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“Six-six.”

“Favorite color?”

A beat. His throat works. “Indigo.”

My mouth tugs before I can stop it.

“Food before the end?”

“Steak and cheese fries,” he says. “Murph’s.”

“Classy.”

“Don’t start.”

The corner of his mouth twitches—barely there, like the movement surprised him as much as it did me.

“Alright,” I murmur, smoothing gauze into place, fingers skimming heat and scar. “What happened?”

“Iron Gospel.”

The tape slips from my hand clattering to the floor.

“I handled it,” he adds. Flat. Final.

His thumb rolls the ring on his finger. Back. Forth. Like he’s anchoring himself to something solid.

“Barely.” I press the tape down, but the word comes out too sharp, too close to fear. “If more come⁠—”

“I’ll kill them.”

“You’re one man.”

He lifts his head then. Finally looks at me. One eye silver and cold, the other burning dark and controlled. The distance between us feels razor-thin.

“That’s enough.” Then—quieter. Stripped down to bone. Just for me. “When the Gospel named me The Crownless Wrath, it wasn’t poetry, little crow.”

XIV

Bloodied Saint

The room pitches, just a fraction, like my balance slipped without warning. Air catches high in my chest, sharp and useless, and for a split second my body reacts before my mind can get there.

I see him then—not the man, not the scars—but the weight of what’s sitting behind his eyes. Something honed. Something that learned how to stay standing when the world tried to break it open and name the pieces. It’s close enough that my skin hums, like I’m standing too near exposed wire.

My throat tightens.

No.

I draw myself up anyway, force my spine straight, lift my chin until the tremor settles back where it belongs. Whatever they tried to make of him, whatever they etched and branded and bled into his bones—it doesn’t get to decide what stands in front of me now.

“I don’t care what they carved into you,” I say, steady enough to surprise even me.

His jaw tightens once. Just once.

“People carve monsters out of whatever they fear most. Doesn’t make it scripture.”

He tilts his head, the light catching the carved ridges on his cheek—the ones men screamed hymns over while cutting into his skin.