Chapter 197 - 198: We finally Meet.

Aiden sat by the window, a single letter resting unopened on the table before him.

The wax seal glowed faintly crimson, bearing the sigil of Augustus, Viscount of the leonidus Marches. Beside the parchment lay another document, the sigil of the Holy Seat still broken where his fingers had torn it days ago. Two letters. Two worlds colliding.

He did not touch it yet. He simply watched the rain run down the glass, the drops racing each other like threads of time unspooling toward a single end.

Behind him, Catherine moved with that measured grace only she possessed, her footsteps whispering through the silence.

Her gown, pale and sleeveless, caught the firelight as she crossed the room, casting wavering reflections across the bookshelves.

"You’ve been staring at that letter for an hour," she said softly.

Aiden smiled without turning. "It’s polite to let bad news speak first."

Her fingers brushed the back of his chair, a fleeting touch. "It’s from... Augustus?"

He nodded. "And not a pleasant one. Read."

He broke the seal at last. The wax cracked like brittle bone. Catherine leaned closer as he unfolded the parchment. Augustus’s script ran in tight, furious lines—the handwriting of a man who wrote to keep his sanity intact.

To Aiden my future son in law and my wife Catherine of House Leonidus,

Forgive my haste. I must beg that you receive the Saintess in my stead. Matters in the Capital bind me; my presence here is no longer merely political—it is... survival.

The Duke plays a game neither of us fully understands. He courts powers that have no allegiance to God nor man. If rumor bears truth, he has already sworn oaths not written in any mortal tongue.

Do not trust the duchess ,Sabrina too blindly. Her sister hood may still be yours, but bonds are fragile when caught between ambition and fear.

I don’t know what game he plays, but Guard the fief. And should the Saintess inquire after me, tell her only this: the lion of Leonidus will not bow at faith ..

— Augustus Leonidus

---

Silence pressed in after the words faded. Even the rain seemed to hush, as though unwilling to intrude.

"....so even he knows, Duke’s colliding with demons." Aiden voiced.

Catherine’s breath came slow. "The Duke... colluding with demons?"

Aiden folded the parchment with precision, the paper crackling like dry leaves. "Augustus never exaggerates. If he writes the word demon, then one has already been invited to dine."

Her brow furrowed. "And Sabrina? You think she’s involved?"

He shook his head. "Not involved. Entangled. There’s a difference."

He rose and crossed to the fire, tossing the letter into the flames. It caught instantly, curling inward, blackening at the edges. "The Duke was always ambitious. Too ambitious. That kind of hunger doesn’t stop with crowns or gold.

It needs worship. And when men tire of gods who don’t answer, they make new ones."

Catherine watched the fire devour the parchment. "And what will you do?"

Aiden’s eyes reflected the blaze—two mirrors of controlled fury. "Prepare."

Outside, thunder murmured over Leonidus like the growl of something waking. The corridors smelled faintly of iron and wet marble.

Servants moved with subdued haste, aware that something unseen had shifted in their lord’s mood.

Catherine followed Aiden through the torchlit hall. "You mean to meet the Saintess...as Lucifer?" she asked.

"She’s coming to my fief," he replied. "Refusing would draw more suspicion than welcoming her."

"And the Duke?"

"I don’t think it’s related but He’ll watch. He always does..."

They passed the great doors of the council chamber. Beyond them, banners stirred from the draft: crimson cloth emblazoned with the lion devouring its own tail. Aiden paused to look at it.

"That symbol again," Catherine murmured. "It used to mean rebirth."

"Now it means appetite," he said. "Your house learned to eat itself long ago."

For a heartbeat, she saw something unguarded flicker in his face—a weary kind of grief. Then it vanished, replaced by the cold precision that made him both feared and followed.

He reached the end of the corridor, where a narrow staircase coiled upward. At its top lay the private sanctum—a room few entered, fewer left unchanged.

Inside, the chamber glowed with muted light. Crystals suspended from iron chains cast slow circles of blue over the stone floor. In the center stood a single desk strewn with maps, letters, and sigils drawn in chalk.

Aiden laid his hand over one sigil—the mark of binding, half-erased. "If the Duke truly traffics with infernals, he’ll use this path," he murmured. "The Circle of Nine. It promises power in exchange for memory."

Catherine shivered. "Memory?"

"They take your past, your sense of self, until you no longer know who you serve." He traced the faded runes. "I’ve seen it before. Inquisition halls of the church burned with such marks."

Aiden was now an Inquisitor himself. A priest who hunted so called heretics, until he found that the Church’s worst demons were human.

By dawn the next day, the nuns and brothers and priests all assembled in the great hall. Banners had been cleaned, marble polished, though the air still carried that electric weight before a storm.

Amber arrived first, cloak damp from the mist. Her eyes flicked to Aiden, silent question in them.

"She’s close," he said. "By nightfall."

Catherine entered behind her, hair unbound, face pale from lack of sleep. She held another letter—this one from Sabrina.

"My men say, the saintess is not in good words with the Capital," Catherine said, voice uncertain. "They claims the Saintess brings misfortune. They forbidden her arrival in the capital."

Aiden’s lips curved faintly. "And yet she comes here. To me. Either the Saintess defies the crown, or the she wishes to see how I react. Both are dangerous."

He turned to the servants. "Prepare the upper halls for holy guests. Strip the chapel of anything gilded. Let humility be our mask."

They bowed and dispersed. The echo of their steps faded, leaving only the three of them.

Amber watched him closely. "You’re unsettled."

"I’m calculating," Aiden said. "There’s a difference."

"Sometimes not," Catherine murmured. She stepped nearer, lowering her voice. "If the Duke is dealing with demons, and the Saintess comes here... what if this is all the same design? What if we are the pieces being moved?"

Aiden met her gaze. "Then we learn to move ourselves faster."

.

.

.

The storm broke, and the first rain struck the marble like tears.

In the echo of that downpour, the forge of destiny began to glow.

Somewhere within it, faith and heresy were being hammered into the same blade.

The Saintess was coming.

And fate, for once, seemed afraid.

It carried both scent and omen across the rolling plains as her procession moved beneath the veiled light of dawn. Mist clung to the earth like breath withheld, and the twin moons hung pale above the dying stars, reluctant to fade.

With their retreat, the comforting illusion of divinity faded, too. Morning was always crueler than night—it revealed what miracles could not hide.

The carriages creaked forward, wheels hissing against damp earth. Banners of white and gold rippled behind them, the sigil of the Holy Seat—sun and halo entwined—fluttering like the memory of faith itself.

And at the procession’s heart, within a carriage draped in white silk, the Saintess sat alone.

Her hands rested on her knees, palms open—a gesture of peace she no longer believed in. The rosary wrapped around her wrist glimmered faintly, each crystal bead resonating with the slow pulse of her divinity. Its rhythm was steady, patient, cruel.

She had not slept.

Not truly. Not in years.

Sleep was not rest for her—it was revelation.

And revelation had teeth.

Every dream brought whispers, not from God perhaps, but from something wearing His voice.

Last night, she had seen him again.

A figure half in shadow, half in flame, standing before a throne of shattered marble. His eyes burned like the dying sun before the world’s last dusk. When he spoke, it was not sound but echo, and the echo struck bone.

"Faith is a chain you forged yourself."

She had awakened with blood in her palm from clutching the rosary too tightly. The wound had already closed—miraculously, of course—but the ache remained, as if to remind her that divinity came with pain, not peace.

Outside, hooves struck the dirt in disciplined rhythm. The captain of her guard, Ser Caelum, rode close to the carriage window, armor gleaming with morning’s first light.

"Your Holiness," he called softly, "we will reach Leonidus before nightfall."

She inclined her head, though he could not see. "Thank you, Ser Caelum."

"Shall I have the men ride ahead—to ensure the Prophet’s gates are open?"

Her gaze flickered at the word. Prophet.

That was what they called him now.

The man once known as Lucifer. The man who sees the future like herself.

The Church had tried to erase his name. Instead, they had carved it high, so they could make it fall.

"No," she said at last. "Let him keep his gates closed if he wishes. God opens what men fear to touch."

Caelum bowed his head and rode off. The sound of his horse faded into the wind.

The Saintess exhaled.

Her own words tasted hollow, like incense burnt to ash.

Inside the carriage, the air shimmered faintly. Power stirred beneath her skin, old and unwilling—a constant awareness of everything living within a mile’s reach.

She could feel the pulse of her guards, the silent prayers whispered by her attendants, the sins coiling beneath their ribs like serpents.

It was her gift. Her punishment.

To feel everything. Even what she longed to forget.

But beyond that—beyond the human chorus—something else pressed against her senses.

A void. A purple void.

It pulsed far away, near the horizon, vast and cold and deliberate. The nausea of lust flickering out.

She knew its name before she dared think it.

Lucifer.

The name burned like a forbidden prayer.

She should have hated him. The Church demanded it.

But hate required distance.

And he was closer to her than prayer itself. And with her visions. She knew she needed him. But the problem was...

Her fingers tightened around the rosary. "Why now...?" she whispered, so softly even her angels could not hear. "Why awaken now, of all times?"

The words trembled not from fear—but from recognition.

By noon, the horizon shimmered with heat. The road narrowed through a stretch of overgrown land—once holy, now forgotten. Broken spires jutted from the soil like the bones of ancient faiths.

"Your Holiness," one of the sisters murmured from horseback, "should we rest here? The men are weary."

The Saintess gazed through the window. Ahead lay the ruins of an old sanctuary, swallowed by ivy and silence.

"Yes," she said quietly. "We will stop here."

The carriages slowed to a halt.

When the door opened, she stepped down barefoot, her white gown trailing through dew and moss. The holy guards knelt, but she waved them away. The air here felt different—thick, reverent, expectant, as though the stones themselves remembered her.

Inside, the temple was a skeleton of its former glory. Shafts of sunlight pierced through the collapsed roof, illuminating motes of dust that floated like lost souls. The scent of old incense and decay lingered faintly.

She walked slowly to where the altar once stood.

A faint shimmer crossed the floor—the lingering trace of a forgotten blessing.

She knelt. Her fingertips brushed the cracked stone.

"Forgive us," she whispered, voice trembling. "For building heaven on fear."

A wind rose, swirling through the broken archways. It caught her hair and lifted her words upward—and then, soft as memory, she heard it:

Lucifer’s voice.

"Forgiveness," it said, distant but clear, "is for those who still believe they sinned."

Her breath caught. She turned sharply, scanning the empty air. Only light and silence answered.

Yet she felt him—like a shadow pressed just beyond the veil. Watching. Listening.

"The prophet...?"

The voice broke her trance. It was one of her attendants—a young abbess with trembling hands.

"Yes, child?"

"We found this... in the ruins."

She held out a scrap of parchment, half-burned, sealed with black wax.

The Saintess took it gently. The moment her fingers touched the seal, her heart stilled.

The symbol was unmistakable.

A lion devouring its tail.

Leonidus.

Her pulse quickened. The seal had been broken, but the letter remained intact—a single line, written in a hand she could never mistake.

She unfolded it slowly.

The words shimmered faintly on the page, not with divine light, but with something far older—resonance that touched soul before mind.

"Side with me, accept me. I know you have no allies..."

Her breath faltered. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she closed the parchment and pressed it to her chest.

Warmth bloomed through her fingers—fleeting, dangerous, and utterly human.

By dusk, the sky was a wound of crimson and gold. The road curved upward into the highlands, and at last, Leonidus revealed itself.

Marble towers caught the bleeding light like fangs of a slumbering beast. Bells tolled from somewhere deep within the citadel—low, sonorous, and impossibly old.

The soldiers murmured prayers, hands over hearts.

The Saintess did not pray. Her silence was sharper.

The closer they drew, the stronger she felt it: the void.

His presence.

When the first gates loomed, the guards of Leonidus hesitated—uncertain whether to bow or bar the way. Before they could decide, the bells rang again.

Not the bells of the Church, but those of Leonidus itself.

They rang only once in a generation—when kings were crowned, or gods reborn.

The sound shook the air, reverberating through stone and heart alike.

The Saintess lifted her gaze toward the citadel’s highest balcony.

And there he stood.

Lucifer. Different than in her dreams, he should have white hair, Golden eyes but...

Silhouetted against the last fire of the sun, his dark robe billowing in the wind, hair like black flame. The cracked crystal at his side pulsed faintly, and she felt it answer something deep within her own soul.

For a breathless instant, time itself seemed to bow.

Neither spoke. Neither needed to.

The silence between them was older than scripture. Older than sin. Older than faith.