Rebellion Rising from the Depths: Mocked by the Hero Who Impregnated My Childhood Friend Before My Very Eyes. - Chapter 10: The First Accomplice.

The First Accomplice.

Staring at the two figures standing on the dais, the feelings he thought he had buried deep within his chest surfaced again and again, refusing to stay submerged.

Leon’s smile. The blue stone glittering on Lydie’s left hand. The voices raised in blessing. The applause. The showering flower petals. The faces of the crowd, completely devoid of doubt regarding the blissful future ahead.

Everything they had was built atop what they had stolen from him.

Noah stood at the very back of the crowd, his cloak pulled low over his face. He turned on his heel before anyone could notice him. If he watched for even a moment longer, he felt as though he would break. He wanted to scream, tear that stage to the ground, and hurl Causal Retribution straight into Leon’s throat. But that wouldn’t be revenge. It would be nothing short of suicide.

What he needed right now wasn’t to stoke the flames of his rage. He needed to let it cool. He had to temper it, without letting it die, into a flame he could actually use.

Leaving the plaza behind, he slipped into the back alleys of the Southern Residential District. The noisy, flickering lights of the festival still echoed behind him, but the air shifted the moment he turned a single corner. The reek of alcohol on stale breath. Filthy wastewater. The dampness clinging to the stone walls. Once the bright facade of the Royal Capital ended, the usual dark underbelly of the city took its place.

Noah walked with a heavy limp. His body, having barely crawled its way back from the depths of the Abyss, was still far from functional. His right ankle throbbed with a burning heat, and the bite wound on his left arm pulsed with pain. The meager amount of dried fruit and black bread he had managed to force down wasn’t nearly enough to fill the hollow void stretching through his entire being. If he didn’t find a place to rest soon, he would collapse.

But where?

He had no home. He had no name. There were no inns open to a man who was officially dead.

An abandoned warehouse, perhaps, or a decommissioned chapel… Picturing some secluded spot away from prying eyes, Noah passed beneath an old stone bridge. It was a corner of the district where the hustle and bustle of the main streets rarely reached—a place where only beggars and smugglers gathered after dark.

It was then.

“Stop right there!”

A sharp, angry shout echoed from the far side of the alley.

Then came the sound of something collapsing. The rustle of fabric. A woman’s sharp, stifled gasp.

Noah stopped dead in his tracks by reflex.

Again, he thought, a cold sensation washing through his chest. It was just like that night. The sound of someone being hunted. Fleeing footsteps. The sound of someone being dragged into the shadows to be erased.

His reason screamed at him to stay out of it. If he drew any attention to himself now, it would be the end. If anyone found out he had returned from the Abyss, they would make absolutely sure he was dead this time.

But the next voice made him freeze.

“Don’t let that woman leave here alive! Recover the crystal!”

A woman.

A crystal.

And “Don’t let her leave here alive.”

Noah narrowed his eyes beneath the shadow of his hood. Pressing his body against the stone wall, he peered around the corner toward the noise. At the end of the narrow alleyway, in a bend where the lamplight couldn’t reach, three men had a single woman cornered.

The woman wore a hooded, ash-gray cloak. Its hem was torn, and blood was seeping through the shoulder. She was clutching a small box tightly against her chest. Her footsteps were unsteady, yet she desperately forced herself backward.

The men pursuing her were no ordinary guards. They wore black light armor bearing the crest of the Royal Capital Temple on their chests. Over that, they wore familiar silver-threaded clasps—the insignia of the Hero’s private militia. The Temple and the Hero’s house were moving together.

This wasn’t just a troublesome dispute. They were definitively silencing a witness.

One of the men spat on the ground.

“If you had just handed it over quietly, we could have ended this painlessly.” “Liar,” the woman retorted. Her breath was ragged, but her voice was clearer than he expected. “You never had any intention of letting me off painlessly from the start. You just want to erase the evidence.”

At those words, Noah’s legs began to move on their own.

Evidence.

The person they were hunting wasn’t just some random woman. She possessed something that actively inconvenienced Leon.

One of the men raised a short wand. A white light kindled at its tip.

It was a priestly incantation. But this wasn’t the soft, gentle light used for purification or healing. It was a dull, heavy glare, specifically modified to force someone into submission.

“This is your final warning, Fiona.” “—!”

The woman’s shoulders gave a violent flinch.

Fiona.

The name struck a chord of familiarity somewhere deep in his memory. But before he could place it, the man continued.

“The moment you failed to qualify as a Saint Candidate, you were finished. Trying to tarnish Lord Hero’s name with your misplaced sense of justice was your final mistake.” “A Hero, you say?”

The woman named Fiona let out a laugh through her bleeding lips.

“A man who does nothing but shine by devouring the pain of others?”

The men’s expressions twisted with rage.

That alone was more than enough.

Within Noah, a quiet resolve locked into place.

In the next instant, the man swung his wand downward. The white light condensed into a needle-like beam, streaking forward to pierce the ground beneath Fiona’s feet.

Noah lunged out from the shadows.

His legs weren’t fully recovered. He lacked proper speed. But for a single fraction of a second, it was enough. He grabbed Fiona by the shoulder and dragged her sideways onto the ground. The white light gouged into the cobblestones, sending fragments flying.

“What the—“

One of the pursuers widened his eyes in shock.

Noah stepped forward, shielding Fiona behind him. The arm extending from his sleeve was stained with blood and mud, and his only weapon was a chipped dagger that barely qualified as one. By all appearances, he was nothing more than a walking corpse. Yet, the crest on his palm pulsed with a faint, crimson light in the gloom.

“Who the hell are you?” “Just a passing dead man.”

His voice was so cold it surprised even himself.

One of the men let out a mocking sneer.

“Doesn’t matter what kind of trash you are. Since you saw us, you die.”

The militia soldier drew his dagger, while the other readied his short wand once more. Three against one. Furthermore, he was burdened with protecting an injured person. By any normal logic, it wasn’t even a contest.

But normal logic had already ceased to apply to his opponents.

The man with the dagger rushed in first. His stride was remarkably fast—the agile lightness of an assassin. The blade flashed low, aiming directly for Noah’s flank.

He couldn’t dodge it entirely.

Noah twisted his torso a half-step too late. The blade shallowly gouged his side. Simultaneously with the pain, a lukewarm, slimy sensation flowed into the wound.

Poison.

In that instant, he saw the thread. A thin, murky line of blackish green. Stretching from the man’s blade into Noah’s flesh.

“It’s over,” the man muttered.

Immediately after.

Noah slammed his left hand directly onto the man’s wrist.

“Take it back.”

The crest on his palm throbbed violently.

The poison coated on the blade—the causality of its effect alone—was inverted. The physical pain of the cut remaining in Noah’s flesh did not vanish. However, the forced poison violently ran backward along the thread, returning to its owner.

The man’s eyes bulged.

“Wha…?”

In the next breath, the dagger slipped from his grasp. His fingertips went entirely numb, and his knees buckled as if they had shattered beneath him. A frothing groan escaped the depths of his throat, and his body fell into violent convulsions, nearly biting through his own tongue.

The remaining two men froze in place for a fraction of a second.

“What did you do?!” “You’re better off not knowing.”

By the time Noah answered, the man with the short wand had already deployed his magic circle. Multiple layers of white light overlapped, condensing into a fine, arrow-like point. It was a piercing spell, a purification type crudely repurposed for combat. For someone belonging to the Temple, it was an incredibly vicious technique.

The unleashed light grazed Noah’s shoulder.

It was searing hot. His flesh burned. Yet, deep within that burning sensation, he could see something else. The burnout of the magic circuits that the caster themselves should have suffered. The crimson fractures born from the recoil of forcing the output beyond its limits.

If I can see it, I can return it.

Noah let out a laugh while clutching his scorched shoulder. It was a expression far too hollow to be called a smile.

“Did you honestly think holy magic didn’t hurt?”

The thread of light inverted.

The man with the wand let out a bloodcurdling shriek. From his shoulder down to his arm, his skin split open in blackened, raw tears as if scorched by an invisible flame. The short wand slipped from his fingers, clattering against the cobblestones. The man rolled on the ground, clutching his arm, screaming until his throat tore, completely stripped of the composure required to pray to his god.

Only the last man remained standing, paralyzed, unable to comprehend the events that had just unfolded before his eyes. All color had drained from his face.

“M-Monster…” “You’re wrong,” Noah said, taking a step forward. His leg throbbed with pain. His flank burned. Yet, he didn’t stop. “It’s just being returned.”

The man reached for the warning whistle at his waist. If he blew it, everything would end.

Noah lunged forward instinctively. He lacked speed, but his opponent was already backing away in terror. He grabbed the man’s arm as if tackling him, and in that split second, it became visible. The sheer exhaustion the man had accumulated from running until now. The tearing strain on his leg muscles, pushed to the absolute brink of snapping just to maintain the pursuit. A brief, but definitive weight that had brushed against Noah’s own being.

“Carry it all yourself.”

He returned it.

All strength instantly vanished from the man’s legs. With a sickening crack, one of his legs collapsed beneath him as if it had bent entirely backward. The whistle fell to the ground before it could make a sound, and the man slammed face-first into the cobblestones. He desperately tried to force himself up, but his legs refused to obey, leaving him to emit nothing but a pathetic, high-pitched wail.

Only the sound of heavy, ragged breathing remained in the alleyway.

Noah took a few steps back and pressed his hand against the wall. A sharp ache throbbed deep within his head. Perhaps due to the recoil of returning the damage to three people all at once, the edges of his vision began to blur into a hazy white. Causal Retribution was far from an omnipotent ability. It merely returned what had been forced upon him, and if his own vessel handling it was weak, the very act of activation placed a severe burden on his body.

Even so, he was alive.

He was no longer the helpless man who would simply take a beating and die like he had that night.

At his feet, the first man was groaning, foam still bubbling from his lips. Given the progression of the poison, he wouldn’t die immediately, but he wouldn’t be moving anytime soon either. Noah didn’t deliver a finishing blow. They were out of time.

Behind him, Fiona was managing to steady her frantic breathing.

“…You.”

When he turned around, she was kneeling on the ground, looking up at Noah. Her hood had slipped slightly, revealing the face beneath. She looked to be in her early twenties. Pale, near-silver hair clung to her cheeks, and sweat beaded her forehead. Yet, her eyes were fierce. They were the eyes of someone who was terrified, but absolutely refused to break.

Those eyes locked onto Noah’s face and froze.

“…It can’t be,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Noah… san?”

Noah’s spine stiffened for a brief moment.

She knows me?

Fiona’s lips trembled.

“But, you’re supposed to be…” “I’m officially dead,” Noah cut her off shortly. “If you scream out here, you’ll be joining me next.”

As if brought back to reality by his words, Fiona instantly clamped her mouth shut. However, her gaze still wavered, as if she were looking at something entirely impossible.

Among the three fallen men, the one with the short wand was groaning, attempting to crawl away. Footsteps were also beginning to echo from the distance. Someone had noticed the commotion.

“Can you stand?” “…Somehow.” “Then we run.”

Noah extended his hand. Fiona hesitated for a mere fraction of a second before reaching out and taking it. Her hand was ice-cold. Neither of them had any strength to spare. Noah practically supported her weight as they fled deeper into the labyrinth of back alleys.

Though they were “running,” their actual pace was agonizingly slow. Noah dragged his leg, and Fiona kept a tight grip on her injured shoulder. Even so, they turned repeatedly through the winding backstreets, ducking behind hanging laundry and leaping over the wreckage of abandoned stalls, successfully breaking the line of sight of any potential pursuers.

Halfway through, Fiona pointed down a specific path.

“This way… there’s an detached building belonging to an old clinic. It’s completely abandoned now.” “Can I trust it?” “The moment you chose to save me, neither of us had a path to go back to, did we?”

She was entirely correct.

Noah didn’t answer, stepping into the narrow path she indicated. It was an even more dilapidated corner of the Southern District, where ivy choked the stone walls and buildings with shattered windows stood in silence. Entering through the back door of a small stone chapel that had once served as a clinic for the poor, they navigated a crumbling cloister and emerged into a semi-underground storage room.

It was dimly lit inside, but it offered shelter from the wind and rain. An old medicine cabinet and a broken cot were all that remained. The air smelled heavily of mold, but it was infinitely better than the Abyss.

Noah closed the door, sliding a thick piece of wood across it to secure it from the inside. Only then did the strength completely drain from his body. The moment he slumped his back against the wall, the wound in his flank throbbed with a sharp, agonizing pain.

Fiona approached him immediately.

“Let me see it.” “I’m fine.” “That is not the face of someone who is fine.”

Faced with her blunt assertion, Noah knit his brows.

“Don’t touch me. I…” “You’re only alive because you returned the poison. The physical wound itself doesn’t just disappear. Am I wrong?”

Her tone made Noah catch his breath slightly.

She knows. No, to be precise, she has deduced it.

Fiona pulled out a piece of fabric and a bottle that still looked usable from the remnants of the shelf. To his surprise, she managed to retrieve dried disinfectant herbs and a small amount of medicinal alcohol from a stone box in the back. She might have hidden them there long ago.

“Sit down.”

Noah didn’t let down his guard entirely, but he knew that if he refused her help now, he would collapse. He lowered himself onto the broken cot. Fiona pulled his cloak away, her face contorting into a grimace the moment she saw the laceration on his flank.

“A poisoned blade. And it’s the paralytic toxin manufactured by the Temple, no less. The absolute worst.”

She washed the wound with the medicinal alcohol. It burned as if a hot iron were being pressed directly into his flesh. Noah clenched his back teeth hard.

“Don’t make a sound. It will carry outside.” “Whose fault do you think this is?” “It’s just as much the fault of the person who chose to save me, isn’t it?”

Met with her completely composed retort, Noah found himself momentarily at a loss for words.

Her movements were remarkably practiced. She cleansed the wound, applied pressure with the cloth, and even performed a swift, makeshift suturing. After wiping the blood from his shoulder, she knit her brows as she inspected the bite mark on his left arm.

“Is this… an Abyss Lizard?” “You know of them?” “Only from books. I’ve never actually seen a person who made it back alive.”

With that, Fiona finally looked Noah squarely in the eyes.

The only illumination came from a single, tiny candle, but he could clearly see the tremor in her pupils.

“You really… were alive.”

Noah remained silent.

Alive. Hearing the weight of that single phrase uttered aloud by someone else gave it a strange, surreal reality.

Fiona stopped her hands and let out a soft sigh.

“I’m sorry.” “For what?” “When I heard you had died… I thought it was entirely possible. If the Hero’s house truly intended to silence someone, that is exactly how they would do it.” “Are you one of them, then?” Noah’s voice was laced with ice.

Fiona lowered her eyes slightly.

“I belonged to the Temple. So, yes, I was an accomplice.” “Was?” “I’m not anymore. Because I was discarded.”

Fiona’s words made Noah swallow back his sarcasm. He had no intention of claiming they were the same, but something small creaked deep within his chest.

Once she finished wrapping the bandages, Fiona gently placed the small box she had been clutching against her chest onto her lap. It was a waterproof case constructed of leather and metal—the very item the men had been so relentlessly pursuing.

“I am not telling you this just because you saved me,” she said, keeping her hands resting on the box. “I am telling you this because you are Noah Feld.”

Noah narrowed his eyes.

“What do you think you know about me?” “Not everything. But I know at least one absolute truth.”

Fiona’s gaze drifted down to Noah’s left shoulder. The marks left behind from taking the Sacred Dragon’s curse in another’s stead were faintly visible through the tear in his clothing.

“That… is what Leon was originally meant to receive.”

The very air inside the storage room felt as though it had instantly frozen solid.

Noah unconsciously pressed his hand over his shoulder from above the bandages.

“…Who told you that?” “No one. I saw it.”

Fiona undone the clasps of the small box. Inside lay a transparent crystal plate wrapped in fabric, accompanied by a small bundle of papers. The crystal plate was roughly the size of a palm, its surface etched with incredibly intricate holy seals.

“I used to work in the Temple’s Records and Therapy Division. As a Saint Candidate, I handled the assistance of purification and healing, as well as the recording of high-ranking incantations.”

She lifted the crystal plate. Catching the dim light of the candle, a faint luminescence could be seen trapped within its core.

“Every single time the Hero’s party returned from a major battle, the Temple was mandated to leave behind a ‘Record of Miracles.’ What kind of blessings Leon received, what kind of stigmata manifested, what sort of purification occurred… It was all recorded to give shape to the heroic epic.” “…And?” “No matter how many times I reviewed them, it was always bizarre.”

Fiona’s voice grew progressively colder.

“Leon would be entirely unscathed. His recovery speed was fundamentally impossible. Curses and corruptions that would normally leave scars for days on an ordinary person would vanish from him in a single night. Yet around the exact same time, another man would invariably be carried onto a separate treatment table.”

Noah said nothing.

Even without words, he knew exactly who that person was.

“It was you,” Fiona said, looking directly into his eyes. “The more spectacular the miracle Leon displayed on any given day, the more horrific the condition you were in when you were brought in. Furthermore, you bore wounds that you couldn’t have possibly received in battle.” “…” “At first, I thought it was mere coincidence. It’s not uncommon for rear-guard support to overexert themselves, and I assumed you were simply pushing past your limits in the Hero’s shadow. But after the battle against the Sacred Dragon, I gained absolute certainty.”

She pulled the crystal plate completely out of the fabric, resting it upon her palm.

“The recording crystal for the curse… it preserved the actual flow of the purification.”

The moment her fingertip brushed against the crystal plate, the faint light expanded outward. A translucent projection materialized into the damp air of the storage room.

Noah caught his breath.

It was the record of the battle against the Sacred Dragon. A desolate, ruined canyon. A colossal dragon exhaling a breath of pure, black malice. Leon stepping forward. And behind him, standing in the single most inconspicuous position, was himself.

The projection was grainy, the audio fragmented. Yet, there was one detail that remained unmistakably clear. The exact moment before the black curse exhaled by the Sacred Dragon could reach Leon, the streak of light abruptly bent, veering sharply into Noah in the rear. In the next instant, Leon’s body remained entirely unharmed, as if enveloped in a protective light, while Noah collapsed to the ground.

A low sound caught in Noah’s throat.

The very moment he had been unable to witness himself was preserved right there.

“The higher-ups of the Temple sealed this immediately,” Fiona stated. “They altered the records to state that ‘A divine protection blossomed upon the Hero,’ and the original copy was supposed to be destroyed. But I managed to take a duplicate before that could happen.” “Why?” “…Because I saw it.”

A shadow fell over Fiona’s eyes.

“When I cast the purification magic on you, there were countless layers of curses—curses that didn’t belong to you—settled deep within your body. An ordinary human would have died from that alone. Yet the very next day, you would stand there as if nothing had happened. No one praised you, no one even knew, you simply stood behind Leon.”

Noah averted his gaze.

Memories he had no desire to recall came rushing back all at once. The pristine white ceilings of the Temple. The freezing treatment tables. Even when told he needed to rest for at least a night, he would force himself up by the following morning. The mornings spent swallowing painkillers while silently preparing Leon’s equipment.

Fiona pulled out the bundle of papers next.

“These are copies of the treatment ledgers. A direct cross-reference between Leon’s post-battle logs and your own injury records.”

She held them out to Noah. The paper was worn, but the handwriting was meticulously detailed. Dates, battlefields, symptoms, purification reactions, remaining mana capacity. When laid out side-by-side, the truth was blindingly obvious. On the flip side of Leon’s documented “miraculous lack of injuries,” Noah was recorded at the exact same hour as suffering from “cursed heat of unknown origin,” “internal bone damage without external trauma,” and “holy attribute recoil.”

And it wasn’t a singular occurrence.

It had happened continuously.

From their very first expedition, all the way until recently.

“…Is this why you’re being hunted? Because you have this?” “Yes.” Fiona let out a hollow laugh. “To be entirely accurate, having this is the reason I was stripped of my status as a Saint Candidate. They labeled me an ‘impious traitor who harbored doubts regarding the Hero’s miracles.’ I was thrown out of the Records Division, forced to sign an oath of silence… and when I still refused to hand it over, they decided I was scheduled to die in an unfortunate accident.”

She pulled a final, small sealed letter from the very bottom of the box. The wax seal had already been broken.

“I received a summons to report to the Temple tonight. The official reason was a re-evaluation. But the designated location was the back gate, and the escort detail was accompanied by private militia from the Hero’s house. Even a fool could understand what that meant. So, I ran.”

I see, Noah thought.

With Leon’s engagement announcement and upcoming coronation on the horizon, they intended to completely incinerate any potential sparks. Exactly like how he had been cast down into the Abyss.

Noah gripped the bundle of papers tightly, his fingertips trembling. There was evidence. It wasn’t zero. The truth he had despaired of anyone ever believing possessed physical form right here.

Yet at the same time, a surge of burning anger welled up within him.

“Then why… why didn’t you do this sooner?!” “…I knew you would say that.”

Fiona closed her eyes.

“I could have moved sooner. When you were still a member of the party, I could have at least reached out to you. But I didn’t. I valued my position as a Saint Candidate too much. I was terrified that if I crossed the Temple, my life would be over.”

Her confession lacked the tone of someone listing excuses. Her voice carried the weight of someone laying bare their own ugliness exactly as it was.

“That is why I was an accomplice.”

Noah listened in absolute silence.

“Every single time you were carried in with those horrific wounds, I pretended not to notice. Every single time the voices rose to celebrate Leon’s miracles, I quietly closed the record books. I knew something was deeply wrong, yet I stayed silent. …And this is the result.”

Fiona smiled with deep self-deprecation.

“In the end, I was discarded all the same. Justice or malice didn’t matter. The moment I became inconvenient, I was simply moved to the side that needed to be liquidated.”

Noah exhaled a long, slow breath.

He had countless words of condemnation lined up in his mind. Too slow. It’s far too late now. You, who chose to look away, are no different from them.

Yet, he didn’t allow a single one of them to pass his lips. He, too, knew the weakness of human nature far too intimately. Lydie’s weakness had been an utterly irredeemable, ugly thing, but the tremor in the woman sitting before him felt entirely different. It was a tremor born from someone who recognized her own ugliness, yet had forced herself here regardless.

“…Do you intend to help me?” “I don’t have the right to use a grand word like ‘help,'” Fiona said, shaking her head. “But if you are truly alive, and you know exactly what Leon stole from you… then I refuse to stay silent any longer.”

Deep within the storage room, a small gust of wind rattled the wooden door.

Noah looked down at the papers and the crystal plate. This alone wouldn’t grant him victory. Leon was a Hero. The Temple, the Hero’s house, and the entire Royal Capital stood firmly at that man’s back. Even if he brought forth a single piece of evidence, it would likely be crushed and buried once more. However, it was infinitely different from having nothing at all.

“What do you want from me?”

When he asked, a flash of surprise crossed Fiona’s face.

“…I want you to live.” “Is that all?” “And…”

She pressed her lips together firmly before looking Noah straight in the eye.

“I want you to drag that man down into the dirt.”

A quiet, intense heat bloomed deep within Noah’s chest.

“I cannot do it alone. But if it’s you… you might actually reach him.”

For the very first time, Fiona’s voice trembled slightly with emotion.

“Now that I know the true nature of your pain, I can never go back to the side that offers him blessings. I can no longer pretend I didn’t see.”

Noah didn’t answer for a long time.

His father’s grave. His seized home. Lydie smiling up on that stage. The thick, black-crimson threads of causality stretching toward Leon. The countless records etched into his own being that he had faced at the bottom of the Abyss.

Every single path was aligning toward a single destination.

“What’s your name?” “Fiona. Fiona Lumiere.” “Fiona.”

Noah let the name roll over his tongue once.

“I am a man who is already dead. If I step out into the light, I will simply be hunted down again.” “I know.” “I came back for revenge.”

The candle flame flickered.

“It won’t be clean. I have no intention of crying out for help, nor do I have any intention of forgiving them. I am going to take back exactly what they stole from me—nothing less.”

As he spoke, he realized his own voice had grown far deeper and colder than it had ever been before. There was no shouting, no trembling. It was a voice akin to a frozen blade.

Fiona did not pull away.

“Yes.” “You’ll be dragged into this.” “I am already dragged into this.”

Her response was instantaneous.

With that, she gently pushed the small box closer to Noah.

“If that’s the case, I am throwing everything I have onto the table from the very beginning.”

Noah looked at her face. She wasn’t devoid of fear. Her hands were shaking slightly. Yet, her eyes refused to look away.

“This is my atonement as well,” Fiona said softly. “A far too belated compensation from someone who chose to look away. So, if you truly intend to shatter that man’s glory—“

The candlelight illuminated the profile of her face. Her expression was entirely detached from that of a gentle, holy saint. It was the face of a woman who had been discarded, trampled upon, yet firmly refused to fall.

“I will be your first accomplice.”

The air inside the storage room felt as though it had quietly locked into place.

Noah slowly reached his hand out toward the small box, taking the crystal plate and the bundle of papers into his grasp, feeling their weight. They were light. Yet, they felt heavier than the entirety of his life up until this point.

Finally, Fiona spoke in a tone that was practically a whisper.

“I cannot forgive that man either.”