Footsteps sounded in the tunnel, steady and unhurried. Not guards running late, not men responding to panic. Each step carried weight, armour moving the way it did when the man inside it had nothing to prove.

Gabriel shifted once. He didn't turn. He stepped forward instead, placing himself between the sound and the space behind him. The apprentice slipped out of sight without being touched, hidden by Gabriel's body as if he had never been there at all.

The footsteps stopped.

A Paladin stepped into the chamber, white armour dulled by quarry dust, a cloak that had avoided the blood on the ground by habit rather than care. His sword remained in its sheath. He took in the bodies with a glance that lasted only as long as it needed to, then lifted his head.

His eyes found Gabriel and stayed there.

For a moment, he didn't move. Then his hand rose and unsealed his helmet. The metal came free with a soft click, and he held it at his side, staring as though the sight in front of him refused to settle into place.

"No," he said quietly.

It wasn't denial. It was recognition, colliding with grief.

"Gabriel."

"They told us you were dead," he went on. "I stood vigil. I watched your name carved in stone at Vulmire."

Gabriel inclined his head. "Oren."

"They were wrong," Gabriel said.

The Paladin swallowed, his jaw tightening as the words settled.

"Yes," he replied.

Silence stretched between them.

Oren took a breath, slowly, the way they'd been taught to do after a bad drill or a worse loss. His eyes never left Gabriel's face.

"I prayed for you," he said at last. The words sounded almost foreign to him. "Not loudly. Not like the others. But I did."

Gabriel didn't look away.

"I know," he said. There was no comfort in his voice, no bitterness either. Just acknowledgement. "You always hated crowds."

That earned the faintest reaction. A tightening around the eyes. A memory surfacing despite itself.

"They said Lucius had to put you down," the Paladin went on. "That it was quick. That there was nothing left to recover."

Gabriel paused for a breath longer than necessary.

The words sat wrong in his mouth.

"Lucius exiled me from the Paladins," he said at last. The title sounded distant, like something that no longer belonged to him. "He saw what the Order did to me. What they had already started."

Oren's brow furrowed. "That's not what we were told."

"No," Gabriel agreed. "You were told what the Church needed you to believe."

Oren's grip tightened on the helmet. The knuckles showed white through the grime. "They said he carried out the sentence himself."

Gabriel's gaze flicked away for the first time, drifting to the tunnel wall, to the bodies cooling in the dust. "He dragged me out before it was finished, put a sword in my hand and told me if he ever saw me again, he'd kill me."

The silence that followed was sharper than before.

The silence stretched.

Oren swallowed. "They carved your name into stone," he said quietly. "At Vulmire. Lucius stood there when it was done."

Gabriel's jaw tightened a fraction.

"Then he made the lie complete," Gabriel said. "Exile isn't enough for the Church. There has to be a death. Something final."

Oren went still.

For a long moment, he didn't look at Gabriel at all. His eyes dropped to the helmet in his hands, thumb tracing the edge where the metal was scarred and worn smooth by years of use.

Then he shook his head.

"No," he said. "Lucius lied to the Paladins."

The words landed flat. Certain.

Gabriel didn't answer. He didn't need to.

Oren lifted the helmet and slid it back into place., The faceplate locked down and erased whatever doubt had flickered there a moment ago. When he spoke again, his voice carried the hollow resonance of duty.

The former Paladin's grip tightened around the hilt of his blade, "You will not survive this, Oren. Leave now."

Oren's hand settled on his sword.

He didn't draw it.

Not yet.

"It's the law, Gabriel," he said. Not loud. like a fact he'd repeated enough times to believe. "Red eyes mean corruption. Demons get put down."

The Paladin scoffed. "At one time, you'd have done the same."

He finally drew his blade.

The sound was quiet.

He shifted his stance, weight settling, feet finding the perfect stance. The posture of someone trained to end fights quickly, not someone eager to start one.

Gabriel didn't move. His deep crimson eyes began pulsing.

Oren raised his hand

No warning. No raised voice.

"Calad aer."

Light snapped out of his palm.

Not an explosion. A line. Thin, precise, the kind of spell meant to end it's target move on.

Gabriel felt the shift in the air and reacted on instinct. He dropped, shoulder twisting, body folding low as the beam passed over him close enough to feel the heat on his scalp.

Behind him, there was a sound.

A choking gasp. Panicked. Cut short.

Something hit the ground.

Gabriel didn't turn.

Not while Oren was still standing.

His eyes stayed forward, locked on the Paladin as he came up into a guard, weight settling, breath controlled. The smell of scorched flesh reached him a moment later, sharp and unmistakable.

Gabriel moved.

No warning. No hesitation.

He crossed the distance in a breath, boots scraping stone as his blade came up in a tight, rising cut meant to break Oren's guard before another spell could form.

Oren reacted on training alone. His sword snapped up, steel catching steel with a sharp crack that rang through the tunnel. The impact jarred his arm, stance shifting as he absorbed the blow a half-step too late.

Gabriel pressed.

He drove in close, shoulder to chest, denying space. He spun. Lowering his stance as he did so and thrusting his blade towards Oren's stomach.

Oren twisted with it on instinct, armour screeching as the blade skated across the plates instead of sinking in. The thrust still landed hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

Gabriel didn't slow.

He stayed inside Oren's reach, where spells were clumsy, and leverage mattered more than strength. He shifted his weight and drove his heel down, aiming for the knee. Clean, decisive, meant to end the fight in one movement.

Oren reacted on reflex.

His leg came up instead of buckling, shin snapping across the line of the strike. The impact cracked through the tunnel, bone on armour, jarring both of them. Gabriel felt the shock climb his leg, but his balance held.

Oren staggered half a step, teeth clenched behind the helm, and brought his foot back down hard to re-anchor himself.

As his foot hit the stone, his sword came with it, a tight, horizontal cut snapping toward Gabriel's neck.

Gabriel met it.

He lifted his blade just enough, blade catching blade with a sharp crack that rang through the tunnel. The force drove down his arms, but he held, wrists locked, stance braced.

The blades slid, edges grinding as they bound for a heartbeat too long.

Gabriel twisted first.

He rolled his wrists and shoved, breaking the bind and forcing Oren's sword wide, stepping in again before distance could form.

The fight compressed back into close quarters, breath against breath, the tunnel giving neither of them room to retreat.

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