Silence screamed louder than any battle.
Caelan's gun lowered on its own. The word pregnant detonated inside his skull, fracturing centuries of cold certainty.
The circuit between them snapped.
Warmth vanished. Ice flooded his veins. His light guttered, wings half-manifesting in reflexive agony before collapsing.
Liliru clutched her stomach through leather, eyes wide with raw terror.
"No," she whispered, backing into marble. "That's a lie. A mind-fuck to break us."
The twins melted away, voices lingering like poison.
"The Recurrence is complete. The Nephilim wakes."
Then gone.
Caelan didn't chase. The enemy was inside her now.
"It isn't a lie," he said, voice hollow. "Our synchronisation was absolute. Light and dark fused. The paradox seeded itself."
She laughed, brittle and terrified. "You think I want this? A cosmic bomb growing in my gut? It'll eat me alive, Saint. Then you. Then everything."
He seized her arm. Skin contact sparked a weak, desperate current—enough to keep them upright.
"Mission parameters changed," he forced out through chattering teeth. "We protect the asset. Seraphiel needs the child alive for the altar. Golgotha is the convergence. The Nail is there."
Her eyes sharpened through the fear. "The martyr's weapon. Intimate sacrifice."
"If they take it, they'll use it on the child. Perfect the paradox."
She jerked free. "It's not a child. It's a mistake. I want thrones, not cribs."
"You have no choice," he said. "And neither do I."
The admission burned. He wasn't defending Heaven anymore. He was defending the only thing that had ever made him feel.
"We move. Now."
Garden of Golgotha – Eastern Europe, hours later
The dimensional jump tore at them both—her magic stuttering, his light flickering. They landed hard on frozen stone.
The plateau stretched white and barren under starlight. Ruined monastery bones jutted from the snow like broken ribs.
Real silence lived here. The kind that swallowed screams.
Caelan pushed the shattered door.
Inside the cavernous nave: one object.
A silver vial on the floor, amethyst liquid swirling. A note pinned beneath in alternating gold-black script.
Drink. Remember what you are.
"Trap," Liliru hissed.
"Temptation," Caelan corrected.
He tapped the vial. The liquid flared with beautiful poison.
"Concentrated Mortal Will. Human defiance distilled. It'll stabilise us."
"And leash us tighter to their plan."
"The leash was forged when we kissed."
He uncorked it. The scent hit: blood, ozone, desperate courage.
He offered it to her first.
"Rule four: we share everything now."
She snatched it, eyes blazing defiance over fear.
"If this gives me a conscience, I'm billing you."
She drank half. Body arched; shadows flared back to full, vicious strength.
She thrust the rest at him.
He finished it.
Purpose slammed into him like a bullet he welcomed. Doubt burned away. He was no longer the clone. He was the continuation—free to choose his own damnation.
They moved deeper.
Near the broken cross: Seraphiel's temporary altar. Granite slab etched with the Paradox Requiem equation.
Liliru traced it, breath catching.
"They're rebuilding your blade. The broken hilt you carry."
Caelan's hand went to the hidden shard under his coat.
One final carving beneath:
To save the child, activate the Requiem.
You will need the Seventh Sin.
Dread coiled cold in his gut.
The Seventh Sin: the forbidden manoeuvre only a fully fallen Saint could survive.
He looked at the dark fissure yawning beneath the cross.
"The Nail is down there."
He jumped.
Liliru stared at the equation, then at her stomach. The paradox inside pulsed—strong, impatient, alive.
A slow, savage grin cut across her face.
"Seventh Sin," she murmured. "Sounds like my kind of party."
She followed him into the black.