God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 1389: Drink to Us (2).

Nero nodded, processing this. Half a day. Then back to the business of surviving, of navigating this strange new life he'd fallen into. He sat up again, more steadily this time, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

"What about Arthur and Jacob?"

Lyon raised a brow without turning around. "Those two have gone to raise wine glasses with their families. The young Lord's return will likely occasion a considerable celebration. Perhaps the Lord of the city will call for a feast soon, given what his son apparently accomplished out there."

"Right," Nero said quietly.

"Also." Lyon set down the vial again and turned, his expression carrying that same subtle amusement. "The young Lord said to tell you that he owes you a drink. So you should probably go pay him a visit soon."

Nero's eyes widened.

"What?" The word came out sharper than he intended. "A lowly born like me couldn't possibly—"

"You either go or you don't." Lyon's tone was matter-of-fact, "If you don't, the young Lord can see that as an affront to his hospitality. If you do go, you can lick his boots and curry some favor. I strongly advise the latter. It is what I would do either ways..."

Nero's grimace deepened. "I figured you'd say something like that. I can tell you severely lack honor."

Lyon's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes that might have been genuine amusement.

"Honor?" He said the word the way someone might say the name of an old acquaintance they'd lost touch with decades ago and felt no particular urgency to reconnect with. "What does honor buy from the markets? It is worth less than a gold coin. It cannot even buy a night with a cheap whore, or a cup of even cheaper booze."

Nero snorted despite himself.

He got up from the bed, slowly, testing his weight on each leg before committing to it. His body held. Sore, stiff, complaining about every degree of movement, but functional. He found his way to the door and put his hand on the frame.

Then he stopped.

He stood there for a moment with his back to the room, not quite sure why he hadn't left yet. Something sat in his chest that wasn't quite sentiment and wasn't quite gratitude, but was adjacent to both. The particular feeling of owing something to someone who would never ask for it.

He turned around.

Lyon was already facing his desk again, already back to his apparatus and his vials and the work that always seemed to take precedence over everything else.

"Lyon."

Lyon turned around. One eyebrow elevated slightly. "What is it, Nero?"

Nero met his eyes for a moment.

"I owe you a drink too, you know."

Lyon looked at him. Just looked, for a few seconds, with an expression that cycled through something Nero couldn't quite read before settling on its usual composed amusement. Then he snorted, a brief sound that carried genuine warmth despite its brevity.

"Is that so?" He turned back to his desk. "Go get some rest, lad."

Nero left.

***

The corridor was cool and dark, and that was exactly what Nero needed.

He walked slowly, in no particular hurry, letting the dim quiet of the Red House settle around him like something familiar. The garrison at this hour was subdued, its usual noise reduced to the distant murmur of voices in other wings, the occasional footfall on stone somewhere above. The shadows shifted continuously in the torchlight, moving in that restless way shadows always moved when the light source was open flame, never entirely still, never entirely dark. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Nero had always found that particular quality of firelight corridors more comfortable than complete darkness. There was honesty in it, somehow. The shadows didn't pretend to be anything other than what they were.

He exhaled slowly through his nose and let his shoulders drop.

The cool air touched his face, and for a moment, he simply allowed himself to feel it.

The world was dark, but some light seeped through the endless grey.

'I killed an angel,' he thought.

The words formed slowly, turning over in his mind with the weight of their own absurdity. He had killed an angel. He had eaten it. He had devoured it from the inside out, piece by piece, with a hunger that hadn't belonged entirely to him, in a lake of crystal-clear water beneath a pocket dimension hidden in a crack in reality, after drawing a ritual array on a fungus-covered floor and being betrayed by the very entity he'd freed.

He paused mid-stride, reconsidered.

'There is absolutely no way that thing was an angel.'

He shook his head, resuming his walk. If Rummel Abellion had truly been a holy being, a servant of the Divine Will, then surely there would have been consequences. Surely the heavens didn't simply allow their own to be devoured by something like him without response.

He tilted his gaze upward, through the corridor's ceiling, through the floors above, through the stone and soil and distance, toward whatever sky existed beyond all of it.

Waiting.

The silence that answered him was exactly the same silence it always was. Deep, indifferent, vast. The heavens offered nothing, as they usually didn't.

Nero shook his head slowly and looked forward again.

The dark path stretched ahead of him, illuminated only by the shifting torchlight, the shadows moving across the stone floor in patterns that never quite resolved into anything coherent. He knew this corridor. Knew exactly where it led and how many steps it would take to get there.

And yet, looking at it now, it reminded him of something he couldn't entirely articulate.

The path toward his future looked exactly like this. A dark walkway entrenched in constantly shifting shadows, some torchlight offering just enough visibility to place the next foot and nothing more. No certainty beyond the immediate step. No guarantee that the corridor ended where he expected it to.

A Templar of the Church, or a horrid monster despised and hunted by all.

He had the potential to become either one.