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“If you died quiet, he called it repentance. If you fought, he called it proof.”

Her breath goes shallow. She doesn’t look away.

“You keep saying was,” she says quietly. “Like he’s gone.”

“He is.”

Her head lifts sharply.

“I killed the Red Sermon.” No heat in it. No pride. Just fact. “Personally.”

The fire snaps. Shadow lifts his head, then settles again.

“He was the High Revelation’s right hand,” she says slowly.

“Yes.”

“And you’re still alive.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrow—not disbelief. Calculation.

“Then why didn’t the Hollowborn tear you apart.”

Because monsters respect precedent.

“Because the Gospel doesn’t care who bleeds.” I stare into the fire. “It only cares whether the blood proves the story.”

I reach into the pack and pull out the cloth-wrapped braid. I don’t open it yet. I let her feel the weight without touching.

Her gaze drops to it, and something in her face tightens—not fear exactly. Recognition without a name. Like her body knows the thing is wrong before the rest of her catches up.

“That’s what you went back for,” she says.

“Yes.”

I unwrap it.

The Binding Thread rests in my palm—iron, silver, copper braided tight. The copper strand is darker, worn smooth where heat once lingered too long. I turn it so that side faces down without thinking.

She notices anyway. “Why does that matter?”

“The carving writes the command,” I say. “The Thread makes the flesh answer.”

Selah’s gaze drops to the ring.

“And that?”

My fingers tighten around the braid before I can stop them.

Because the ring is the part she doesn’t understand yet.

The part none of them ever understood until it was too late.

Scripture tells the body what to do.

The Thread makes obedience possible.