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I don’t look at him right away. I stare past him, to the stone arches overhead, the murals of gods and sinners, their faces cracked and fading after centuries of ruin and reverence. All of it feels too familiar.

“No,” I answer finally, voice low but firm, clipped at the edges. No point in lying. They’d know. She’d know.

Silas huffs out a bitter laugh, raking a hand through his mess of dark curls. “Of course you didn’t.”

Orin leans against the cold wall beside me, arms crossed over his broad chest like he’s holding the weight of the world there, quiet but heavy, his gaze pinned on me like he’s peeling back every layer I’ve spent years perfecting. He doesn’t speak yet. He waits—always patient, always letting me unravel at my own pace.

Silas doesn’t have the same restraint. “You had one fucking job, Lucien,” he spits, stepping in, his voice low enough not to carry but venom-laced anyway. “One. Apologize. Fix it. You didn’t even have to mean it.”

My jaw clenches. “I did mean it.”

“Then you’re worse than I thought.” Silas shakes his head, voice dropping into something almost broken. “You mean it and still can’t find a way to stop hurting her.”

Orin finally speaks, his voice quieter but heavier, like it settles beneath my ribs and twists. “You’ve built your entire life on knowing how to bend people to your will. And yet you can’t manage the one person who’d give you the world without being asked.”

“She doesn’t want me,” I bite out, harsher than I intend. It’s not a lie. It’s just not the truth either.

Orin’s eyes flick to mine, ancient and knowing. “No,” he says carefully. “She doesn’t want the version of you that makes her bleed.”

Silas snorts, stepping back, shaking his head like he can’t even look at me. “You’re the only one who doesn’t see it, Lucien. She’d give you everything if you stopped trying to tear her apart first.”

I don’t respond. Because every instinct inside me is twisted backward when it comes to her—because the moment she stepped into my world, she cracked me open, and I’ve been bleeding out ever since.

Silas lets out a rough breath, turning toward the doors where the others disappeared. “Fix it. Or you’ll lose all of us, not just her.”

Then he’s gone, following after them like he can’t bear to be near me any longer.

Orin lingers a moment longer, quiet, unreadable.

“She’s not afraid of you, Lucien,” he says softly. “You’re the one who’s afraid.”

And then he leaves too, the weight of the truth trailing behind him like a ghost.

How the hell am I supposed to fix this if she won’t even listen to me?

The question beats against the inside of my skull like a drum, louder than the sound of the cathedral doors slamming shut behind Silas and Orin. Their footsteps fade down the corridor, but I’m still standing in the hollowed space they left behind, alone with the taste of my own failure.

I drag a hand down my face, jaw tight enough to crack bone. I said I was sorry. I meant it. I swallowed every ounce of pride I had and gave her the one thing I’ve never given anyone—admission of guilt. And it wasn’t enough.

Not for her. Because it was never about the words. She wants something I don’t know how to give.

My pride is a living thing, wounded and snarling inside me. I’ve commanded kings to kneel. I’ve made entire realms bend to my will with a whisper. But her? That damn girl who doesn’t bow, who doesn’t flinch, who looks at me like I’m not a god, but a man?

She’s the only one who has ever made me powerless.

And I hate her for it. I hate her because I want her. Because no matter how cruel I’ve been, how deliberately I’ve driven her away, the pull still coils under my skin, thrumming like it belongs to her. Because when I watched her walk past me, hairtangled by the wind, her smile cracking for the others and never once turning toward me—I wanted to fucking beg.

Is that what she wants? Me on my knees?

I scoff under my breath, the sound hollow in the cathedral’s empty air. It’s ridiculous. I don’t grovel. I don’t beg. I don’t chase after anyone.

But she’s not just anyone, is she?

My gaze drifts toward the archway where they disappeared, where she disappeared, walking ahead with the others like she belonged to them now. Like I was the shadow she left behind.

The truth is a bitter thing to swallow.

She was never afraid of me. Not like the others. She wasn’t seduced by my power, wasn’t pulled by Dominion. She saw through it, through me, and it’s the one thing I couldn’t stomach. The one thing that makes me dangerous to her, and her dangerous to me.