The sun dipped below the peaks, dragging the temperature down with it. The wind off the mountain turned into a blade, slicing through Eve's thin cloak and biting into her sweat-soaked skin. Her body was shutting down. Her vision swam, and her legs felt like they were filled with wet sand.

This was it. Her last chance. The guards would come to clear the plaza soon.

She ignored the screaming protests of her muscles and the throbbing in her shattered elbow. She thought of the day she turned thirteen, the first time her fingers closed around the hilt of "Rebellion." The blade had hummed in her grip, a joyful vibration that resonated all the way to her core. That memory was a knife twisting in her gut, but it gave her fuel.

She launched herself up the stairs. She moved faster than before, a desperate, reckless sprint. Ten steps. Fifteen. Twenty. The holy pressure clamped down on her, trying to crush her, but she pushed through the pain, her breath tearing in her throat.

The mocking whispers from the crowd died down, replaced by shocked murmurs. Maybe she was going to do it. Maybe sheer will could defy divine law.

A cold sense of hope swelled in her chest.

Then, from the peak of the stairs, "Rebellion" let out a wailing shriek. It was a sound of absolute rejection, a blade refusing its tainted master.

A visible shockwave of blue light erupted from the top of the stairs. It rolled down the stone steps, crackling with raw energy, moving ten times faster than the previous blasts.

Eve's pupils dilated. She tried to brace herself, but her body was already past its limit. Her muscles locked up. The shockwave hit her square in the chest.

Every bone in her body screamed. It sounded like a hundred twigs snapping in a fire at once. The force launched her into the air, a broken puppet cut from its strings. She tumbled down the hard stone stairs, her limbs flopping at unnatural angles. Agony exploded everywhere-a blinding, white-hot inferno that consumed her thoughts. Warm blood splattered across the white stone, leaving a gruesome trail behind her.

Screams erupted from the crowd, mixing with the sickening thuds of her body hitting the steps.

She hit the stone plaza at the bottom with a dull, wet thud. The world went completely dark. Her last conscious thought wasn't of the pain, but of a sharp, piercing betrayal. Rebellion? she screamed in the silence of her mind. Even you? Why? The last image burned into her retinas was the cold emblem of the sanctuary above.

Consciousness faded into nothing.

Panic rippled through the onlookers, but no one stepped forward. She was a condemned criminal. Touching her was bad luck, maybe even treason. A few people ran to fetch the guards; others simply backed away, their faces pale with horror.

No one helped her.

In the shadows of the fortress wall, Cato Sims's fists slowly uncurled. His knuckles were white, the only sign of the tension coiled in his massive frame. He watched the crumpled, bloody figure at the bottom of the stairs. The blank mask on his face cracked for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something dark and fierce crossing his features.

He waited. The guards arrived, took one look at the mangled state of her, and shook their heads. They waved off the crowd, declaring her a lost cause. They didn't even bother to check for a pulse.

As the plaza emptied and the darkness thickened, Cato moved.

He walked out of the shadows, his stride measured and completely silent. For a man of his size, he moved like a ghost. He crossed the distance to her, kneeling in the pool of her blood. He reached out, his large, calloused hand hovering near her broken nose, feeling for the faintest whisper of breath.

A flicker of warm air touched his fingers. She was alive.

He glanced around the deserted plaza. The guards had retreated to their posts. The pilgrims were gone. He slid one arm under her shattered knees and the other behind her back. He lifted her without a single grunt of effort. She weighed nothing in his arms, as light as a bundle of dry sticks.

He cradled her broken body against his chest, turning his back on the Holy Stairs, and walked toward the dilapidated shacks behind the fortress, swallowed by the night.

Pain. That was the first thing that dragged Eve back from the dark. A heavy, throbbing ache that seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat, radiating from every corner of her body.

She forced her eyes open. The light was dim, filtering through gaps in a rotting wooden roof. The air smelled of crushed herbs, dry dirt, and old smoke. She tried to shift her leg, but a stiff resistance stopped her. She looked down. Her limbs were tightly bound with rough wooden splints and strips of torn cloth. She was completely immobilized.

A low, rhythmic scraping sound came from across the room. A broad back was turned to her, hunched over a wooden table. The man was grinding something in a stone mortar, the muscles in his arms shifting under the rough fabric of his shirt.

She recognized that back. The silent watcher from the stairs. Cato Sims.

The memories crashed over her-the climb, the shockwave, the bone-snapping fall. She should be dead. The realization settled in her stomach like a block of ice.

"Did you save me?" she croaked. Her voice sounded like gravel scraping against sandpaper.

The grinding stopped. Cato turned around. His face was the same as it had been at the stairs-blank, calm, utterly unreadable. He didn't answer. He picked up a chipped clay bowl filled with water and walked over to the bed. He dipped a crude wooden spoon into the water and brought it to her cracked lips.

Eve's instinct screamed at her to turn away. She didn't know this man. She didn't know what he wanted. But the raw, burning thirst in her throat overrode her pride. She parted her lips, letting the cool water trickle inside. It soothed the fire in her throat just enough to let her think clearly.

She studied him as he pulled the spoon back. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties, but his eyes held a stillness that belonged to someone who had seen centuries of silence.

"Why?" she demanded, her voice gaining a fraction of strength.

Cato didn't speak. He simply turned his back on her again and resumed grinding the herbs.

His dismissal ignited a spark of fury in her chest. She tried to reach for the Aether inside her, desperate to feel some semblance of control, some spark of her former power. She searched the void in her chest. Nothing. Just a dead, empty space where her magic used to burn. The Order hadn't just exiled her; they had surgically removed her soul.

The despair hit her like a physical blow, triggering a cascade of fragmented memories. The trial room. The cold stone floors. The sneering faces of her former comrades.

Flashback: Grand Master Bernardo Rowe sat high on the judgment seat, his face carved from marble. "Eve Salazar, your arrogance led to the slaughter of your squad. You hoarded the Iceborn Heart for yourself."

Flashback: She had screamed her innocence until her throat bled, but when she tried to explain what happened in the snow, her mind hit a blank wall. She couldn't remember. She only remembered the endless white, the sudden spray of blood across the snow, and a cold, stabbing pain in her chest.

Flashback: Bernardo raised his hand, severing her connection to the Aether forever. "You are cast out."

Eve gasped, her chest heaving as the memory released her. The sudden movement sent a bolt of white-hot agony through her broken ribs. She squeezed her eyes shut, a low groan escaping her lips.

Cato was beside her in an instant. He dropped the pestle and reached out, his hand moving toward her shoulder to check her bindings.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, her voice raw and trembling.

His hand froze in mid-air. He held it there for a second, then slowly retracted it, his expression unchanged. He turned away, opened a rickety cabinet, and pulled out a relatively clean strip of cloth. He soaked it in the cool water from the bowl and leaned over her again.

This time, he didn't reach for her body. He gently placed the damp cloth across her fevered forehead.

The cold seeped into her skin, cutting through the chaos in her mind. She stared up at him, her breath coming in short, angry pants. She was entirely at his mercy. A prisoner in the home of a man she didn't know, who wouldn't even speak to her.

The pungent smell of the herb paste hit Eve's nose before Cato even reached her side. He carried the stone mortar over, the green sludge inside looking as appealing as swamp mud. He dipped two fingers into the paste and carefully smeared it onto the deep gash on her elbow.

A sharp sting made Eve hiss through her teeth, but it faded quickly, replaced by a soothing coolness that seeped deep into the torn flesh. The pain actually receded. She hated to admit it, but it worked.

She glared at him as he moved down to her knee. "You think a little bit of mud is going to make me grateful to you?"

Cato ignored her. He picked up a fresh set of wooden splints and began to realign the bones in her lower leg. His hands were large and rough, calloused from years of hard labor, but his touch was precise. He manipulated the broken pieces with a skill that belonged in a master surgeon's clinic, not a menial laborer's shack.

Eve squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. Every time his fingers pressed against her skin, it felt like a violation. She was a Paladin-she had healed others with a touch of light. Now, she was being patched up like a broken piece of furniture by a stranger.

Once the last splint was tied, Cato stood up and walked over to the small hearth. He picked up a pot and poured a thick, grayish porridge into a bowl. The smell of boiled grains and wild roots filled the tiny room. It wasn't appetizing, but it was warm. Eve's stomach clenched, then let out a loud, traitorous growl.

Her face burned with instant humiliation. She snapped her head back toward him, her eyes blazing. "Take it away! I'm not eating anything you give me!"

Cato walked over and sat on the stool beside the bed. He scooped up a spoonful of the sludge and held it in front of her mouth.

Eve clamped her lips shut and jerked her head to the side, pressing her cheek into the rough pillow.

Cato didn't pull the spoon back. He just held it there, inches from her face. The silence in the room stretched, broken only by the crackle of the fire.

Minutes passed. The smell of the food seemed to grow stronger, taunting her. She hadn't eaten in over a day. The hollow ache in her stomach was turning into a sharp, gnawing pain that made her head spin. She could feel his gaze on her, steady and patient. He wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to argue. He was just going to wait.

She thought of her vows. A Paladin never yields to the enemy. But a voice in the back of her head whispered that she wasn't a Paladin anymore. She was just a starving girl with broken legs. She had to live. If she died here, in this dirt-floored shack, the truth about what happened in the Frostbound Abyss would die with her. Revenge was a meal she couldn't afford to miss.

Cato shifted slightly, pushing the spoon a fraction of an inch closer. The warmth radiating from the food was a physical force against her cold skin. Her throat convulsed, a desperate, involuntary swallow that she couldn't suppress.

He saw it. She knew he did.

"You..." she started, trying to summon a threat, but her voice was too weak.

Her resolve crumbled. The primal need to survive crushed her pride into dust. Slowly, agonizingly, she turned her head back. She opened her mouth.

Cato slid the spoon inside. The porridge was bland, tasting mostly of wood and water, but the heat spreading down her throat and into her stomach felt like salvation. She swallowed, and he immediately loaded another spoonful.

One bite after another. Eve stared blankly at the ceiling, her body operating on autopilot. She felt detached, hollowed out. A single tear leaked from the corner of her eye, sliding down her temple and into her hair. It wasn't a tear of gratitude. It was a tear of pure, undiluted rage at her own powerlessness. She was the pride of the Azure Blade, now reduced to an infant being spoon-fed by a nameless laborer.

Cato noticed the tear. He paused for a fraction of a second, then resumed feeding her, his movements becoming slower, gentler, as if handling something infinitely fragile.