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And she looked at me like she’d already decided what she was willing to lose.

That look is how this always starts for people like me.

The bread sat between us—warm, soft, human. A thing that smelled like before in a yard that only knows after. I didn’t touch it. I don’t trust gifts. Especially not the kind you give a man you’ve just asked to break you open and teach you how to survive it.

She called me a Savage Saint.

I don’t know what that makes her.

I do know this⁠—

The Iron Gospel thinks violence is divine. They dress it up, carve it into bone, pretend blood is a language God still listens to.

They’re wrong.

Violence isn’t holy.

It’s useful.

And now Selah knows that too.

Shadow lifts his head, ears angling toward the tree line before I hear it. Lucas steps into the moonlight, hands shoved deep into his pockets like that might hide what he’s carrying.

“Any word from Cass?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says. “Not a peep.”

Figures.

“High Revelation knows we moved the markers again,” Lucas says. “He keeps circling this area.”

I drag a hand down my face. “Cass was supposed to leave her tracks messy enough until the river.”

“She did,” he says. “That’s why they got suspicious.”

I look at him. “What?”

He exhales slow. Careful.

“The High Revelation says God spoke again.”

The air tightens.

“He calls her the girl of ash,” Lucas continues. “Says she’s the next hymn.”

My pulse goes cold. “He wants her dead.”

“No.” Lucas’s voice drops. “He wants to crown her.”

“They don’t crown what refuses to kneel,” I said—and fucking hate how certain it feels.

The word lands wrong—heavy, twisted.

“With what,” I ask, voice flat, “holy rot and rust?”

“With the Red Sermon’s place. Guess he didn’t appreciate you killing his mouthpiece in front of the flock.”

Fuck, I miscalculated.