me, your lips on my skin and my name on your tongue. I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what I have to become. You are mine, Heinrich, and I am done pretending otherwise.”
His grip on me was so tight now I knew I would find bruises on my hips, but I didn’t care. “You looked at me when I was a scared girl, a coward, but you saw fire. You saw what I could be. And I have never wanted anything more than I want to be that for you, the version of myself you saw from the very beginning.”
I stared down at him—this ancient being, this creature of starlight and shadow, trembling beneath my hands like a newborn lamb. And something shifted inside me. Something that had been locked away my entire life, buried beneath everything they had taught me.
I was done being small.
“Look at me,” I commanded. His head snapped up instantly, his eyes wide and ardent. “You are mine. Say it.”
“I am yours.”
