“The Order issues false doctrine, my dear. There was no Last Dance, no inheritance, no accord between gods and mere mortals. If there exists any accord, it is between the One and your very soul! You walked into a cathedral much like this one, looking for succor, duped by grand paintings and pretty words—but you were deceived. The Order acolytes bake lies into their bread, their welfare, flavored with the callow wish that you spread the good word of hope.” She spat this last out like poison, rounding on one heel, her finger still pointed at the ceiling. “To whore your soul for progress, for equality, for tolerance. They would have you starve yourself of the very thing, the only thing which will bring you that ever-elusive strength to carry on: acceptance.”

She gestured around the cathedral, the broken pews, the shattered windows.

“The One’s intent speeds us ever toward decay. You think the world revolves around peace? You think these dark times the endcaps between eons of good? No, Anji. We mortals occupy the interminable gulf between lit beacons. The fires of peace gutter before the hungry dark that looms over their fragile light, and our sole liberation from this morbidity, this reality of sin and death and disease and corruption is to accept. Accept and conform to the One’s decree, Their divine architecture.”

The rebellious animal in Anji perked up at this. She’d been taught by her parents, by her aunt, by Mudtown’s filthy, freezing streets, never to accept, never to fold. Her parents’ deaths had been the anvil to poverty’s hammer and still, she had pushed on. And that drive hadn’t been born out of faith or fear or even love, but a determination, a reckless knowledge that her life could improve. That she could see herself through and … to somewhere else. Somewhere better.

But sitting in this ruin, after all she’d seen, all she’d done … Hadn’t she felt a glimmer of what the Bear was saying, even over the last few hours? After learning of her friends’ torture, the persistent image of their bodies draped over the castle walls. She’d entertained a feeling so similar to what this insane woman preached, so frequently and so deeply it gave her chills, that the woman before her might have been reading her mind as Anji had walked into the cathedral.

“So you just … give up?” Anji said, the words dry in her throat.

The Bear let out a shrieking cackle, doubling over before snapping straight like a fired catapult. “Give up? What is there to give when you have nothing? You want to sue for change? Sue. You want to kill for peace? You’ll kill for years, until your dying, pitiful last day, one hand wrapped round a rose and the other using the thorns to gouge the eyes of those you deem unfit to lead.”