In the morning I woke to the smell of stew.

  It drifted through the small stone room, rich and earthy, pulling me up from sleep before my mind could catch up with my body. Sunlight spilled in through the narrow window, dust motes hanging in it like something alive.

  Raphael stood at the hearth, stirring the pot with an easy patience.

  “Eat,” he said without turning. “Once you’re finished, you’ll go to the mountain nearby. There, you’ll speak to the Father.”

  I sat up slowly and nodded. My head still felt heavy with thoughts I hadn’t finished.

  We ate in silence.

  The stew was simple—potatoes, grain, bits of meat—but it filled something deeper than hunger. When the bowl was empty, Raphael took it from me and set it aside.

  “Come,” he said.

  We walked through Deermarch together.

  The morning had fully settled now. Children ran through the fields, their laughter cutting clean through the air. Men moved in steady lines, harvesting grain, passing bundles hand to hand without hurry. Further on, sheep were herded along low fences, bells chiming softly as they went.

  Near one of the homes, women cooked over an open fire, talking quietly as smoke curled upward. The town felt… unguarded. Open. Alive in a way Old Tumbledown never had time to be.

  As we passed, some of the townsfolk nodded to Raphael—not with fear or obligation, but respect. He returned each greeting with a word or a smile, stopping once to lift a small boy who came running at him full speed.

  Raphael swung the boy up onto his shoulders.

  The child laughed and spread his arms wide. “Look!” he shouted. “I’m flying!”

  Raphael chuckled. “Careful, then. Don’t forget to land.”

  The boy banked left and right, making soft rushing sounds with his mouth.

  Something tightened in my chest.

  For a moment, I saw James there instead—barefoot, grinning, arms outstretched as he ran through the street back home, pretending he could outrun the wind.

  I slowed.

  Raphael noticed. He gently set the boy down, ruffled his hair, and sent him back toward the fields.

  “You all right?” he asked quietly.

  I nodded, though my throat burned.

  “I had a brother,” I said. The words came out before I could stop them.

  Raphael didn’t press. He just walked beside me as the town carried on around us—children laughing, grain whispering in the breeze, life insisting on itself.

  And somewhere in the distance, the mountain waited.

  Not towering. Not dramatic.

  Just present.

  I didn’t know what the Father would say to me there.

  But as I watched Deermarch breathe and move and thrive, I understood something I hadn’t before:

  Whatever answer I was about to hear—

  —it would not be spoken in fire.

  And it would not belong to me alone.

  ***

  Later, Raphael led me beyond the edge of Deermarch.

  The path of the mountain narrowed as we climbed, winding between stone until the town slipped out of sight behind us.

  We stopped at the mouth of a cave.

  It yawned open in the rock, dark and cool, breath faintly damp as if the mountain itself were alive. No markings. No guards. Just shadow and silence.

  Raphael turned to me.

  “Take off your boots,” he said.

  I hesitated, then knelt and unlaced them. The ground was cold beneath my feet, small stones biting gently into my skin.

  “Your weapons,” he added.

  I slid the sword from my belt and set it aside. Then the pouch. I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to.

  “Your armor.”

  That took longer.

  The straps creaked as I loosened them. The weight came away piece by piece until I was standing there in simple clothes, bare and exposed, the mountain air raising goosebumps along my arms.

  Raphael watched without comment.

  When there was nothing left between me and the stone, he nodded toward the cave.

  “You’ll go in alone,” he said.

  The word caught.

  “Alone?” I asked.

  He met my eyes and nodded once.

  “Yes.”

  I looked past him, half-expecting Azazel to be there—leaning against a rock, smiling like this was all part of some larger joke.

  There was only the cave.

  Only darkness.

  I drew a breath that felt too thin, then stepped forward.

  The stone was cold beneath my bare feet as I crossed the threshold. The light fell away quickly, swallowed by shadow. Behind me, I felt Raphael’s presence recede—not abandoning me, but refusing to follow.

  I did not look back.

  The cave closed around me, quiet and waiting.

  And for the first time since Old Tumbledown burned, there was nothing left to carry—

  —no armor, no blade, no SIN.

  Only myself.

  And whatever listened in the dark.

  The cave swallowed sound.

  My footsteps faded almost as soon as they formed, the stone drinking them in until even my breathing sounded too loud. The air was cool and still, untouched by wind. Ahead, the passage narrowed, then opened again into a small hollow chamber.

  A small crack split the mountain high above.

  Sunlight poured through it in a thin, pale blade, dust drifting slowly in its path like suspended stars. The rest of the cave lay in shadow, untouched, unmoving.

  I stood there for a long time.

  Nothing stirred.

  “Raphael?” I called, my voice echoing once before collapsing back into silence.

  No answer.

  The quiet pressed in harder now—not peaceful, not gentle. Deafening.

  “There’s nothing here,” I said aloud, as if naming it might make it untrue.

  I waited.

  Minutes passed. Or hours. Time felt wrong in the dark.

  I sat down beneath the shaft of light, back against the cold stone. I listened. I watched the dust fall. Nothing came.

  So I knelt.

  I folded my hands the way my mother had taught me, the way my body still remembered even if my heart didn’t. I bowed my head and waited for something—anything—to meet me halfway.

  Nothing.

  The silence did not shift.

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  I stood again, frustration tightening my chest.

  “Father?” I called, my voice sharper now. “Are you there?”

  The word vanished into the cave, unanswered.

  “What are my next steps?” I asked. “What do You want from me?”

  Only the faint sound of my own breath answered back.

  I laughed once, bitter and hollow.

  “Father,” I said louder. “Everyone says You’re always around us.”

  My voice cracked.

  “Where are You?”

  Silence.

  I stood there beneath the light, stripped of armor and weapon and certainty, and felt something raw begin to surface—not faith, not disbelief, but the unbearable weight of being seen by nothing at all.

  And for the first time, it occurred to me that the silence might not be absence.

  It might be an invitation.

  To stay.

  To listen.

  To speak without being answered.

  I lowered my head and stood there longer than I wanted to.

  Longer than was comfortable.

  And the cave did not change.

  I felt my hate eating me up again, my blood boiling in the silence.

  “I want my revenge!” I screamed, the sound ripping out of my chest like something torn loose. “I want to destroy the Church that took my world away from me!”

  My voice cracked against the stone and shattered into nothing.

  “Where are You?” I roared. “Where are You, Father?”

  The silence pressed in harder, like the cave was closing its jaws.

  “I’m here!” I shouted, spinning, breath coming too fast. “I came like You wanted. I stripped myself bare. I knelt. I prayed. And You’re still silent.”

  My fists slammed into the rock. Pain shot up my arms, sharp and useless.

  “Do You hear me?” I demanded. “Or do You hate me too?”

  My throat burned. My chest felt tight—too tight—as if the air itself had thickened.

  “Was it my fault?” I snarled. “Was it my jealousy?”

  The words came faster now, tripping over each other.

  “Was Mara chosen for the First Calling?” I shouted. “Was she always meant to be taken?”

  I staggered beneath the crack of light, hands shaking.

  “Was it because I was jealous?” I yelled. “Because I wanted her? Because I wanted a life that wasn’t mine?”

  My vision blurred. My breath hitched, sharp and shallow, like I couldn’t pull enough air into my lungs.

  “My father loved You!” I screamed. “He trusted You!”

  I slammed my fist into the stone again, harder this time.

  “And he lied headless in the street,” I choked, voice splintering. “Headless—and You did nothing!”

  The words scraped my throat raw.

  “Where were You?” I howled. “Where were You when my brother was smashed against the foundation like he was nothing?”

  My legs buckled. I dropped to my knees, the impact knocking the breath out of me. I clawed at the ground, fingers scraping against stone until they ached.

  “Where were You?” I sobbed. “They say You’re everywhere—then where were You then?”

  The cave stayed silent.

  Something inside me snapped.

  “I want my revenge!” I screamed into the darkness, voice breaking apart. “I want it! I want them dead! I want them to feel what I felt!”

  My chest burned. Each breath felt too shallow, too fast, like I was drowning on dry stone.

  “Let me have it!” I begged. “If You won’t stop them—let me do it!”

  My words dissolved into choking sobs. My shoulders shook violently as the rage finally collapsed under its own weight, turning heavy and unbearable.

  I pressed my forehead to the cold ground, gasping, suffocating on grief that had nowhere left to go.

  The cave did not answer.

  No voice.

  No judgment.

  No comfort.

  Only the crushing realization that my anger had filled every corner of me—and still hadn’t been enough to reach Him.

  I stayed there, shaking, lungs burning, heart pounding like it might tear itself apart.

  Not because I had faith.

  Not because I had hope.

  But because there was nowhere else for the grief to go.

  ***

  I was sobbing into the dirt when I felt a hand rest on my shoulder.

  I jolted and twisted toward the cave entrance.

  Nothing.

  Only stone. Only shadow.

  I turned back—

  And froze.

  Boots stood before me. Barely a step away.

  I recoiled, heart hammering, scrambling backward on raw palms.

  Then I looked up.

  It was my father.

  He stood as I remembered him—spectacles perched low on his nose, expression calm and unbearably familiar. My breath caught painfully in my chest.

  “No,” I whispered. “This isn’t real. You’re not my father.”

  The figure knelt before me.

  “I am not your father,” he said gently.

  “But I formed you from the foundations of the world.”

  The words crushed the air from my lungs.

  “Thomas,” he continued, “it is written that vengeance is mine.”

  He placed a hand over his chest.

  “Mine,” he said, “and I will repay it in time.”

  Anger surged back through the grief.

  “Why?” I cried. “What did I do to deserve this life? They’re all gone—and You watched.”

  “They do not suffer anymore,” he said softly. “They are with me.”

  He pressed his hand to his chest again.

  “In paradise.”

  My throat tightened until it hurt.

  “Then take me too,” I begged. “Let me be with them. End this.”

  I lifted my ruined hands toward him.

  “Cast me into the fire if You must—just end my misery.”

  He took my hands in his.

  The pain vanished instantly.

  The cracked skin sealed. The blood dried. My knuckles were whole again.

  “I know the plans I have for you, Thomas,” he said.

  “Plans not to harm you. Plans to give you hope.”

  Tears spilled freely now.

  “All I ask,” he continued, “is patience—and faith.”

  He looked at me with unbearable tenderness.

  “The Church has ruined my words,” he said. “They cry at altars yet remain empty.”

  “They will pass away,” he said. “All things do.”

  Then his voice hardened—not in anger, but resolve.

  “But you must grow strong, Thomas.”

  “Stay in Deermarch for a time. A season.”

  “Learn from my people. Protect my people.”

  “And then,” he said, “I will help you.”

  “With revenge?” I asked, my voice barely holding.

  He shook his head.

  “Revenge does not restore what is already lost.”

  “You will be tested,” he said. “But I will not be far.”

  He placed a hand over my heart.

  “Your family loved you. They sacrificed for you.”

  “Do not let that love be in vain.”

  “Thomas my son,” he said softly, “I love you.”

  Light erupted around him—not blinding, not burning. Fire without heat.

  And then he was gone.

  The cave was empty again.

  My tears dried on my face as I stood there alone beneath the thin beam of sunlight.

  But the silence was no longer suffocating.

  It was watchful.

  And for the first time since Old Tumbledown burned, I rose not with rage—

  —but with some purpose.

  Raphael was waiting just outside the cave.

  He stood where the mountain path widened, hands folded loosely at his back, face calm as if he’d been there the whole time. When he saw me, his posture changed—not startled, not relieved. Just… attentive.

  “How long were you waiting?” I asked, my voice rough.

  Raphael stepped forward and handed me my things. My boots first. Then the sword. Then the satchel. Last of all, the armor.

  “Almost three days,” he said.

  I blinked. The words took a moment to settle.

  I nodded once.

  Raphael studied me—not my face exactly, but the way I stood, the way my shoulders carried weight differently now. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “Azazel was probably right about you,” he said.

  “About what?” I asked.

  He shook his head lightly. “Nothing.”

  He slipped an arm around my shoulder—not tight, not possessive—and turned us toward the descending path.

  “Come on,” he said. “You must be hungry.”

  I gathered my things as we walked down the mountain together.

  The mountain felt different on the way back—not smaller, not kinder. Just… done with me for now. The wind brushed past us, carrying the smell of earth and distant hearth smoke.

  When Deermarch came into view, life was already moving as it did.

  Children chased each other between the houses. Someone laughed near the well. A pair of men argued good-naturedly over a cart wheel. It all continued as if nothing in the world had cracked open and spoken to me.

  And that felt right.

  Raphael guided me through the streets, greeting people as we passed. A nod here. A word there. No announcements. No reverence.

  At the edge of the square, he stopped and turned to face me.

  “You don’t need to tell me what happened up there,” he said quietly.

  I searched his face. “You don’t want to know?”

  “I already know enough,” he replied. “And what I don’t know… isn’t mine to ask.”

  He squeezed my shoulder once and let his hand fall away.

  “You’ll stay,” he said.

  “Alright,” I answered.

  “Good,” Raphael said. “Then we’ll start tomorrow.”

  “Start what?”

  He smiled—small, genuine.

  “Living,” he said.

  As we stepped inside his home and the warmth closed around us, I realized something with a clarity that surprised me:

  The mountain had not given me answers.

  It had given me some peace.