Night fell like ink spilled upon the valley.
The radiance that had judged Leona all morning finally retreated behind the hills, leaving a faint scar of brightness across the sky — a white wound that refused to close. Beneath it, the cathedral stood silent, its new window of shards gleaming faintly like an open eye that had forgotten to blink. The river whispered in a voice so low it sounded almost like breath through broken glass.
Inside, the altar had been cleared, yet the air remained restless. The scent of ozone clung to the pews. Every reflection trembled. The people had gone, but their awe had not — it hung in the rafters like lingering incense.
And in that emptiness, the painting began to weep again.
It hung alone on the far wall — The Trial of Elyra, painted centuries ago by an anonymous penitent who had sworn never to touch a brush again. The canvas had long been cracked by humidity, the frame bruised by candle smoke. But tonight, the figure of the saint inside it began to shift. Her eyes, once turned heavenward, lowered — meeting the floor of the cathedral as if searching for someone who had finally returned.
Then came the first tear: a streak of red that glistened under the candlelight, slowly sliding down the inside of the glass. The fluid was too thick to be paint, too warm to be rain. It carried with it the faint metallic scent of life.
The cathedral door groaned open.
Jonas entered, carrying a lamp, his boots wet with river water. He had been the first to follow Leona outside after her trial, the only one who saw how the river had started glowing again under the full moon. Now, drawn by a sound he couldn't name, he returned — and saw the painting bleed.
He dropped the lamp.
Flame splashed briefly across the floor, but the oil refused to catch. The air itself seemed too sacred, too heavy with some unseen gaze.
"Saint Elyra?" he whispered.
No answer. Only the faint creaking of wood and the soft, continuous sound — drop, drop, drop — as if the canvas itself were crying.
Then a voice — not from the painting, but from behind him.
"Do not call her saint. She was never canonized. She was condemned."
Leona stood at the threshold, her shawl soaked from the river, her eyes faintly silvered by what the light had left in them. She stepped forward slowly, every movement bending the candle flame toward her.
Jonas turned, startled. "Leona—how did you—?"
She silenced him with a gesture. "The river sent me back. It said the light forgot something."
She moved to the painting, tracing her fingers along the edge of the frame. The glass beneath her touch was cold at first — then pulsed, faintly warm, like skin remembering a heartbeat.
"Do you see the blood?" she asked.
Jonas nodded, unable to speak.
"It isn't hers," Leona said quietly. "It's ours. Every reflection this valley ever broke, every mercy it postponed. The glass carries the memory of every withheld compassion."
She pressed her palm against the glass, and for a moment, Jonas saw her reflection fuse with the woman inside the painting. Their eyes aligned perfectly. The bleeding stopped. The whole cathedral held its breath.
Then the glass cracked.
A single fracture, running diagonally across the saint's face, like a tear that had found its path too late. A bead of red welled along it, then another. The crack widened, humming faintly. The hum became a voice — not of pain, but of release.
Jonas stepped back. "Leona, what's happening?"
"The painting is remembering," she whispered. "And the frame is confessing."
The hum deepened into a note that reverberated through the walls, through the pews, through their ribs. Every mirror fragment from the earlier trial — every shard that had formed the cathedral's new window — began to shimmer in answer. Streams of red light laced through them, pulsing toward the bleeding frame, as if all the glass in the valley were connected by veins.
And then, out of the center of the painting, a single drop of crimson light fell to the floor and crystallized into something small — a piece of glass shaped like a tear.
Leona knelt and picked it up carefully. It glowed in her palm like a living ember.
"What is it?" Jonas asked.
"A memory fragment," she murmured. "From before the flood. The river's first secret. The one it buried in reflection."
She lifted it toward the candlelight. Inside the tiny glass teardrop, Jonas saw movement — not of people, but of time. Fields blooming and burning. A young woman kneeling beside a cradle made of reeds. A man painting a cathedral wall with his own blood because no pigment could match what he'd seen in heaven.
"The river will want it back," Leona said softly. "But not yet."
She walked to the door. Outside, the air smelled of copper and rain. The wind carried voices — not human, but harmonic, as though every droplet of water was remembering the song it had once been part of.
Jonas followed her out, pausing at the threshold. Behind them, the painting still shimmered faintly. The glass continued to bleed, but now the blood was clear — the color of dawn distilled.
And as they stepped into the night, the cracked window above the altar caught the moonlight one final time. It refracted into the shape of an open eye, shedding not blood but illumination, soft and forgiving.
In the distance, thunder rolled — not in anger, but in remembrance.
Leona closed her fist around the glass-tear, feeling it pulse once, twice, before settling into stillness.
"The river remembers everything," she said. "But even memory must learn to heal."
Jonas looked toward the horizon, where the river curved like a silver serpent through the valley. For the first time, its reflection wasn't divided — light and shadow met and held each other without fear.
Somewhere deep beneath that calm surface, something stirred — not dark, but waiting. The next secret was waking.