The cathedral was burning again. It always did, in the end. Ash fell like snow on the fractured altar. The stained glass saints bled fire. And where the great crucifix once stood, there was only silence — and the soft breathing of something waiting to be named. A man moved through the rubble. His coat was torn. His eyes burned with something colder than grief. He passed over pews arranged like coffins. Over holy books too wet to burn. He stopped at the altar — the source of it all — where the Speculum Dei pulsed in a bed of cracked stone. And across from him stood a figure. Not a demon. Not a god. A man. Or what was left of one. He was taller now. Half-covered in metal. His face was a ruin of burns and bone, held together by force of will and something far older. One arm gleamed silver. The other was wrapped in black cloth and blood. His voice, when it came, was soft. Too soft. “You came back.” The man did not reply. “You always do. Always thinking this time will be d...