The Inquisitor's hesitation lasted less than a heartbeat.
But Evin felt it.
It rippled through the chamber like a flaw in glass—small, invisible to anyone who wasn't already shattered.
"Again," the Inquisitor said.
The pressure returned harder this time.
Evin screamed.
Not because it hurt—though it did—but because it remembered. The force tore through him like hands rummaging through a grave, dragging half-formed lives and unfinished deaths up through his spine. His vision filled with faces that were never recorded. Names that were never spoken aloud.
A girl clutching a broken prayer bead.
A man who refused to kneel even as fire climbed his legs.
A boy younger than Evin, lips burned raw from screaming for his mother.
None of them were his.
All of them were with him.
"Focus," the Inquisitor commanded, voice sharp now. "Return to baseline."
Evin's fingers clawed at the etched stone beneath him. His nails split. Blood smeared across old scorch marks, soaking into grooves carved by centuries of correction.
Baseline.
As if there had ever been one.
"I didn't take them," Evin gasped. "You left them."
The Inquisitor raised his hand higher.
The circle ignited—not with flame, but with heat so absolute it erased sensation. Evin's body went numb, then distant, like it was slipping away without permission.
This was how they did it.
Not execution.
Erasure.
To burn away their very existence.
"Your function is to comply," the Inquisitor said. "If you cannot, you will be reduced to residue."
The word residue echoed inside Evin—and something answered.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But firmly.
They were not residue.
The Veil tightened—not like a snare, but like a cloak pulled close against cold. The memories did not surge outward. They settled. Aligned. For the first time, they were not chaos.
They were weight.
Evin curled inward, drawing his knees to his chest. He stopped resisting the pressure and let it compress him fully, bearing down until the Inquisitor's force met something it could not crush—because it was already compressed beyond breaking.
Evin laughed.
It startled even him.
It came out ragged, half-sob, half-breathless hysteria. "Is this all you have?"
The Inquisitor's eyes hardened. "You mistake endurance for defiance."
"Maybe," Evin whispered. "Or maybe you've never met something you couldn't erase."
The Inquisitor stepped closer. "We erase everything."
The chamber shuddered.
Not violently.
Uneasily.
The shadows lining the walls did not move—but they thickened, like ink seeping deeper into paper. The etched circle beneath Evin dimmed, its burn marks losing cohesion, lines blurring as if they no longer agreed on where they belonged.
The Inquisitor frowned openly now.
"Interesting," he murmured. "You're not channeling. You're not manifesting. You're—"
He stopped.
Because Evin was crying.
Tears streamed down his face unchecked—not from pain, not from fear, but from something worse. Grief without shape. Loss without permission.
"They trusted you," Evin said hoarsely.
"They believed you."
The Inquisitor said nothing.
"You told them it was holy," Evin continued, voice breaking. "You told them the fire meant something. That it counted."
The pressure faltered again.
Evin looked up, eyes burning red-rimmed, raw.
"It didn't," he said. "You just didn't want to remember them."
For the first time, anger crept into the Inquisitor's voice. "You presume too much."
"Do I?" Evin whispered.
He reached inward—not to take, not to pull—but to acknowledge.
The Veil responded.
A presence settled behind him—not visible, not audible, but undeniable. Like standing in front of a vast curtain and knowing, with absolute certainty, that something on the other side was listening.
The Inquisitor stepped back.
Just one step.
That was enough.
"You are dangerous," the Inquisitor said quietly.
Evin laughed again, weaker this time. "I'm burned. I'm collar-marked. I scrub ash for people who scream themselves empty."
He met the Inquisitor's eyes.
"If that's dangerous," he said, "what does that make you?"
Silence.
The Inquisitor lowered his hand.
The pressure vanished so abruptly Evin collapsed, gasping, body shaking violently as sensation crashed back in. He retched, bile burning his throat, vision blurring as the weight inside him shifted and resettled.
"Enough for tonight," the Inquisitor said at last.
He turned toward the door, then paused.
"You will not speak of this," he said.
Evin laughed weakly from the floor. "Who would believe me?"
The Inquisitor did not answer.
The door opened.
Two guards entered—not Inquisitors, just handlers. They would never be told what happened here. They would only know where to drag the body.
As Evin was lifted, barely conscious, he caught one last glimpse of the etched circle.
It was cracked.
Not shattered.
Cracked.
Back in the dormitory, Rell was waiting.
He surged to his feet when Evin was thrown onto his cot, hands shaking as he hovered helplessly. "Evin—Evin—what did they do?"
Evin tried to speak.
No words came.
Rell clenched his jaw, eyes shining with fury and fear. "I'm here," he said fiercely. "You hear me? I'm still here."
Evin's fingers twitched.
He grabbed Rell's sleeve with the last of his strength.
"Don't forget me."
Rell swallowed hard. "I won't."
As Evin slipped into darkness, the Veil did not retreat.
It remained.
Holding.
And somewhere deep beneath the Church, something ancient and patient adjusted its attention—
Because correction had failed.
And failure always left a mark.