For a long moment, neither of us moved.
The chamber remained silent around us, impossibly vast and unnaturally still, while the dimmed third pillar stood behind me like the grave of something invisible. I could still feel the absence left by the sacrifice lingering inside my mind, not as pain but as instability, as though a structure I had relied upon for years had suddenly developed fractures too subtle to fully see yet too deep to ignore.
Certainty.
I had not realized how much of myself had been built upon it until the Temple tore it away.
Now every thought carried faint resistance behind it. Every conclusion arrived accompanied by doubt. Even my own instincts, once sharp enough to cut through hesitation effortlessly, felt heavier, slower, as though they now passed through layers of fog before reaching me.
It was irritating.
Dangerously irritating.
And beneath that irritation lurked something far worse.
Fear.
Not fear of death.
Not fear of failure.
