Celene did not speak for the first several minutes after they fled the underground chamber, and Cassian could tell she was choosing her silence carefully rather than losing her voice to panic.They stepped into the cloister hallway where moonlight washed through the tall arched windows, painting pale stripes along the floor that looked disturbingly like bars of a cage they had both unwillingly stepped into.Cassian leaned against the stone column, trying to calm the frantic tremor in his hands, though the shaking worsened when he thought about the reflection speaking with a voice shaped perfectly like his own.Celene kept her distance at first, watching him as though he were a cracked vessel leaking something dangerous into the air, yet her breathing gradually steadied enough for her to approach him.“You were not supposed to see that room,” she said with a quiet intensity that felt more like a verdict than an explanation, her eyes fixed on him with a mixture of fear and reluctant res

The derelict chapel at the edge of the eastern district felt wrong from the moment Cassian and Celene stepped beneath its shattered archway, as though the remaining structure mourned a history it could no longer carry.Rain-soaked wind swept through the broken stained glass, scattering colored fragments across the floor that glittered faintly like dried tears beneath the muted daylight.Cassian surveyed the interior with cautious breath, noticing how the shadows clung unnaturally to the corners even though the sun should have dispelled them, and he sensed a presence lingering like a memory refusing to fade.Celene moved closer to him, clutching the hilt of her concealed ritual dagger beneath her cloak, and her tense expression revealed she felt the same invisible eyes watching from the dark.“We should not stay long,” she whispered, her voice barely a breath, “because something in this place has been waiting far too patiently.”Cassian nodded, scanning the cracked tiles for any sign o