The trip back to the Grand Church was less suffocating than it had been the first time. This time, his mother could not follow to see him delivered. Sairael’s mood was complex as he sat in his seat—his posture still proper, but without the added strain of resisting every minor sway caused by the bumps in the road.

  His gaze lingered beyond the carriage window, watching the world slide past in muted colors, while his thoughts tried to sort everything he needed to prepare for. Even though this was his second time walking through this life and it should have felt less daunting, Sairael could not shake the sense that the future would be even more trying. Not only did he need to follow the same path as before, he had to react as he once had—careful, restrained, convincing—so that no one noticed the fracture in time beneath his feet.

  Worse still, he knew what was coming. The knowledge itself was a torment. Knowing the precise shape of a blade did not dull its edge—it only made the anticipation sharper, more intimate, more cruel. If a person were offered the chance to live again, how many would truly agree to relive every hardship exactly as it had been? Who wouldn’t be tempted to dodge the worst moments, to carve an easier road? Yet if Sairael wanted to clear his name, if he wanted the truth to survive long enough to be heard, then he had to step back into the pain. Sometimes he wondered if it would be worth it at all, especially when he had not yet seen even a shadow of the “gift” his rebirth had promised.

  He closed his eyes and released a slow breath, forcing those thoughts down. In that moment, a faint pulse flickered behind his lids—an odd light in a color he could not name. His eyes opened. He searched the carriage interior, confused, but found nothing. Still, the heaviness in his chest eased slightly. He shook his head, subtle and controlled, and closed his eyes again.

  The flash came again—stronger this time—and he kept his eyes shut. Doubt gathered in him like cold mist. Then warmth washed through his body, gentle and strange, loosening muscles that training had taught him to keep rigid. For the first time, his body betrayed the posture instilled into it and relaxed, leaning back into the seat. He could have sworn he heard a quiet hum, like a voice sung through stone and distance. It was faint—so faint he had to strain to catch even fragments of it.

  “You… are… not… alone… child of…”

  A sudden jolt snapped the carriage hard enough to rip him out of that state. His eyes flew open as the humming vanished, leaving only silence and his own heartbeat. A muffled voice sounded from outside. Then the door opened, and a junior priest offered a hand to help him down.

  Sairael accepted it and stepped onto the ground with practiced grace, adjusting his dress as it settled. He offered a polite thanks to the driver, then followed the junior priest toward the Church while others remained behind to unload the few trunks of luggage he had brought. They contained only what he knew would be permitted—just as in his first life. Not because he had much to choose from, but because he never had. Even with the false care his mother performed for public eyes, the unfavored child of the estate did not own much worth taking.

  “They will inspect your belongings before taking them to your room, Miss,” the leading junior priest said with a slight tilt of his head. “First, you will come with me to the purification chamber. When purification is complete, you will be allowed dinner before bed. Training begins tomorrow.”

  Sairael nodded, already braced for what waited. This was where his “gender” would be buried deeper. The Head Priest had already informed those in charge of the rite. They would give him the warnings again—what to do, what not to do, what to never reveal. And because he was a Ger, the purification would take longer. They would call it a complication. They would speak of it as a flaw that required “extra cleansing,” as though his body itself were an offense.

  He kept the same blank smile he had been trained to wear and followed into the private prayer room assigned for the rite. Once inside, he was left with two priests who had graduated beyond junior rank—men with authority, and with the Church’s cold certainty settled comfortably in their bones.

  “Remove your clothing and enter the Holy Pool so purification may begin,” the older of the two instructed.

  Both priests wore the special veiling fabric over their eyes—the Church’s solution to “modesty,” meant to prevent peeping upon a Saint-in-training. The cloth did not make them blind. It simply allowed them to claim innocence while they watched enough to judge.

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  Sairael lowered his gaze and obeyed, refusing to let his disgust show. He undid the buttons of his dress with careful hands and let the fabric fall. At least he was permitted to remain in his undergarments: thin white cloth that offered a sliver of modesty. He was six years old. Fully stripping a child to place them in cold water—even “holy” water—would have been too blatant, too difficult to defend if ever questioned. So the cruelty was dressed in restraint.

  The priests bowed and gestured for him to enter.

  The moment his foot sank into the pool, cold bit into him like teeth. Sairael clamped down hard on his tongue to prevent any outward reaction. From the outside, the water looked clear, even peaceful. One might assume holy water soothed. But this purification water was not meant to soothe—it was meant to penetrate. It chilled to the bone, forcing itself into every inch of flesh as though it intended to scrape the soul clean.

  It did cleanse. It did heal. And it also magnified pain—every bruise, every scar, every place the body had been harmed became a map of burning cold. The more affinity one had for holy power, the stronger the effect became. This, too, was a test they did not explain. The longer a candidate endured without breaking, without begging, without shattering the mask the Church demanded, the more “worthy” they were deemed.

  Sairael lowered himself into the water until he sat within it, his body trembling as the holy cold began tearing through him. Every old injury ignited—burning and freezing all at once—until pain threaded through his bones. His teeth chattered despite his effort. His eyes squeezed shut. Sweat beaded on his brow, absurd against the cold, then slid down his pale face. His lips blanched. His small shoulders tensed as he struggled to remain upright.

  The priests remained at the pool’s edge, silent and methodical. They replaced the power cores that kept the holy water cycling, ensuring fresh purification water replaced what was absorbed. The veiling fabric prevented “peeping,” yet they observed enough—his posture, his tremors, the way his breath stuttered—to understand exactly how much he suffered. One priest set the spent cores aside to gauge the rate of absorption; the other marked the time each core lasted, recording his endurance as though it were a devotional offering.

  Sairael fought to stay conscious. His mind narrowed until there was nothing but cold and pain and the distant pressure of silence. When thought finally returned enough to form an intention, he tried to rise—instinctive, desperate, the same as his first life. His body moved before his mind could stop it. He only wanted out. He only wanted the pain to end.

  The nearer priest stepped forward and shoved him back into the pool with a firm hand.

  “Young Miss,” he said, voice clipped, “we have been instructed by the Head Priest that you are required to remain longer, until—”

  The words blurred. Sairael’s breath came heavier as he clutched at the thin fabric of his undergarments with shaking hands. His head spun. A ringing filled his ears. He could not hear the rest of the priest’s explanation. All he knew was that he was being forced to endure beyond the point his body could withstand.

  Even in his first life, after they finally allowed him out and explained why he had been made to remain longer, he had never truly understood it. He still did not understand why being a Ger—male, yet born with the capacity to bear life—made him something that had to be “corrected” through extended suffering. Other children were permitted to end the rite when their bodies stopped resisting and instinct demanded escape. Only him. Only Sairael was pushed back in after that limit was reached, forced to remain until his body failed completely.

  His thoughts turned blank. His eyelids fluttered. His head tilted, weight slipping from his spine as he began to go limp.

  Before he could sink beneath the surface, the same priest reached in and hauled him out, wincing as his arms entered the frigid pool to seize the child. They wrapped him in a prepared robe, moving with practiced efficiency—neither surprised nor concerned by his fainting. They laid him onto the lift meant to carry him to his room and wheeled him out of the chamber without ceremony.

  What Sairael had never known—neither in his first life nor even now—was how long the purification had truly lasted. The rite had not ended after an hour, or two, or even five. It had stretched deep into the night, long past the hour when every other child had been sent to sleep. There was not a single soul awake in the Church besides those assigned to his ritual. He had entered the pool around three in the afternoon. He had been pulled out around four in the morning.

  Thirteen hours.

  For a child of six to endure thirteen hours before his body collapsed was a feat the Church did not call miraculous aloud. They called it useful. And if Sairael had known that truth, he might have understood why they forced him to repeat spiritual purification again and again—because each time it doubled in intensity, and the pain doubled with it. They wanted to see when his endurance would finally match “acceptable” limits. They wanted to measure how long it would take before he broke into something easier to control.

  To see how long it would take before Sairael would last, through the amplified affects, the same time the rest were able to endure. Since the Pool would in crease each use in affect, the pain becoming even stronger each time he'd partake int he purification. - They also never told him that this was something only he had to go through. He, even now, thought the rest would also have to go through that same torment as him.

  That early morning, the Grand Church remained quiet as Sairael was settled into his room and left to “sleep” off the effects of purification.