The city of Lys Royeaux hummed with the chatter of its citizens, unified in a single breath. From southern laborers to inner-city merchants, a million Suledins knelt in the streets, their heads bowed in prayer. The air grew heavy, tasting of salt and the iron-scent of a million exhaled breaths. Wishes materialized into streams of different colors, rising into the dark sky. Noises disappeared then, only a deep silence resided. Beneath it all, the air smelt of scorched sugar as the warmth light embraced all desire. Even rhys and templars started to kneel. Their hands touched their heads then stretched out, praising the spectacle dusk of the Second Sun.

Above them all, atop the stepped Pyramid of the High Father, the Hierophant, Tietra Saintinas, stood in a halo of light. With an outstretched hand, he performed a grand ritual, a terrifying show of power. His figure shimmered, and from his hands, a golden stream of energy poured into the air. It guided the collective prayers of the faithful, aiding them upward into the heart of the Second Sun. Even unwillingly, Ianc’s thread of desire flew up. Its color was like oil on water, with dust motes danced around it as he reached out to grab it back in vain.

The great orb pulsed, absorbing the energy, then bled its light back down. It was not the cold, sterile glow of a sun, but a warm, living benediction that spread across the southern lands, a blessing on the soil that nurtured the Suledins’ crops. This was a political spectacle. It reaffirmed the Hallow Church’s grasp on the populace, contrasting with the remote and oppressive image of the Magisters. With the Second Sun, true night never came to Lys Royeaux. The Church made its own.

Ianc watched a thousand rhys weave magic to alter the sky itself, shrouding the entire city with an artificial night sky with muted blue and sparkling teal. They mimicked starlight by letting the Second Sun bleed through their magical veil. Each touch brought a warm sensation against the sudden coldness that enshrouded the entire city. He doubted that if the Hierophant wanted snow, there would be snow.

The silence of a million praying Suledins fading into the rhythmic clack-clack of boots on the polished marble of the Magisterium Palace. The poor exploded to their parties below, observed by the templars; the rich began their own dance above, probing each other’s true motive.

Ianc wore the formal attire he’d been provided, but without any house insignia yet. Only the symbol of Sol was threaded in gold above his mark; its lace was rougher, itchy and constantly reminded him of his worry. The velvet was thick and heavy, and the boots were too tight for a comfortable walk. Above all, the tight collar reminded him of how choked up he was when he swallowed at the sight of Abby.

She wore a dress, and he couldn’t describe it properly. It was just simply gorgeous in light pink and white. With red lipstick and black eye liners, she appeared a confused contradiction that he felt so familiar with his life recently. “Lady Abelle.” He offered a hand to her.

“We’re just in costume here, woodman,” she said, half giggled.

He glanced at the Magisters dressed in finery passed by them. Their heads held high, their house insignias were in polished gold, their gesture showed arrogance towards the serfs. “Are these bureaucrats even left the city?” He whispered as they walked.

Rahorh appeared on the side in his usual robe. “Only in the old days. Frontier service was mandatory before you could claim the political ladder.”

“Where’s Cley?” Ianc asked.

“She doesn’t like… lavish expenditure,” Abby said.

Ianc frowned. He had learnt to read between the lines lately and concluded that this event was to pull him into a line. Clementine had to be absent. “I feel like a rare breed. Everybody is eyeing me like I’m up for an auction.”

Rahorh coughed. Abby just shook her head with a smile. With them flanking him, he didn’t feel entirely out of this wasteful elegance place.

Hidden beneath the polite chatter, the great hall was steamed with a cocktail of expensive perfumes, stale wine, sweat suppressed by powders, and the smell of melting candle wax. At the far end an Adrhys was hosting the prom. His constant references to spiritual rituals were met with thinly veiled disdain from the Magisters. “Where do we go? What do I do here?” he asked.

“Nothing, just hang around,” Rahorh said. “People will propose their interest to the Herald.”

“A tool to control, a necessary nuisance to draw attention,” Ianc said. “I wonder what the true power in Lys Royeaux is scheming.”

Abby nudged his arm. “Let’s go to the balcony. Private space invites private talks.”

As they lingered near a gilded archway, he overheard a conversation between a Revered Mother in her flowing white robes and a stern-faced Magister. “One batch, five Ishchoirs, plus delivery.” Her voice was a silky whisper.

The Magister’s face soured. “That’s a vile trade. The deal is cutting three above my margin.” He carried a crossed sword insignia on his robe, which Ianc couldn’t recall the exact name.

“My business is in the South,” the Revered Mother replied with a cool smile. “The vendor will charge you extra.”

The Magister shook his head. “I only represent my house interests, not loss. Please, excuse me.” He turned and walked away; his hands were trembling.

Ianc was confused and looked at Abby. “What was that about?”

Abby leaned in, her voice low. “It’s a Southern trade-tongue.” She glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “A secret meeting for a secret deal camouflages as an unpleasant encounter.”

Ianc looked back at the Magister, now surrounded by a new group of people. The man’s face was a mask, but Ianc saw the tension in his jaw. The city was a web of deceit, and he was only just beginning to see the threads.

Lost in thought, he felt a bump. A nervous-looking Magister with a tight smile had stumbled into him, yet hadn’t spilled his wine. He grabbed Ianc’s hand tightly, his eyes suddenly became clear and intense even when he’s lurching. The man spilled in a hurried whisper. “The bear sleeps in his lair. Behind me. Left, right, left.” With that, he melted back into the crowd.

His silk sleeve brushing Ianc’s hand like a cold wing, leaving behind only the scent of stale wine and terror. If he’d meant ill, Ianc would have been dead. The dread drove his eye toward where the man had disappeared, only to find a void. “Is there a secret assassination clan in this city?” he asked.

Abby shrugged. “That’s an invitation. The bear is Aleksander deMolay.” She pointed the way with her chin. “That’s why you need a wolf pack to survive here.”

He followed Abby’s directions and found the drunk Magister again. He nodded and smiled at Ianc, then he tilted his head to the left. Having no choice, Ianc followed instructions. He pushed through the crowd, the silk of passing gowns whispering against his trousers like dry leaves; some Magisters spent a single glance at him before returning to their conversation.

Aleksander deMolay stood alone in a quiet alcove near a window, a glass of dark liquid in his hand. “Don’t mind the secrecy. Church spies are everywhere.” He gestured for Ianc to stand beside him; his voice was a low rumble. “You’ve made quite an impression. Not just on the Magisters. On me. You have a fire not of this world. Not of the Church.”

How similar his speech pattern was to Clementine. “I’m a Myr. I’ll not pledge for any house.”

Aleksander smiled, revealing his perfect white teeth beneath the braided bread. He sipped his drink, but his eyes never left Ianc’s face.

“What’s in it for me?” Ianc continued.

“You saved my daughter.” Aleksander adjusted his white bear cloak. “And you survived her temper.”

“Clementine doesn’t like me,” Ianc countered. He knew he should keep his distance from those he cared for here.

Aleksander laughed, a deep boom that turned heads. “Her opinions are irrelevant. But her loyalty is absolute. Gerald, however…” He lowered his voice to a predatory rasp. “Has turned to Tietra in my absence. He’s the Church’s hound now. If Tietra has his way, you’ll be another one to perfect his three headed beast.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Ianc insisted. “What’s in it for me?”

Aleksander’s gaze hardened. “Protection from Gerald. Protection from the Church. Protection until you’re strong enough to challenge Gerald yourself.” He took a long, slow sip of his drink. “You’re a convenient herald of a new age. But without allies, you’re just lamb to the slaughter.”

Ianc looked out over the crowded hall, the laughter and music a distant, alien sound. He thought of Gerald Duranthier, about the cold glint in his eye, and about the Confiteor Sword. “I will consider your offer, Magus Aleksander.” The words were a quiet promise. “But I will be no one’s puppet.”

A hint of genuine approval touched Aleksander’s eyes. “A wolf-boy and an old lion. The alliance has a good ring, don’t you think?”

Ianc didn’t answer. He bowed slightly and retreated into the light. The Magus of house deMolay turned his head towards the window. His gaze seemed aimless, but Ianc knew visions of schemes were forming behind those starlit eyes.

Lost in thought yet again, Ianc wandered to the balcony. He leaned against the stone railing, the artificial night air smelling of damp stone and the faint, ozone-crackle of the rhys’s veil. His mind drifted to the Silent Dirge. He wished he knew the way, just a narrow path like the hunter’s aim instead of a million crossroads. In this room of silk and gold, he was the only one who knew what downtrodden actually smelt like. Don’t play their games, Mirari had warned him. But she wasn’t Mirari, she was… he couldn’t even think of the word ‘puppet’. A narrow path. His gaze drifted to the hidden Second Sun. My aim.

A woman approached him from behind. She moved as if gliding—graceful, practiced, deliberate. She was a vision of refined elegance, wearing a gown of woven moonlight and sparkling jewelries. “Lady Trinkets,” she introduced herself with a bright, disarming smile. “Would you grant me a dance, my Herald?”

Ianc awkwardly nodded. He moved stiffly, his mind still replaying Aleksander’s words. As he danced, he heard the clink of the metal against his shins beneath her flowing dress— a solid, rigid feel of supportive devices like the Ironshod brothers. It wasn’t the natural grace he was seeing, it was a false peace dressed in a fancy gallery. Lady Trinkets didn’t seem to be bothered by his disdain. She kept that polite smile and with an expert subtlety, she danced him away from the main hall and into a secluded, private room.

It was a world away from the bustling gallery. Dark, richly stained oak panelled the walls, reaching up to a ceiling lost in shadow. The only light came from a great marble fireplace, where logs crackled in a subdued, steady burn; and from a single, heavy bronze lamp on a vast desk.

The air held the dense, comforting scent of beeswax, ageing paper, and a faint, earthy note of peat from the fire. A single, sombre portrait of a severe-looking man in priesthood robes gazed down, his eyes seeming to follow Ianc’s stiff, reluctant entrance.

It wasn’t just a painting. The Hierophant, Tietra Saintinas, emerged from the canvas. He sat on the high-backed leather armchairs next to the mahogany table and beckoned Ianc to come closer.

He offered no preamble, only a small, knowing smile. “Do you know why the palm is whiter than the back of the hand?” The air around him felt too clean, like the smell of a forest after a rain. It was as if the Hierophant’s halo had purified the air itself.

Ianc’s mind raced. “Please excuse my… lack of refinement. I don’t understand.” The loss of four Aegions just by resisting this man still haunted his mind. It took every control he had to command his shaking legs not to run away.

Tietra’s smile held. “Because it is hidden from the sun.” The words hung in the air, an ominous riddle. “The Magisterium had fooled me with the Umbrite Inquisition,” he continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone. “They wanted to cover up their rebellious device. A spell that challenged the Church’s regime over the Second Sun and the distribution of the divine Spark.”

Ianc remained silent, his gut churning with a terrible realization. He had been a pawn in a game he didn’t even know he was playing. The Hierophant knew everything.

“I know about Rahorh’s Sanguine Libertas,” Tietra said, his gaze fixed on Ianc. “A fascinating piece of forbidden spellwork. Even the Worldly Sphere couldn’t track the shadow who stole it.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “But you, Herald, you are a different matter. A catalyst that completed the magic.”

Ianc’s heart pounded against his ribs. He realized what Tietra was doing. He was baiting the archlich, using Ianc as the bait.

“Join the Inquisitor rank,” Tietra offered, the words a chilling proposition. “And I will offer you my protection. I will spare your sister. I will even rebuild the Myr house.”

Ianc’s voice was a low growl. “What about the Inquisition against Myrathus? I want my revenge.”

“The Reverend Mother proved the Myr were building a similar spell long before Rahorh. Their ambition dated back to the First Crusade when Lyra gave everything for a shadow on my eyes,” Tietra calmly explained. “Having seen what lies beyond the Sear, they believed arming everyone with Solfire would change things. It would not. The Hallow Church cannot be challenged.”

“But what if they were right?” Ianc asked defiantly.

“And who would forge the Ishchoir?” Tietra waved a dismissive hand. “I alone can erase towns in seconds. What would a million new recruits do against a lich but swell its horde? We must protect them from themselves.”

“You deny people the right to choose,” Ianc accused stubbornly, but deep down his belief started to falter. Tietra was right.

“It is the burden of steering a race’s future for five hundred years,” Tietra replied with quiet intensity. “Progression disarms caution. Look at that sun, Ianc. It is a miracle held together by a thousand leashes. But one wrong pull on a thread, the Sear will vanish. We cannot afford to draw Makaiel’s attention again. We are ants, my child. If we breed wings and fly, the gods will notice.” He inhaled deeply as if considering his next word. “They will eat us.”

“But the shadow of Aeithora is already crawling at us,” Ianc sighed. His body softened in defeat. The Hierophant’s logic was tight.

Tietra’s smile returned, cold and confident. “As long as I reside here, the archlich couldn’t challenge my light.” His gaze lingered. “You are more of a Myr than your sister.”

Confusion and anger whirled in Ianc’s mind. He asked the burning question. “Why tell me this?”

Tietra’s eyes, old and wise, held true to Ianc’s fear. “Your Spark is too bright to be contained. I desire that power. Your mark.” He tapped Ianc’s chest. “Is neither a gift nor curse. It is the key to the Sanguine Libertas. I wonder why the Archlich let you have it.”

Stunned by Tietra’s perception, Ianc crouched low ready to fight despite knowing it would be of little resistance. The world spun and he was on his butts. His left face was sizzling with an intense heat. Black tendrils of smoke raised as his skin burned.

“If I wanted to kill you, you can’t even blink,” Tietra said. “Think it through.” His command was final, weary yet authoritative. He snapped his finger and the flame on Ianc’s face retreated inside his sleeve.

Ianc touched his face, but instead of a burnt mark, he only found wet. The pain was real but the wound was healed instantly. He swallowed hard at another terrifying display of the Hierophant’s power. Then Ianc saw blood on his fingers; his blind eye was bleeding. He wiped it off and bowed. “Thank you for your mercy, Your Holiness.”

Tietra said nothing, but the lamp light dimmed out. Ianc only caught one flash of sparkle in the Hierophant’s deep black eyes before he disappeared. He knew that sparkle, he had lived with it all his life. It was when a desire met an object.

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Mirari’s reason for following the lich was clear that she wanted Ianc to have power. She wanted to atone for killing Oscar, for condemning them both to the pyre. He felt a pull, a silent hum in his bones that said she grew closer. Yet with every step toward the city, she felt further away, as if a terrible chasm opened between them. How could an undead create such a shadow even in the brightest city?

He didn’t know how much of her mind she had reclaimed, or how much the lich had warped it. All he knew, all he desperately hoped, was that he could still reach her. His vow to the Aeimortis had been a whisper in the dark, a promise to save the lost. He had to believe it for her sake, for his sake. He glanced at the party members, each and everyone of them, wondering what kept them going. They held on to each their own, much like him, and that’s beautiful.

The final leg of the Disciple Road lay before him with a much slower transition. Solid earth of the plains dissolved into a black yielding muck that swallowed the sound of hoofbeats. The air didn’t just smell of decay; it felt heavy, a humid shroud that clung to Ianc’s lungs. With every breath, the scent of stagnant water coated his tongue. As Chad stepped onto the swampy fringe, a sudden, sharp scent of petrichor brought the unusual promise of death. Turbulent winds whipped distant tornadoes into being. Silent, malevolent lightning flashed endlessly, illuminating the bleak cobbled path. The earth didn’t hum with thunder, but with a wrong silence that prickled the hair on his arms.

He wiped the condensation off his brow, only to find his eyepatch was soaked. His infravision peeked at the twilight sky, merging with his normal sight. Half of these lightning strikes were magic judging by the bruised color of the flashes. Beyond the horizon, something stopped the air, rolling them up in dunes that reached above eyesight. When a rare few of those fell back to earth, they became lightning balls, temporarily lit up the path of the Disciple Road. “This is no place for a Suledin to pass,” Ianc said. “No wonder only a tenth survive.”

“You might,” Rahorh said. “You are resourceful.”

The compliment turned sour beneath the metallic taste of the rain. Resourceful, he sold Mirari for a mere chance of buttslicking a lord. The thought returned with a twist in his stomach, always, and every time. He read Rahorh’s face again and knew he didn’t mean it. He had become unnecessarily sensitive under the influence of this cursed land. Turning his attention back to the stormland ahead, he shook his head. “This cannot be natural weather,” he commented.

“No it’s not,” Rahorh confirmed. “Sixteen Ardrhys and hundreds of rhys control it. Imagine the heat of a sun just miles above your head. We shape the weather to build Lys Royeaux right beneath it. The land around pays the price.”

Classic Sacrosanct, he thought. As they waded in deeper, the sting in the rain became noticeable. The magic in the rain, he realized. It tickled first, then started to puncture in his skin like needles. He called a spell he recently learnt from Abby, a halo of golden shroud materialized around his body. Then came the buzzes, like the air had been condensed around him. This proved why Suledin disciples never came back. Only when sworn loyalty to a Magister house, you could come back as a Sacrosanct. “So this is where the Queen of Thorns died?”

Rahorh nodded. “She died at the cost of Aeigiva. Lys Royeaux was built on the ruins of our cousin.”

“So it was just by luck that she invaded Aeithora first,” Ianc said, “Else we don’t exist but a version of us on the other side of the land.” A heavy silence fell. “And we just destroyed the Aeimortis,” Ianc breathed out, “The last remnant of the old world.”

“What’s done is done,” Cley cut in. “We need to reach the city.”

They continued along the worn, cobbled path. The air went cold, and rain began to fall in hard, heavy drops that punched through Ianc’s halo. He steered Chad closer to Abby, putting himself between her and nature’s onslaught. When the hailstorm finally subsided, he gathered his courage to ask the question that had been on his mind. “Abelle and deMolay. You are not Cley’s blood sister, are you?”

“No,” she answered plainly, not even looking at him.

Ianc knew he was treading on a sensitive subject, but he pushed on. “Tell me more about your family.”

“The deMolays are my family.” She kept looking at the distant lighting balls but he saw her grip tightened.

“Abelle is a major Magister house. Even a woodman has heard about them.” Ianc pushed forward.

Abby fell silent again, her face expressionless, her eyes fixed on the path ahead. “I was sent to damage House deMolay,” she said, the words a sudden whisper. “Her father knew. He spared me. Cley forgave me.”

The weight of her confession settled between them, a silence heavier than the storm. He wanted to pry, to understand the full sacrifice, but held back. The shadow wars between Magister houses were fiercer and dirtier than any battlefield. She had her secrets; he had his. “Seems nothing rains here without the Hierophant’s knowledge,” he said, eyeing the sky.

“Nothing breathes unless he wills it,” Abby whispered back.

The lightning balls flared bright then disappeared as if proving her words.

“Quickly. The passages only open now.” Cley urged her horse into a sprint. The rest followed, Solfire blazed on their hand.

Ianc couldn’t see anything but following the dim shadow in front of him. He only caught sight of black caves, opening up at the feet of the mountain range. The tunnel widened up, enough for two riders to ride side by side.

“Stay in one line.” Cley’s voice echoed in the narrow space.

After a short moment, they entered Lys Royeaux. The bleak sky was replaced by overwhelming light, warm and welcoming like it was waiting to bask him in its embrace. He allowed himself a brief relaxing breath, enjoying the fabrication designed to make every disciple feel special. Endless pastoral life spread before him with rolling hills and squared fields. The scent of grass and wildflowers filled the air with birds chirping above the blue sky.

Things were chopped into portions appropriately. Houses were built in blocks—rows and columns of identical rooms with laundry hung from every window. The dirt roads were deceptively clean, with ditches and drains feeding the fields. On the stepped hills, where vines fruits climbed eagerly on each other for sunlight, huge watermills rolled their gears, allowing cultivation to thrive even in non-ideal conditions.

The Suledin dwellers worked, just worked. Their faces were sun-kissed, their hands were stained with soil. Though weary, they held a quiet contentment, a pride in living close to the Second Sun. Its radiance halo shrouded the tall walls and watch towers that glowed with divine fire. Those stone structures resided far in the mountain, and he counted sixteen towers so tall that they seemed to reach the dangling sun. Each tower was wrapped with a searching chain, unsure if those feed the Second Sun or vice versa.

“Come,” Cley said. “They only get more grandeur when you near them.”

They crossed a chapel, an abby, and a church every once in a while when they crossed the endless fields. No templars nor rhys to be seen, yet everyone tended to their task automatically, monotonously. He wondered if given a chance at Solfire, how many of them would take it like him? For the first time in his life, he felt a deep conflict he couldn’t name. He glanced at Rahorh. The rhys wanted Solfire for everyone and Ianc had become the embodiment, the living proof that the idea worked. With careless handling, he could become a spark of revolt that burned everything built in centuries.

After two hours of trotting, they reached the outer wall. A statue stood at each defensive crest, monstrous in shape, and wasn’t just meant for decoration. They passed the bastion gate without any problem as if the guards had been informed of their arrival. Dirt roads turned into cobbled streets; open spaces replaced by alleys and communal houses; rags morphed into robes; but most of all, the atmosphere. It became noisy, not just with sound, but with desire. Dangled on a mumbling mouth was a wish, and the Second Sun seemed to absorb them all.

Another hour passed with Cley still in the lead, they arrived at the inner wall. It was even taller, and watch towers appeared more often. Each had different banners now, showing which part of the wall was defended by which Magister Houses. Inside, the bailey was as large as the size of Camelford with various mansions and estates. Here, style changed, rough rock became a luministic chiaroscuro of colorful stones. Fresco, monumentals, flags and statues, all were displayed at face value to show the ostentatious lifestyle of the high Sacrosanct.

“What’s this part called?” Ianc asked as they passed a palace without banners.

“The plunder of Lyra Myr. She contributed all of her looting on the Blackened Land after the First Crusade to the Suledins,” Rahorh said. He pointed to the spires barely showing beyond those high walls. “Beyond it lies Desmund Palace, headquarters of the seneschals, where they hold council and receive orders from the Magisterium.”

Ianc nodded, committing it to memory. He wondered if Lyra actually gave her wealth willingly or traded it for a land far from the Church’s grab. Since he stepped foot in this city, the only thing he wanted was to leave. It teemed with templars and rhys patrolling the streets and hosting sermons at every crowded corner. They briefly noticed Ianc’s convoy, yet none stopped them as if their arrival had been expected.

They reached the inner wall at nightfall. It surprised him that the Second Sun dimmed, fabricating day and night cycles. Thousands of sunbeacons flared on every tower. The streets were overwhelming, bursting with people. They prayed and danced in groups, music was played, choirs were sung.

There were a couple of rhys in each group of people; one was harvesting the praying energy, and one was leading the fun. The spectacle nearly brought Ianc to his knees to join them. The sheer force of the prayers urged his own lips to move. Belief was displayed on a scale so vast the eye couldn’t take it in.

Beneath the prayers, he sensed the steam of desire—the Suledins’ most primal reflection. Ianc had to admit, the Church had a perfect system to control it. The pilgrimage was the perfect hope for the Suledins to be content with their long service for the Sacrosanct, the perfect answer to keep their hope from faltering, the perfect goal to steer their ambition to.

He understood now why the Magister Houses despised the Church, and why the Church purged those shone too bright. It was all about resources, and the most precious of them all was the Suledins. Here, they were herded, milked even in their happy time. Out there, Ishchoir flew into the Magister’s purse. Here, the Church controlled even the night. They needed a spark of revolt and none was more direct than Rahorh’s Sanguine Libertas spell.

Ianc carried the key to challenge the Church’s authority. In a split moment, the summoning held a very different meaning to him. It wasn’t about finding the truth and such, it was about pulling him under Church’s influence. It was about controlling him so the Hierophant could remain in the utmost power position forever.

At the city’s heart, the stepped Pyramid of the High Father dominated the skyline. It was not just a building, but the city’s nexus—where the Hierophant spoke and performed the miracles that reaffirmed a million faiths. Ianc could feel the weight of belief thrumming from it, a silent and powerful song. Encircling the structure were skyscraping towers, sixteen of them, each was wrapped in chains that could only be pulled by ship, or hundreds of people. These towers and the pyramid created a dais to support the Second Sun.

As they walked, Clementine and Rahorh flanked Ianc, briefing him in low, urgent tones that blended with the city’s hum.

“The Reverend Mother wears white and gold robes embroidered with our divine past,” Abby whispered sharply. “She controls the flow of Ishchoir, and keeps the population records—the hand holding all threads. She’s a leviathan.”

“The Prune Pontiff, Soren Zuthath, wears a high conical headdress wired to a mask that looks like a weeping face,” Rahorh rasped. “He atones for the zealot’s sins and purges the Church’s sidethorn.”

“Then there’s my father, Aleksander,” Clementine said. “He’s been building an empire in the cold south for years. The winter bear they called him. But even in his slumber, his claws had reached the city’s gate.”

Ianc nodded. “Shadows lurked beneath the great blaze.”

As they neared the Pyramid, a small group of robed figures emerged from a side entrance. The crowd hushed, parting to make way for them. At the center stood the Hierophant himself, Tietra Saintinas. His demeanor was mild, almost fatherly with warm eyes and faint smile. Such strange contrast to the absolution he wielded. His gaze settled on Ianc, curious yet given nothing back behind those sparks. His gaze settled on Ianc, curious yet giving nothing back. “The Herald has arrived,” he said, his voice soft, yet carrying across the square.

Guards took Ianc by the arms, guiding him away from his team. He looked over his shoulder one last time. Abby and Clementine nodded in encouragement, while Rahorh just retreated to the lines of templars. The weight started to settle on Ianc’s shoulders. His fate would be decided amidst a crowd he didn’t know. His feet suddenly became water.

“Keep up, Herald.” The guard on his left pulled him back to pace. “The Mantle judges cowardice harshly.”

The grand hall stood a testament to the Church’s power with a long, sweeping expanse that culminated in a red dais. Above, the magnificent dome focused and filtered the Second Sun’s light, casting a holy glow directly onto the Hierophant’s throne. Flanked by guards, he was led down the aisle. His eyes took in the assembly.

The Reverend Mother, old and bent, stood at the head of the Quaeso Chapel. Behind her lined the mothers and sisters, wearing colors fading from pure white to dirty brown. The Prune Pontiff wasn’t even in the room, but his Inquisitors were. They stood behind the pillars, even behind the guards. They all wore masks, and the vines circles around their headdress tell how high they sat in the rank.

Aleksander deMolay stood on the right lane in his white bear cloak. His great grey beard concealed whatever he was expressing on his face. Ike leGuay stood behind the bear-man, a familiar face in a sea of strangers.

Then Ianc caught sight of a figure in exquisite, gleaming armor. Templar Marshall Gerald Duranthier, there was no mistaking those merciless cheekbones. Then, his gaze fell upon the legendary Confiteor Swordi, its hilt resting on a velvet cushion. He remembered the tales, the wails it made when it wounded people. It cried for their sin, then repent it by burning the sinner to ashes.

Ianc heartbeat calmed down. He wasn’t getting another cold feet moment, he was detaching himself from the pressure by simply stopping thinking about them. His vision narrowed down to the red dais, to the ancient man weathered by centuries of power.

The Hierophant was surprisingly middle-age. His face was pale and crinkled, yet his skin held bastion pink. His eyes, though, gleamed golden with wisdom as if he had seen too much. He raised his hand. The guards stopped, and a hush fell over the hall. “The Mantle reveals your true hearts.”

Invisible forces gripped Ianc’s arms, pulling him to a pedestal. He had to kneel. He must. On both knees. He did so absentmindedly. When his mind registered the invasive force controlling his body, he resisted. But it was too late.

As he raised his head, light leaking from the dome materialized into a shimmering veil. It floated like silk, rippling perfectly. Even from a far, Ianc felt its warmth draping over him while in its ethereal glow. The outside world faded, replaced by the divine thrum emerging under his chest.

He fell into the lightless depth of his inner sanctum. His eight Aegions swirled around the divine Spark in welcoming his avatar’s presence. He sensed it now, an alien yet familiar presence. The gigantic statue of Sol that once dominated the void had vanished when he formed his first Aegion. Now it had returned, twin stars shining brightest above. Your Holiness? he thought, probing while keeping his head down.

The twin stars didn’t answer. They descended like grasping hands toward his avatar. Ianc resisted instinctively, flying backward. His Aegions flared in defiance, forming a wheel of fire before him. The twin stars kept coming, transforming into two firefists. They knocked Ianc’s spell away with a flick of their finger. The force sent a torrent that blew his avatar like a leaf in the wind. His resistance crumbled before absolute power.

Fool, but brave. The Hierophant voice echoed in the void. Will you standstill?

Rage built inside Ianc, but he had no choice but to suppress it. Four Aegions were turned to dust in a flicker of the Hierophant’s will. He had never felt this deep helplessness, not even from the archlich’s tendrils. As he finally got a hold of himself, figuratively, he pleaded, A Sage shall save dignity for its object, your Holiness.

Tietra’s hands reached out and grabbed Ianc’s avatar. How could he compete against this power? Gerald might not be as powerful, but close, for he stood only one step below the Hierophant. He realized how naive he was thinking he could take revenge. He was just a child, a toy in the hands of a god-like being like the Hierophant.

The mantle seeped through him, its magic woven into his very muscle. Finally, it ensnared his chest, where the mark granted him Solfire. He watched his heart being read, his memories, his wants, his needs, his secrets, his guilts, his ambitions—his whole self.

A line of tears streamed down his face. This had to be how Mirari felt when Oscar forced himself on her.

Interesting. Your spark is pure. The Hierophant said in Ianc’s inner sanctum. Yet a memory is missing, like an eclipse.

The probing ceased, retreating fast as if it wasn’t there at all. Outside, the itch on his skin turned to needle pain when the Sage Mantle was lifted. The world rushed back in a dizzying cacophony. He fell to kneeling, shaken and drained. But his self-esteem was hurt way more deeply.

The Hierophant sat back. His mild demeanor turned radiant with solemn authority. “The boy’s heart is pure. His Solfire is divine.” He paused, letting Ianc catch his breath, then looked down with a faint smile. “You are indeed a Herald, my child.” He raised his voice, letting the declaration fill the hall.

The assembly erupted in thunderous applause. The Hierophant gestured for Ianc to stand and be recognized. He lurched up, limping. Hands on knees, he forced a final push. He stood straight defiantly, definitely not letting them see his vulnerability.

“We will celebrate the Herald of the Sacred Light first Labour in Desmund Palace on the morrow night.” The Hierophant raised his scepter, and the Second Sun shone brighter.

Most knelt and prostrated to the sight, except the Aleksander who only bowed.

Ianc also knelt. He had passed the Sage Mantle’s test and was closer to the fire as Clementine said. He shouldn’t let his emotions stand in the way. He had much to earn before he could challenge Gerald.

Writer note: I think I stuff many things in this chapter. Wonder how you feel about it.

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Ianc rolled the parchment flat on his desk. Its meticulous, childish scribbles clashed with the solemnity of the moment. Ianc traced a line with a calloused thumb, a line Aaron had sketched to show how the string would be woven, or how the handle would be shaped to fit the archer’s hand. He remembered Aaron’s voice, soft and earnest, chattering beside a campfire.

It’s your dream bow, woodman. Herald, I mean. I know you liked Blake’s giant bow. This one won’t impale a plagueborn, but it’ll crack a kite shield. Ianc remembered Aaron’s quiet presence, how it had become a steadfast guard during the battle. He had fought with a ferocity born of despair and loyalty. He had chosen to stand, to fight, to protect Ianc. He had not been forced into this war, not by a family name or a divine Spark he did not ask for. He had made a choice, a final, lethal choice.

He picked up a gnarled length of wood, an ancient piece of the Aeimortis, the god tree itself. Rahorh had given it to him before disappearing, a silent token of shared loss. The wood felt heavy, not with its own weight, but with the memories it held. It was like holding the core of the sacred tree, the essence of a land that had fought and died.

He began the final shaping after the heat treatment. The rasp of the file against the grain was rhythmic, meditative. Each shaving that fell was a memory—a moment of laughter, a shared meal, a quiet vigil in the dark. He worked with a forgotten skill, a woodman’s muscle memory. This was not a weapon, but a eulogy carved from the heart of a fallen god and the dream of a dead boy.

The bow slowly took form under his hands. Slender and elegant, it was not a weapon of war but a work of art. Forged from two worlds, born of the Aeimortis and hardened by Solfire. This bow was a fusion of the old gods and the new, a testament to what could have been. He strung the bow with a single, thick leather strand, an exact replica of Aaron’s design.

He held the bow aloft, its polished surface catching the faint light filtering through the tent flap. He drew the string back to feel the wood’s resistance, not to test its strength. The bow hummed a low and resonant note, like a song of sorrow and remembrance.

His gaze drifted to his own hands, calloused and scarred, the hands of a man forced to serve. He thought of the words Rahorh had said to him in the dungeon, I want freedom for everyone. Empower every single person with Solfire.

He looked at the bow again. It was a bridge between the living and the dead, a memory carved in wood. He raised the bow, his eyes, usually so guarded, now filled with an unspilled grief, a raw and agonizing emptiness. His mind was a still pond, reflecting his dead friend’s face and his own complicity. He touched the smooth, elegant curve of the bow, and a quiet, solemn promise left his lips, a whisper carried on the wind. “May it never be used in vengeance.” The pain of loss had passed. Not gone, but shaped into something useful.

The tent flap rustled. A soft, rhythmic patter on the canvas announced the rain. Abby slipped inside, a clay bowl steaming in her hands. The air was thick with the scent of sawdust and fresh-cut wood shifted to hold the warm aroma of stew. She didn’t speak, didn’t comment on the bow in Ianc’s hands, or the grim set of his jaw. She simply sat, setting the bowl between them, the metal spoon clinking softly against the rim.

“I thought you might be hungry.” Her voice felt like a balm against the raw edges of his grief. She took out a jerky and started shredding it into smaller pieces.

Ianc grunted, setting the bow aside, his hands falling to his knees. He hadn’t realized how cold they were. He picked up the spoon, the heat of the metal offered a small comfort. “Share some meat?” He took a slice for himself. They ate in a companionable silence, the only sounds the scrape of the spoons and the gentle drumming of the rain. The stew was a simple affair, with root vegetables and some kind of foraged meat, but it was rich and warm, a small anchor in the storm of their lives.

When the bowls were scraped clean, Abby finally spoke. “They’ve reached the Verhaltens Inn.” Her voice was quiet, but held a new thread of steel. “Campa’s getting them set up. ‘Good for business,’ he says.”

“Camelford, Havenstead, Caladryn Dea.” Ianc’s voice was a rasp in his throat. “Good.”

Abby stared into his eye. “Indeed. You’ve acquired quite a following. Almost enough for a Magister house.”

“Without pure commitment to the Church’s doctrine? I think not,” Ianc chuckled. “The moment I even have that idea spoken, they will be massacred.”

“Good, you have thought it through,” Abby said. “Kieran and Blake will stay with them. They are teaching the children now. How to make fires, how to find food in the woods. He said they need things they can hold onto. Not just Solfire. Blake’s teaching them too. Not books, but songs. He says it’s the best way to get them to remember. Campa is brewing beer. It’s terrible. But they smile more there.” The quiet hope in her voice was a fragile thing, a single flame in a vast darkness.

“Sounds too good to be true.” Ianc smiled with the familiar ache in his chest. He had been a storm that had swept through their lives, bringing chaos and destruction. Abby had been a quiet rock, a steady point of calm in his tempest. “I need them with me when I face the Sage’s Mantle.”

Abby’s hands, which had been resting on her knees, tensed. Her eyes, usually so steady, flickered with a raw fear he hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t a fear of him. It was something else. A deeper, more personal dread. “It shines in your Inner Sanctum and no secret could escape.”

“I’ve no secret left. Rahorh has sewn it together and probably has reported to Cle,” Ianc said. He reached out and rested his hands atop hers.

“You don’t understand. They’ll put you in another cage.” Her voice was low and fierce. “They don’t judge what’s in you, Ianc. They see a weapon. A tool. Something expendable.” Her eyes, so full of warmth a moment ago, were now haunted.

He looked at her, truly looked, and saw the shadow of an unknown past. A history of fear, flight, and hiding. “Abby, what are you talking about?”

“Whatever you are will not matter. You are a pawn in their games,” Abby said. She raised her eyes to meet him again. “Don’t trust anyone when you walk into the City of Light.”

He nodded at her words. “I could trust you and the people of the Iron Maiden.”

“Then you’ve already lost.” She sighed, falling into his arms. Her touch was warm and reassuring. The rain continued to fall, a steady drum against the canvas. But inside the tent, a fragile sense of hope had taken root.

He looked at the bow, at his careful work. It was a bridge. A testament to a lost life and a vital friendship. He looked at Abby, her face a mask of worry, and he felt a cold dread in his stomach. What if she was right? What if he was truly helpless in the game unknown? He didn’t want to think about it anymore and landed his lips on Abby.

The air in the tent, still heavy with the scent of rain and wood, grew thick with tension as his hands moved with raw instinct. They were curious and invasive and hungry. Her breath quickened. The sound that escaped was irresistibly inviting. His heart pounded fast, way too fast, as his mouth slid down her neck. His inexperienced fingers fumbled with the buttons. Heat of embarrassment steamed on his cheeks.

Abby giggled, undressing as she climbed on top of him. A flash of white and red, then she was against him again, kissing him passionately.

A cough came from outside the tent. Ianc saw the outline of Rahorh’s back through the canvas. “Cle. Give them a minute,” he said out loud.

Abby sprung around and quickly dressed herself back to form. Ianc did the same and waved his hands before him like he was chasing the heat away. He cleared his throat loudly, signalling them to enter.

Clementine burst inside first, and without a comment, she just stared at Abby. After a moment too long, she flicked her head toward the space beside her. Abby moved to sit there, facing Ianc. The rhys joined in, and sat on the other side of Cle.

“My left hand is ruined.” Cley withdrew a knife and twirled it around her fingers. It dropped just when reaching her middle finger. “I can still lead a charge, but I can’t even dice an onion without dropping the blade.”

Ianc didn’t know what to say and looked at the other two for help. They also sat stiff, their eyes staring at their chest. “I guess it’s time to finish your end of the betrothal promise?” Ianc knew immediately that he fucked up.

“Or I could forfeit and ask my father for a new betrothal. To you, Herald of the Sacred Light.” Her voice hissed, high with sarcasm on the title.

He knew she had fucked it up as well when Abby shot her sister the eyes of the needles. “An excellent proposal, Lady deMolay. It would give me cause to fight Gerald for your hand.”

Abby narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Her mouth quickly formed a sly smile.

“You will die,” Rahord said, oblivious of the joke. “We are not here for this. Are we, Cley?”

Clementine leaned back. “We are not.” Her posture became rigid, her gaze steady. “We are here to brief you.”

“Me?”

“The Selenai’s claws were fused with mutated Solfire. A zealot rhys in Havenstead almost replicated Rahorh’s composited spell. And you were at the center of the Necromancy Orb incident in Camelford.” Cley said.

Ianc nodded. “The Archlich who enchanted my sister could be the stealer of Rahorh’s note.”

Clementine continued, her gaze settling on Ianc. “The Sacrosancts are divided. A schism is coming. For five hundred years, the Church alone granted Solfire through the Disciple Road. Rahorh’s work broke that monopoly. He acts on my father’s orders. The Magisterium believes such power must be set free, for the good of all.” She paused, locking eyes with Ianc. “You are the key. They will try to claim you, or destroy you.”

The words hung in the air, a grim echo of Abby’s own fears. Ianc felt the weight of it all—the expectations, the judgments, the impossible burden of a power he never wanted.

“That much I know,” Ianc said. “But the real mastermind is the Archlich.”

Rahorh leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. “It has come very close to success. With your sister as a just cause for the rebellion, the Suledins will join. It won’t need faith, just hatred. It’ll grant Solfire to those who fall to its perversion. An undead god wielding our sacred Solfire.”

“You must pass the trial, Herald,” Clementine said, bringing the conversation back to the path ahead. “It gets you a position to save your sister.”

Ianc inhaled nervously. The undead had conceived this invasion for centuries. It left embers across the land until the wind blew them up now. His race against a dark mirror of the divine began. “I’ve walked on embers since you found me in that cage.” He held the new bow aloft. “Now to hellfire. May his Light show me the shadow it casts.”

Rahorh stared at the bow. “Have you named it?”

“Silent Dirge,” Ianc said. A muted prayer for my story.

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Note: He actually wants the power (but not the responsible) but I haven’t edited this piece, lol. It is quite an old draft. I still don’t know how to frame it in a better way.

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Soren Zuthath, the Prune Pontiff, moved through the quiet confines of his study with the practiced silence of a monk treading hallowed stone floor. Dust motes, caught in the sliver of sunlight piercing the arched window, danced like forgotten spirits. His fingers, gnarled and stained with ink, carefully turned the fragile pages of Aethelris’ March, a rare manuscript that he had retrieved by mere luck. It hummed with untold histories as his centuries old fingers touched it. He traced along the faded script that detailed the very first war with Makaiel, a conflict the Church had long ago sanitized from official records. His mind rang with the ancient archaic words that only a handful people left could decipher—meticulously sifting through the bare truth to compare with the Church’s fabricated tales.

Hints of the true past, like faint whispers on a long-dead breeze, had surfaced in his work for years. The Church’s role—scrubbed clean in every taught lesson and public hymn—was far from the divine intervention it claimed. It was Aeltheris, a mere Astrari apprentice of Kelarthu, who had truly united the disparate people. His voice was a clarion call across the valleys and peaks. It was him who had summoned the Scions of Sol, their forms blazing against the encroaching darkness, and led them to Aeithrasos to face the Undead’s queen of thorns.

Zul’drak, the Undead queen, may her cursed name never be known to the public, had already turned Aeithora to a necropolis. Half of the Aeio now became instrustment to her necrotic nails. Her eyes, sharp as thorn and red as blood, turned to Aeigiva. She came not alone, but with sixteen Prince Consorts, each a Necrai priest. Their forms were stitched from shadow and grave-dust; their mind was tainted by the lust for their queen, and the hatred they had on each other kept them alive. Their very presence was a blight upon the living world. Only three had survived the cataclysmic battle and withdrew back to the Blackened Land to rule over the endless hordes of Undead.

Soren’s breath hitched. A missing note, tucked between two ancient folios, fell to his desk. If she created them as her Consorts, what kept them alive when she’s dead? Makaiel? The question, cold as grave earth, settled in his mind. And now, even now that he had killed all three, one remained hidden. Blue, yellow, purple, they were the flames of their eyes. But no green flame, the one that had been testing Rahorh’s structure in its wake. This one, an Archlich, no doubt, and was her first Prince Consort. This one had to be trapped in Sahada, and for five hundred years, had been successfully eluded from the Second Sun.

Such a malignant presence… what if it had been wearing people’s skin to walk under the light? It had festered, blended in this world for so long; its roots would be deep, its influence subtle, like poison blooming in a quiet garden; its plan for the next Armageddon would be inevitable.

A faint shadow, unexpected and brief, drifted across the pane of the window. Soren looked up, his brow furrowing. He had been informed it was impossible for a cloud dune to obscure the sun today in the Holy City. This was not a rainy day as planned.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Soren held the parchment over the flickering candlelight. Its edges curled as the flame devoured the ancient script. The truths and lies of history, burning into ash. From his high tower of study, he watched a caravan approached, still a distant speck on the plains, growing steadily larger until it entered the gates of Lys Royeaux. He yearned for what inside that caravan, a thing he longed for entrusted to a clandestine man, a penchant to heal his wound. A hope, perhaps, that the long winter of his soul might finally know a fleeting spring.

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By the time Ianc woke up, the Umbrite men were already gone. He burst out of his tent, still wearing plain clothes that were stained with sweat and blood. He ran, he sprinted. His chest felt tight, not from the exertion, but from the unnatural weight coiled within him. The power he’d stolen from the Necrai Overlord’s dying ritual and the Aeimortis’s final blessing sat in his gut like swallowed lead. It was too much for one vessel. He felt the phantom Bloodfire in his inner sanctum, overwhelming the current number he commanded. What if those decided to go rogue against him? Cley was right about him siphoning the power of the Necromancy orb, of the tainted version of Rahorh’s spell. The dread of the iron maiden found out grinded on his soul. What if she decided to get rid of him? He had to prepare.

“Four,” Campa’s voice echoed from a distant campfire memory. “Reach four, woodman, and the leash comes off. You stop casting spells and start imagining them. But remember if your mind isn’t a cage of iron, the fire won’t just burn your enemies. It’ll cook you from the inside out.”

He didn’t yell nor beg, just commanded his hundreds of threads of Bloodfire to coalesce. They formed a ring of light in the dark of his left eye, gleaming with his anger.

“Stop!” he roared. The ring materialized before him. It wasn’t a standard Solfire bolt; it was a wheel of fire he’d been nursing in his mind since Aaron fell—a grinding, relentless circle of judgment. As it rotated, tracing embers and ashes in the air, Ianc felt his own skin begin to prickle and char. The smell of his own singed hair filled his nostrils. Every rotation of the wheel was a physical blow to his heart, a reminder that he was holding a tiger by the throat.

He didn’t care. He became the vanguard of his own charge toward the Pontiff’s tent, the wheel clearing a path of scorched earth beneath his boots.

A woman in armor appeared in the corner of his eye. Clementine, her eyes were iron, piercing at his insolence. But she didn’t give the order to stop him.

“Ike!” Ianc halted at the foot of the stairs below the Inquisition’s headquarters.

Campa and Rahorh glanced at each other, then descended to stand at Ianc’s side, facing the gathering crowd. Kieran and Abby followed, spreading into a formation to guard his back. As she passed, Abby raised a brow and gave a single nod.

Ike emerged slowly from the shadow of his tent. His pace was deliberately slow. Sunlight glared off his robes, blindingly bright. He spread his arms as if welcoming the sun, then let his gaze fall to Ianc. “Caladryn Dea has fallen. The Umbrite is broken. Bearer of the Flame, what is your petition?”

“I am the Herald of this Inquisition. I killed the Umbrite Lord. I burned the Aeimortis before it could harvest enough Bloodfire to burn you all. But I will not stain my hands with innocent blood.” Ianc turned to face over a thousand templars. Members of the Iron Maiden company nodded; they had heard their lady’s account. The rest had not. Kieran and Blake stood in the center, each raising a single finger toward Ianc, a silent signal of where their loyalty lay.

“The Hierophant has ordered the total annihilation of the Umbrite,” Ike said. He rested his arms before him, fingers forming the same intricate symbol Rahorh had used when Ianc first met the rhys. “Do you intend to disobey His Most Reverence?”

Ianc kept his back to Ike, addressing the templars. “We walked the Aeimortis’s inner sanctum. We crossed the wailing waste and fought the sentinels of their ancient past. They are not the source of the plagues ravaging our land.” It was a half-truth. He cleared his throat. “A darker shadow used them. It warned them of our Inquisition and offered a spell to kill us all. The Aeimortis chose to die rather than commit such a monstrous act. So I ask you. Does that make us monsters doing this?”

The crowd stirred. Clementine stepped forward, placing herself at his side. “It is the truth. Without him, we would all be walking corpses.”

All eyes turned to Ike. So did Ianc, finally facing the man who would judge this matter.

Ike surveyed the scene, then he raised his chin. “Spare the seed and it grows back.”

“If their gods abandoned them then Sol must not,” Ianc said. “Is that not how we were taught to cherish his warmth?”

Ike’s eyes showed no softness. They were still, emotionless. On the dais, he seemed both still and tall. Still as a stone that has watched centuries pass, and tall as the mountain it crowns. Still as divine judgment, indisputable, and tall as the blades that deliver it. Still as holy authority, unmentionable, and tall as the flaming sphere that now bloomed in his upturned palm.

The Sear above hummed in tune with his summon.

“You have done well, Bearer of the Flame,” a different voice rang from the sphere. Even Clementine dropped to one knee now, her hand held tight to Sol’s insignia on her breast plate. Ianc followed suit but his good eye remained raised. Is that the Hierophant?

“You shall come to Lys Royeaux,” the voice continued. “Your fate shall be bound to what you spare. Prove yourself true under the Sage’s Mantle, and the Umbrite will become your retinue in the new Camelford.”

The flaming sphere dimmed to pure, lightless black. It reflected nothing, not even the sun. With one final thrum, the Sear fell silent. Ianc’s wheel of fire extinguished. He didn’t know if he should feel relief or dread or both, only that he somehow got what he wanted for now.

Continue reading:

This mark the end of Episode 3. The Inquisition is over and Ianc has finally make a choice showing his growth. So if you are still here… would he survived the test or his Mark is a curse that will condemned him? In the next Episode, we will finally visit Lys Royeaux. There, the Hierophant, basically a god of this world, will test Ianc’s heart.

I’ll be posting slower now that I need to reflect and edit on the previous Episodes. Thank you for following me on this journey.

P/S: I left a clue on who the Lich is in this chapter.

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Above the endless dark of his Inner Sanctum, the black dahlia rippled. Its silk-like petals parted, revealing a woman cradled within the bud. She was Mirari in figures, her face, her hair, her repose, and yet she was not. Her blood-red eyes flashed twice as she pulled him closer. In that instant, white chalk tattoos glowed on her plum-colored skin. It wasn’t the Umbrite signature patterns of dunes and lightning, of moon phases and constellations, or of archaic letters. These markings were of twisted blades and thrones, sharp and unforgiving, yet elegantly curved. Her gaze never wavered, as though by staring alone she commanded his sacred place.

Who is she? What is she? His mind, he suspected, was deceiving him. The Mirari he once held dear had become this dangerous figure. He reached out, willing to be a fool just to touch dear Mirari again. Her skin was cold as a tomb. He wrenched back, but invisible strings pulled him against his will. The woman’s arms coiled around his neck; her skittering fingers felt like the dry click of a nun’s claws.

Be with me. The gods will fear our union. The whisper was Mirari’s voice.

No.

There is no point. Our fate is sealed. Revenge is our destiny. Then, ascension.

Ianc couldn’t answer as she pressed her lips on his. He forgot to breathe, then chose not to. A desperate thought hit him. If he died here, would he escape his Sanctum? Perhaps because he didn’t complete the pilgrimage that he couldn’t own this place. But his defiance rose once again. This place was his and his alone. Not even Sol could command him on what to do. These Aegions were his, these Bloodfire were his, and they shall heed his call. He summoned the four spheres. They dispersed into sixty-four threads of Bloodfire, wrapping his avatar. Mirari’s translucent threads lashed against them, hissing like fat on a hot skillet.

At last, he tore free. Disappointment was etched in the curve of her brow. He licked the lingering sweetness from his lips, then spat it out. Rage burned cold in his chest. This is the Shadow’s work, he thought, using my deepest desire against me. He commanded the threads to reform, becoming four small suns that set the dahlia aflame.

The flower recoiled, shielding the woman inside, then drifted back into the starless dark. For a heartbeat he glimpsed Mirari’s blazing blue eyes blurring into the void.

He cracked open his eye. The Inner Sanctum receded, a tiny black locket lodged in the corner of his vision. He was still floating in the pond of the Overlord’s catacomb. His body thrummed with power, as if the Aeimortis’ avatar had blessed him with strength and ancient knowledge. Help us. The pledge still echoed in his mind. When Ianc killed the Overlord and the Necrai guards, he also freed the Aeimortis. Instead of going into a dark path of destruction, it chose to believe in his moral code.

I’ll help as much as I can, he promised to both himself and the tree. He had betrayed someone who trusted him once, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t allow himself to do so yet again. As if heard and satisfied with his commitment, the magic entangled inside the tree’s roots blazed white. He waded through the pond and stood before an oval egg-sized thing.

I entrust my seed to you. The Aeimortis’s voice rang in his mind. Only a Necrai can sprout me. Find one who is not already undead.

Then you just give me an impossible task, Ianc thought back.

Almost impossible. Mother Enodia spoke of one who serves the Hallow Church. The one Tietra took from us in exchange for our lives just after the Descent.

That was hundreds of years ago… I’ll find him, or his descendant.

You will, your Spark is even more divine than theirs. With that, the white seed dimmed.

Ianc caught it before it hit the ground and tucked it inside his leather folder. A hum, a melody more likely, whispered in his ears as if the tree had gone into slumber. The rough vines around it receded, carved into the veins of the seed.

The team was still unconscious from the blast. He rushed to Aaron despite knowing that he might have already left this world. He traced the wounds then hesitantly glanced at the dead man’s eyes. They were closed, but still twisted in agony of his last breath. He touched the shattered grain of Aaron’s shield—a final, silent salute to the man who had chosen to stand against fatal odds with bravery. Then he pulled free his neckerchief and rolled it beneath Aaron’s chin, closing his mouth. “I… Blake will live comfortably.”

Rahorh twitched, dragging himself upright in the corner. Leaning on a pillar, he stared at Ianc for a moment. “This is a king’s tomb. He’d be glad to know he’s buried like a rich man.”

Ianc nodded and rushed to help the others. Cley’s hand was sliced almost in half between her middle and index finger. Blood loss pooled on the stone floor. Abby and Rahorh worked together to seal and stitch it while she lay unconscious. Pale, sweating profusely, but alive. Campa was the least hurt, though he staggered when walking. Kieran could only move by planting his swords and dragging himself forward.

“How do we get out of here?” Campa asked as the stone beneath them rumbled.

Behind them, the Barghest statue approached. Its steps were slow, its motion was rough, and its eyes were fading light. “What’s more important, victory or sacrifice?”

Ianc walked forward and stood before it. “To claim victory, a sacrifice must be made. To lose someone… a part of you dies with them. Death is the only winner of war. So is Makaiel.”

The Barghest’s eyes flashed white. Then with a long cracking sound, it smiled. “The pond is where you mirror. Your friend is staying here with us.” It stared at Aaron’s corpse. With a whump sound, it dispersed into dust and sand that glided around the chamber as if taking a last tour of where it had protected for so long.

The chamber lay empty and silent. Around them, mortal wounds needed treatment. Ianc commanded his Solfire into an empty Orocrucible, making it glow white in between the grids. He tossed it into the pond, and there emerged a stair beneath it. “Is that where we mirror?”

“I think we need to submerge and descend, then we will emerge again and ascend into our world,” Rahorh said.

“We don’t have a choice,” Cley said. Her voice was weak and her eyes were still shut. With a deep breath, she raised again, standing tall but the furrows between her brows were deep. She climbed over the edge then nodded at Ianc. “We need to get back before they start the purge.”

Ianc gazed at her back, knowing what she meant. He beckoned Campa and Rahorh to follow. “We hold on to each other’s belt. Campa takes the rear.”

And as below, so above. They rose to another chamber much similar to the chamber they’d left behind. The Umbrite Overlord’s body laid on the ground along with several Lunarkins. Their claws were still on bloodred fire. The Aeimortis here had wilted. Its bark was dry and had fallen from the trunk in large panels. White leaves scattered on the floor, slowly turning to ashes. They quickly moved out of the inner keep.

The wind was the only voice left, whispering over the scorched paths of Caladryn Dea, stirring the robes of the fallen. Smoke coiled from the ruins in thin, lazy strands. The village lay disemboweled by fire. Stone crumbled where memory once lived. The air tasted of ash, and silence gripped everything too stubborn to burn.

Ianc stalked through the silence, his boots heavy with the soot of a thousand lives. Corpses of Umbrite defenders twisted in death, still smoldering. Some bore the mark of burrowed Solfire burnt clean through their wounds. Others clawed at their throats as Bloodfire overtook them, made into living weapons only to die unrecognizable. He stepped over a body curled in defense, a woman with arms outstretched over a smaller one.

Not all had been warriors.

Up ahead, in the shell of a broken hut, he saw a little girl clutching a baby brother swaddled in smoke-streaked cloth. Her eyes were dry, as if the tears had been burnt away. The rest of the defense had surrendered. But it was a kind of surrender that made you question your victory. The Umbrites knelt toward their dead god’s tree. Their lips moved in silent prayer, hands clasped not by cuffs, but by the pain of a shattered belief.

“This was us,” Ianc muttered to himself. His shirt clung to him, scorched and torn. The mark on his chest was exposed now, no longer just black. It pulsed with crimson veined beneath charred skin, an alloy of two fires no scripture had foretold. The symbol of Sol was cracked with lava lines. Divine and damned.

The field thickened with bodies as they went to the inner yard. Umbrites, Solens, all ashes. Templars strode among them, blades sheathed but helmets still donned. The templar commander, a sharp-jawed man bearing the Inquisition’s banner, stood on a rise, shouting orders. His voice cut through the smoke like a blade through cloth. “Gather them up. We will purge this cursed place once and for all.”

Ianc stopped walking. “No.”

“Who the fuck are you?” The commander roared. He tilted his head, his eyes were filled with contained rage. His hand reached for his sword.

Campa put a hand on Ianc’s shoulder and stepped forward. “We killed the Necrai Overlord, took down that tree.” He pointed at the Aeimortis, then turned at the templar commander. “This man is the Herald of this Inquisition. Stand down, templar.”

That took the templar by surprise but he kept his stance. “The Herald was captured, probably dead. I will not obey strangers.” He signaled his squadron and they unsheathed their swords while moving into battle formation.

“Well done, oaf,” Rahorh whispered while shaking his head. He pointed at Cley. “This is Lady deMolay of the Iron Maiden company. Stage your rank, templar.”

The templar narrowed his eyes, then he recognized Cley’s sword. “We only follow the Pontiff’s order.” Then he made no move, just staring.

“Then take us to him. We have won. They are not resisting now, but if you draw blood here, they might. Just bound them and wait for the next order,” Rahorh said.

The templar scratched his chin. “And who are you, silver tongue?”

“Ardrhys Rahorh Ashcroft of house deMolay,” Rahord said. He measured a pointblank with his fingers. “This close to be a Pontiff myself, and I’m Ike leGuay only student.”

The templar scoffed. “Rahorh Ashcroft. I’ve heard your name.” He gestured his troops aside. “You may pass.”

Ianc stood rooted, trying to unravel the politics he had just witnessed. “I think I’m very recognizable,” he said to Abby.

“You are. But you’re also making a commander lose his face in front of his troops.” She hopped on his back. “Piggyback me. We can talk in whispers.”

“Alright,” he said in heavy breathing. “He recognized Cley’s sword, she’s out-ranking him.”

“His troops answer to him, if he shows a flicker of authority, then who would follow his order.”

“But Campa—”

“The oaf a brawl. Then Rahorh a brain, giving the templar a ladder to climb down.”

Ianc could feel her breath on his ear and tilted his head towards hers. “Noted. Command chain is sacred. Tongue saves lives.”

“Wolf pack protect their own,” Abby said tiredly. She rested peacefully on his shoulder.

Ianc understood now why Sacrosanct died for honor, or just trivial things. To back down was to lose everything. The higher you stood on the ladder of power, the less choice you had. And before him, was the highest sitting power of this Inquisition army, the Pontiff’s tent.

Ike leGuay sat behind a large war table with leather maps, scrolls, ink, feather pens and a grid sphere that looked like a carefully grinded Ishchoir. “You survived,” Ike said. His eyes barely lifted from the map where he traced the rim of the Sear. “Well done, Herald.”

“We infiltrated Caladryn Dea’s keep and killed the Necrai Overlord there,” Ianc said. “They were harvesting Bloodfire from our fallen soldiers. If they can’t hold, they will explode the fusion spell.”

Ike rolled the leather map into a holder. “I see. Their abominations fell. Their defense broke. Thanks to the Iron Maiden’s company.”

Cley gathered all her strength to wake up and asked, “Where’s Augustus?”

“Dead. Killed in battle. You need to rest.” Ike frowned at her sight and tossed a vial to Abigail. She quickly applied it on Cley’s wound.

“I won’t rest if you commit genocide against the Umbrite,” Ianc said.

Ike nodded. “You made this victory decisive. The magic could bury half of our forces, then create an army of undead if I’m not wrong.” He then put his hand on the sphere. It started with a tiny flame in the middle, then thousands of dust around it started to come to life, like the night sky was captured into this device. “I’ll contact the Hierophant. The iron maiden needs serious rest.”

“Then I need your official decree to stop the massacre,” Ianc said.

“Granted.” With that, Ike signaled them to leave.

Ianc stepped out of the Inquisition’s headquarters, gazing at the world their power had unmade.

I am a Herald, but to whom?

A sacred city, burned from the inside out.

Men and women died under the crushing light of Sol.

Children devoured by a war not meant to be fought between mortals.

He braced his hands together to still their trembling. No more. No more Iancs and Miraris, orphaned by the Inquisition, fed to the Quaeso chapel, ground in the Crusade’s gears. This, he vowed to the Aeimortis.

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“Help me braid it,” she whispered, her voice still thick with sleep. “Take one thick strand. Split it, then cross them over.”

He lifted her up and followed instructions. He stayed silent, pretending he had no idea how to braid, though he had practiced countless times on Mirari’s hair.

She looked over her shoulder, her hands still holding a new strand. “Like the view?”

“If I ever say no, bite me,” he said. “Why do you like me? I’m not big, not strong, not bright, nor handsome.”

“You have a weird serenity. Strong jaw and nose, yet soft lips and eyes.”

And you’re tasked to spy on me, he thought, but didn’t say it. He let the thought go unspoken. Some truths were better left anchored in mutual silence. “I thought my loose tongue impressed you.”

“That too. Most people freeze. You act. Don’t call it stupid or brave. It shows responsibility. You protect what you hold dear.” She paused. “What if I become dear to you?”

“You already are.” His whisper was for her ear alone. They kissed as the sun rose.

The camp stirred awake. The cactus water was just enough to wash and refresh, and their last supply of jerky vanished at breakfast. Without food, they might last another five days, yet Ianc felt this day would decide their fate. He led the way, letting Ciaran, the Aeimortis’ avatar, guide him through echoes and whispers. By midday, the terrain shifted. Sand hardened to stone, shrubs dotted the ground, and large birds circled in a sky that belonged only to them.

And then an oasis materialized behind a mirage of the desert heat—a verdant sprawl amidst the barren, lush and vibrantly alive. The sight gave Ianc and the others a second wind. They broke into a run toward this rupture of life. Thick, wet grass cushioned Ianc’s boots. Water flowed between smooth black stones, pulsing from hidden springs. The air changed, filled with freshness and cool wind, sweet like a forgotten dream. Each of them reached to touch the palm-like trees, as if needing proof. They were real.

Before them, three paths split like the prongs of a trident. To the left, a narrow trail cut into the canyon wall, climbing sharply toward the cliffs. To the right, a winding shelf of scorched scrub and twisted rock promised higher ground, but little cover. The center path dropped into a lush hollow where trees arched overhead and vines draped thick. At its far end rose a structure—uncertain if carved by hand or grown by nature—an arc framing a waterfall with no source, its veil shimmering in iridescence.

“Stay on edge,” Cley said. “We haven’t met the Heliok or Nekrai guardians yet.”

Rahorh raised a hand. “We are Solens. But if the Nekrai drives Selenais down this canyon, we’ll be cornered.”

“We split up?” Campa asked. He was scanning the area nonstop. His lips moved in a low mutter, as though calculating vantage points.

Ianc climbed the highest rock. His infravision swept through the entire oasis. “I sensed no enmity, nor magic. But that waterfall… it’s blazing with invitation.”

The group stood still, letting their speculations run wild. Clementine unsheathed her greatsword and pinned it before her, then closed her eyes. “Down,” she said. “We’ll find out.”

And so they descended. Water seeped cold into their boots, uncanny after days of sand. Among the rocks, faint wails twisted into hisses, sharp and menacing. Colorful flora sprouted at the stone’s base, mosses glowing too brightly to be natural. They gathered beneath the waterfall, but nothing could be seen beyond its shimmering veil.

Rahorh performed his magic with ink and words like he did with the huge mirror. Nothing answered. “Strange,” he muttered.

“Could it be… an inner sanctum within one?” Ianc asked. As the team turned to look at him. “I see the Aeimortis’ avatar here. It mentioned ‘a mother’. I think it means a Necrai priest who takes care of it.”

“Good guess,” Rahorh said. “Necrai always builds a mausoleum as their sacred house for magic. This could be the entrance.”

“Any lore we should know before stepping through another damn door?” Campa asked, in a tone that poorly mimicked rhys’ gravitas.

“Every tomb has a guardian.” Rahorh began inscribing archaic letters into the waterfall. Not from left to right like usual writing, but from top to bottom. “This is the song of the fallen. What is dead may never die. It began with the hubris of the Petran, and the blood they spilled upon the sky…” His voice shifted to murmurs in a strange tongue. Each mark froze into ice, until at last the whole cascade hardened to a sheet of frost. Then, soundlessly, it cracked and reshaped into a mirror that did not reflect. A stairway appeared beyond it.

Cley stepped in first and the mirror rippled as if made by liquid. The rest followed and Ianc was in the middle of the formation. Torches flickered to life in sconces, their flames shifting from blue to orange. The floor was laid in dry stone tiles. At the far end, a statue waited before a square door. With each step closer, it seemed to loom taller until it stood ten feet high. A Barghest. Yet not the usual beast. This one bore a human face where canine should be, and wings folded neatly along its body, as though resting.

As Ianc stared at it, it stared back. Its gaze was not angry, nor menacing, but disturbingly joyful. “Who walks the halls of Enodia?” Its voice was an echo of old and young, of men and women.

“Solens,” Rahorh answered.

“Hmm, the light bringer. This place could use some light,” the Barghest said. “What do you seek?”

“The tomb of Enodia?” Rahorh answered, half a question, half a guess.

“Then you need to play a game with me. What has tongue but doesn’t wet?”

The team exchanged glances. “The hell is this?” Kieran murmured out loud.

“Is that your answer?”

“No! We are discussing it,” Rahorh quickly said.

“Then answer when you’re ready.”

Campa glanced at Clementine’s sword, an idea sparking in his eyes. “A weapon’s edge. I mean a sword, or a blade.”

“Correct. What has rivers and mountains, roads and houses, castles and verdant savannah, but no people.”

Abby put a hand on her hip. “A map.”

“Well done. What is dead that never dies?”

“Are we going to stay here forever?” Clementine asked. She shifted her legs.

“Is that your answer?”

“No! We’re still discussing. You make this too difficult.,” Rahorh yelled.

“Answer when you’re ready.”

“Culture, spirit… Spirit of a past culture… Writing, letters, ideas… An artwork.” Rahorh snapped his fingers.

“Good enough. Artwork carries visions of their creator, often only praised after they are dead.” The Barghest slightly moved its head. “Last question. What is more important, victory or sacrifice?”

Ianc raised a hand-signal to the team. Don’t answer. Don’t discuss. He drew them close and whispered. “It’s a trap. Whatever we choose, one of us dies.”

They all looked at him, then slightly nodded. “What do we do now?”

“Don’t play under its rules. If we are inside an inner sanctum to wreck it, why do we play nice?” Ianc said.

Wordlessly, the team fell into formation. Ianc fixed his eyes on the clay guardian. “We’ll sacrifice you for our victory.” His grip on the hatchet tightened; his other hand conjured a fireball behind his back.

“Good answer. You’ve proven your body, mind, and spirit through the journey. You shall pass.” With that, the Barghest dried back into stone. The square door creaked open.

Ianc led, signaling them to keep eyes on the statue as he ducked under the door. They pressed deeper into the temple’s heart. The air thickened, pregnant with ancient, pulsing magic. The passage wound on, then opened into a rectangular chamber that felt less like a tomb and more like a hollowed-out lung. In the center, a black pond lay perfectly still, a dark mirror reflecting nothing but the oppressive weight of the ceiling.

At the far end stood a woman figure.

She was a jagged contradiction of nature and blasphemy. Her body was draped in nothing but a living shroud of Aeimortis leaves and parasitic vines that pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly green light. But it was her skin that held Ianc’s gaze. Tattoos, etched in the same archaic, mathematical script Rahorh had used to break the oasis catacomb, coiled around her limbs like starving snakes. They weren’t just ink; they were conduits, glowing with the bruised purple of ancient magic. Between her outstretched hands hovered a sphere of lightless glass, three times the size of the orb that had leveled Camelford. It didn’t just sit in the air; it was shackled by the pale, finger-like roots of the Aeimortis tree that descended from the ceiling like a wooden ribcage.

The sphere hummed—a low, teeth-rattling vibration that tasted of ozone and old blood. It was feeding. Ianc watched through his infravision as threads of white Solfire were stripped from the roots and forced into the orb, swirling into a dense, volatile core of Bloodfire.

“We were right,” Rahorh hissed, his own tattoos flaring in sympathetic resonance. “The Necrai Overlord is turning a god into a bomb.”

Ianc felt his mark thrum against his ribs when she turned her gaze on him. Her eyes were not eyes, but twin wells of teal dust, ancient and devoid of mercy. She didn’t speak. She simply tightened her grip on the air, and the archaic script on her skin began to scream with light. Three spectral figures emerged around her, revenants of other Umbrite leaders. Their forms shimmered with malevolent light. Though her gaze was hidden beneath her shroud, Ianc felt its weight pressing down, heavy as stone. She had been foretold of his arrival.

The Necrai Overlord’s voice broke the silence, a rasp that slithered across the pond’s surface. “He said you would bring it here, bearer of the Light. You will bring retribution for the treacherous Heliok.” Her words dripped with ancient grievance, a prophecy of revenge.

Weary to his bones but Ianc stood tall. “The lich lied. This mark brings nothing but a chain.”

A guttural hiss-snarl rose. “You don’t know what it could do. You are unworthy.” Dark energy surged from her outstretched hand, twisting the Selenai guards. Bones cracked, flesh writhed, their forms grotesquely mutating. Flaming claws burst from their hands, burning with unholy fire. They became warped mockeries of themselves. The flames fed from a dark, pulsating orb she raised aloft—a chill testament to the Bloodfire siphoned into the Aeimortis. “Your mark is mine,” she rasped, eyes blazing with fanaticism.

Suddenly, Ianc’s mark flared. A searing heat erupted on his skin, pulling him forward as if caught in an invisible current. He felt himself drawn into a magical conduit, the orb’s power rushing into him, an overwhelming, consuming force. He fought it, a struggle as futile as resisting freefall. The Overlord’s magic locked him, paralyzing him, while beneath it a deeper, more terrifying absorption began. Suspended, helpless, he floated towards the center of the pond. His eyes locked on his friends, not pleading for help, but fear for their odds without his aid.

Without a word, the group fell into battle stance. Cley, Campa, and Kieran surged forward, forming a spearhead of the wedge formation; weapons raised to take the assault’s brunt. Behind them, shielded by their line, Rahorh and Abby stood ready, hands glowing with nascent magic, prepared to heal, cast, or unleash. Aaron threw a rope around Ianc’s waist and hoisted him back. The templar raised his shield, becoming a silent guardian. Ianc clenched his teeth against the magic. He kept struggling, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The battle erupted. Selenai beasts, now monstrous with flaming claws, swarmed on them in two lanes. Steel clashed against burning flesh, magic erupted in bursts of light and shadow. The chamber became a brutal dance of death.

Clementine became a whirlwind of steel and defiance until a flaming claw shredded her hand. The stench of seared flesh filled the air. She staggered, but fought on. A pulsing black tendril tore from the Necrai Overlord. Abby and Campa hurled themselves as shields before Rahorh’s desperate chant. The impact shattered them. Three bodies hurled back, crumpling unconscious against stone.

Now only Kieran and Aaron held the line, the last defense between Ianc and the Selenai. They fought with despair-driven ferocity. Their movements blurred between parry, strike, parry. Every impact echoed in Ianc’s suspended body. Every grunt. Every streak of hot blood on cold stone.

Then Kieran fell. Aaron, screaming defiance, lunged. His shield splintered, and the broken piece of wood strapped on his arm buried deep in a beast’s muzzle.

Aaron! The warning died in Ianc’s frozen throat. Five flaming claws sank into Aaron’s chest, their afterglow dimming in the air.

Emptiness ripped through his stomach. Grief, sharp and suffocating. Guilt, a crushing weight, descended. And then, rage, pure and untamed.

His friends were dying. Because of him. Because he couldn’t control the mark.

He lost control.

The world shattered. A roar erupted—not from him, but from something ancient and primal within the mark. It blazed, a searing inferno ripping through the Overlord’s hold. Raw power surged out in unshackled fury. The torrent of annihilation slammed against the orb on the Overlord’s hand. Then it spread to her essence. Her revenant guards dashed back to her side, trying to rescue their master. A light of impossible brilliance cracked, pulsing like a dying star on the brink of collapse. The orb imploded, and a shockwave tore through the chamber.

The power receded, leaving silence echoing in its wake.

Ianc plummeted, his body a dead weight. The black mark on his chest was no longer just a charred sun. It was etched with cracked, lava-like veins. Hidden deep beneath the rough surface, the energy stirred like a thousand worms gnawing at his chest.

He hit the stone face-first. Not unconscious, but the world was a spiraling mirage. Crawling toward the pond, each movement tore him with explosive pain. He didn’t know why, only that he needed it. His fingers touched the water. A soothing sensation rushed through him, filling his lungs with breath. He saw his friends stir with spasms of pain, but Aaron lay limp. The holes in his chest no longer bled. They were seared.

A sudden realization hit Ianc. His mark was the anchor of Rahorh’s Sanguine Libertas spell. It completed the reverse cycle, giving Solfire from fed Bloodfire.

The chamber hung in stillness, heavy with devastation. The Aeimortis’ avatar appeared.

You urged me to touch the water? Ianc thought, his voice gone.

You brought fire on us again. You burnt Mother, you burnt everything.

Then why help me?

Mother was wrong. You were right about the lich. Help us.

Ciaran dissolved into the pond. Then, Ianc finally let go.

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Ianc and the others had wandered for a full day now. Sand filled his boots, his cloak, his ears. It scraped in his mouth and stung his eye no matter how tightly he had tugged his neckerchief around. The sun clung to the ever-hazy sky like a lantern, flattening all shadows and tinting the world in sorrowed gold. The landscape was a fever dream. Jagged black rocks erupted like broken teeth. Skeletal remains of ancient structures swallowed by time scattered far away from each other. Nothing connected; nothing made sense here.

“We need to stop,” Rahorh’s voice was hoarse. “The storm is coming. I can feel it in the wind’s pull.”

“Agreed. Fine cover,” Cley said.

They gathered in the hollow beneath a crumbling stone arch. It might have been an Astrari viaduct once, now just a fractured ribcage of ancient ruin. Cracks in the pillars whispered with lost essence. Even here, in the heart of desolation, old glyphs pulsed faintly with power. Blue turned bruise-purple, etched deep into the stone by hands long dead.

Abigail slumped against a rock, brushing grit from her lashes. Campa paced in tight circles, his silhouette trembling with residual heat. Kieran knelt and opened a waterskin, only to find it empty. The other templars exchanged looks, tired, hollowed, strained from silence, unspoken from frailty of belief.

“Where are we?” Aaron asked, scanning the horizon. “We’ve been off the marked path since noon. This isn’t just dead land anymore.”

Ianc turned his face to the breeze. Sand scraped his skin. The air carried something new now, unnatural and unwelcomed. “We’re inside the Aeimortis’ inner sanctum,” he said. “And we are closer to its core, like our hearth of divine Spark.” He narrowed his eyes toward the west, where dunes blurred into nothing. His mark told the truth that they’d crossed an invisible threshold. The air had changed. Not thicker with sand, nor hotter with heat. Just wrong.

Then the sand began to move.

It was subtle at first. A rippling at the edges of their vision. A shimmer where none should be. Then came the sound, rustling like dry leaves spiraling across tile, only sharper, angrier.

“Form up!” Campa barked. He had just enough time to lift his shield before the first wave hit.

The storm came not with thunder, but with a wuthering shriek. A veil of gold and grit shrouded the already dimmed sun, howling without voice. It wrapped around them, cutting sight and sound to nothing. Blades of wind stripped the horizon into oblivion. The sun vanished, replaced by a monochrome blur.

Ianc staggered into the gale, his infravision flaring. Threads of energy, like veins concealed under the skin of sand. It spiralled and formed crooked figures, like claws all around them. He moved toward the nearest heat form. “Enemies!”

The others’ eyes darted wildly to find the danger.

Abby crouched behind a fractured pillar, the light sphere in her hand a dim dot in the dust. Her mouth was moving in prayer. Her face was dry and red, flecked with pale, peeling skin.

“Where’s Kieran?” Ianc asked. He was supposed to cover Ianc’s flank.

She pointed to the left, beyond a black ridge jutting from the sand like a blade.

Then he saw them, the sentinels of the Aeimortis’ inner sanctum. They were just tall and thin figures behind the sandstorm; their shapes barely held together, shifting like thoughts. Their arms were in the air, dancing in conjunction with the tendrils of magic that manipulate the very sand of this wasteland. They moved as if time were different for them, slow then sudden lurches. One of them extended a finger and the claw of sand shot at them like an arrow.

A templar took the hit. Sand flayed his skin. At first, it was a mere sting, then deepened into a lattice of weeping red lines. He started to cough and couched down, suffocating. His Solfire flared up in his palms, burning the invasive spell away from his body. The magic shifted, as if it had been waiting for this moment. As fire burned, sand turned liquid glass and cocooned around his body.

“Stop! You are killing yourself,” Ianc shouted. He dashed to the templar’s side.

But it was too late. Liquid glass flooded the templar’s nostrils and throat, crystallizing. He roared, his voice distorted by the wounds and magic that sabotaged his body from the inside out. He fell to his knees, blood dripped from his mouth, molten sand restrained his movement. He coiled down, then sprung up at the sentinel. Two flames on his palms became one with the strike, like a spear of vengeance. The sentinel gave out a groan, then screaming as Solfire swirling up his body. Its connection with the magic was disrupted, giving a brief moment for clear sight. The sentinel carried tattoos of the stars on his face. Umbrite, Astrari tribe.

Ianc recognized the magic, the same suffocating art used by the woman in the raid outside Caladryn Dea. It manipulated small particles, weaponized them into form. This endless sand was perfectly designed to augment their unique talent.

“Don’t use Solfire!” Ianc shouted the loudest he could. He darted his eyes around, trying to navigate through the sandstorm but all he could see was the blurs of his friends. He closed his mortal eye, letting the infravision take the lead. He quickly identified the Astrari ambushers. Picking up the templar’s fallen spear, he dashed toward the nearest sentinel.

The hooded Astrari was still in a deep trance of conjuring magic.

He hurled the spear, enhanced by his Solfire. The Astrari twisted like a cat and swirled around with his arms twitching in the air. The sand parted, swirled, then reformed, becoming a spear-shaped thing to meet Ianc’s attack. He let the old and new magic fight themselves and kept dashing to the side, seeking better position. With a sharp crack, both spears crumbled, then dispersed.

Ianc threw several darts at the Astrari, then the knife. He kept dashing to the side, closing quarter with the spellweaver. The hatchet spun with him as he pivoted. With a fluid motion, it flew. The Astrari couldn’t react fast enough this time. The axe hit its head with a dull thud. Ianc sprinted up, quickly enclosing the last three yards. He leaped, his last weapon on hand. The mace came down. He could see the horror enlarging in the Astrari’s eyes.

The mace connected with a crushing impact. As the Astrari fell, its last spell—a knife of sand—punctured Ianc’s thigh, then dissolved with the weaver’s death. He gasped for air, trying to swallow the pain, and got a mouthful of grinding sand.

Three more. He retrieved his hatchet and mace. The darts and knife were destroyed like the spear. “Melee! They are weak at close quarters!” He roared again.

He saw another man figure, a templar, judging by the fire running through his veins. Tendrils of sand wrapped around his wrists, his torso, his neck. The Astrari twenty yards beyond was weaving another spell, sharp and long. It formed into a trident, aiming at the helpless templar.

Ianc threw himself in between, his hatchet cresting an arc from the ground up. It hooked the trident, then bashing it into the air. He lost grip, but saved the templar’s life. He held his hand aloft. Molten streams of bloodfire surged through him, concentrating on his upturned palm. A fireball congealed in his palm, crimson and searing. He threw it toward the spellweaver.

The sentinel hands moved with practiced swiftness. Particles formed a shield that took form when Solfire helped it burn.

Ianc raised his hatchet at the Astrari sentinel. “No more tricks. Face me.”

The sentinel formed another trident and pointed it at Ianc. Then it took off the hood, revealing a face without eyes, only two horizontal lines of star tattoos inked around its head.

Ianc lunged at the abomination. He remembered all the tricks when training with Campa. Footwork never lied. Foot, hips, then arms, the sentinel wielded the spear awkwardly under Ianc’s pressure. His pickle found its grip on the shield and wrenched it away. He pivoted, using the momentum for a killing hack.

The sentinel leaped backward, its spear arced around. The moment before it connected with Ianc hatchet, it dispersed, then reformed again.

A jolt of pain tore through Ianc’s chest. He lost grip. His other hand clutched at the gnarly gash. Seizing the moment, the sentinel thrust. Ianc dashed and grabbed the spear, Solfire poured out from his hand. The same fusion happened, concreting the particles into a shimmering material. He elbowed down, breaking the pole. Grabbing the pointy end, he pivoted and impaled it on the Astrari’s eyeless head.

Crack. The sentinel turned to dust.

Ianc crouched, then rolled on his back. He grabbed his wound, seeing gold streaks leaking out along red blood. I can’t die here. He grabbed the hatchet, infusing it with Solfire. Then he applied the searing iron to his wound. The unbearable shot up. His body shook uncontrollably, forming an arc like a bow. Before he could finish sealing the gash, his body gave up. He let out a gasp before his mind retreated into his inner sanctum.

He reached past the fear of death, grasping the Aegions. He called them out into many threads of Bloodfire and commanded them to heal his body. The excruciating pain on his chest was replaced with a soothing sensation, almost itchy as his blood began to boil. Then he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

Time passed without him knowing, only sheer will of not dying drove his action. By the time he came back to his senses, the sandstorm had ceased and the last two Astrari lay dead beneath Kieran and Clementine. The latter had glass formed around her leg, but she managed to get close enough to behead the spellweaver with her greatsword. Rahorh quickly came to her side and worked his magic, slowly turning the glass back to sand.

Kieran was in much better shape, but his two companions weren’t. They laid on the ground, and with them, a creature of unimaginable dread. It looked like a Selenais with a lizard head with spikes and horns and fangs. It’s still drooling a yellow-green slurp. Poisonous, no mistake on that as he saw the fallen templars’ skin. They were pale and their blood vessels were black.

Ianc shoved himself upright. He scoured the shadows for Abby, his pulse hammering against the dread that she lay among the dead. She proved otherwise, the creature laid dead under her feet. He smiled and nodded at her, acknowledging her prowess in battle.

“We are still alive, thanks to your warning,” Campa said. He and Aaron looked tattered but refreshed as if the fight had woken up some life in them.

“We must be close enough for the Aeimortis to send its sentinels against us,” Rahorh said.

Campa scanned around. “I got one, saved Aaron.”

I missed one? Ianc frowned but quickly accepted it as the thrill of battle might have fooled him. “Let’s find a place to rest.”

“We got good meat,” Campa chuckled. “Venomous beasts are tasty. We just have to skin it.”

Skin, the word got Ianc looked down at his chest, at the new scar. He wondered if he could continue this quest. He appeared strong and tough, but he knew he barely escaped death when his chest was sliced open. Deep down, he knew his sheer will wasn’t enough, it was the black dahlia that aided his Bloodfire to heal his body.

They buried three templars in the sand, then marched on. Ianc wondered how this could be possible. If this realm was what he perceived, then the Aei tree must be a sentient being. It had to be supernatural enough to host mortals with real materialized power. These sentinels along with the beasts, were not just magic and illusions, they were real with flesh and blood. If all of this were true in the real world, then the Aeimortis must have an avatar of itself here, just like Ianc’s avatar in his Inner Sanctum. Could it be all powerful? If so, why hadn’t it just defended itself instead of sending the goons? Then when it did appear, would he have the power to confront it? Many had died in his lead, but a thousand more would join them if he failed. The pressure weighed in his stomach, slowing his weary strides even more.

By dusk, the canyon gaped before them—a vast X cloven into the bones of the wasteland. Dunes broke and slid down into a natural convergence of stone and shadow. The path sloped inward from four directions, glistening with slick black shale and dripping moss. Water clung to the walls like breath, weeping into shallow pools, reflecting the dying light with glassy indifference.

The descent was cautious, slow. They moved like whispers, every footfall wary of a new collapse. The terrain narrowed between jagged cliffs and slick embankments, forcing the group to move in smaller knots. When they reached the basin, no one spoke. Even the wind seemed hesitant to follow them. In the deepening twilight, an abandoned caravan emerged at the crossroad. Broken wagons lay askew, their wheels shattered; while tattered tents, long since collapsed, offered no shelter. The remains of a campfire, a scattering of blackened stones, spoke of lives that had come and gone, their warmth long dimmed. The air tasted of stale sweat and cold iron, of lingering ghosts and desperation.

They set about making their own camp atop the abandoned one, a morbid homage to those who had failed to endure this place. Kieran and Campa, as always, established a defensive perimeter. Their eyes scanned the canyon walls for any sign of lurking menace. As the others worked, Ianc felt an inexplicable pull. He wandered away from the immediate camp, his gaze drawn to a dark fissure in the rock face. A cave entrance, barely visible in the encroaching night.

He ventured inside. The air cooled, carrying the faint scent of ancient stone and damp moss, trapped and stagnant. He pulled his neckerchief over his nose. The passage widened, revealing a catacomb. Sarcophagi, carved from dark, unadorned stone, lined both sides of the cave, silent monuments to forgotten lives. Each one was sealed, its surface worn smooth by time. Their secrets faded into the unknown. Ianc pressed deeper, the oppressive quiet was broken only by the echo of his own breath. The tunnel twisted, opened, and then he saw a pond. Its surface was still and dark, reflecting the faint light from the cave entrance like polished obsidian. He tested the air around it, probing with his infravision. No discernible magic, no lingering threat. It was simply water, still and clear, a true miracle in this parched land.

He retraced his steps, a surge of quiet triumph pushing back the weariness. “Water!” he announced upon his return, his voice a low, urgent whisper that nevertheless carried. “Plenty. We can resupply.”

A collective sigh of relief rippled through the group. They set out after Ianc. Their smiles were unhidden. While Rahorh and Abby carefully gathered the water, the rest gathered firewood, coaxing a hesitant flame to life from the remnants of the old campfire. Soon, the aroma of roasting beast meat filled the air—flesh of the beast they had fought earlier. Rahorh said around a mouthful of meat, “Barghest. Thought extinct since the Descent.”

As the meat sizzled over the crackling fire, casting flickering shadows on the canyon walls, Ianc voiced the question that had been gnawing at him. “Why hasn’t the Aeimortis’s avatar appeared?” Ianc asked. “If it’s so powerful, why send goons? Why not finish us itself?”

Rahorh swallowed a big chunk, then met Ianc’s gaze. “The Aeimortis’s power is accumulated by many, many bodies and spirits fed to it. Each life sacrificed, each soul absorbed, contributes to its strength. That’s why its Inner Sanctum is so vast, so real, and unexplainable like this. It’s a repository of all that’s been taken.” He paused, gesturing vaguely at the ancient sarcophagi deeper in the cave. “The tree spirit, the avatar you speak of… it could just be a child now. Perhaps around ten years old, guessing from the size of the tree. Not yet strong enough to directly confront something like us.”

Replenished by the food and water, their weariness finally gave way to a deep-seated exhaustion. The fire’s warmth was a small comfort against the canyon’s chill, its flames dancing in the darkness. One by one, the group settled down, pulling their cloaks tight, and drifted into a fitful sleep. Ianc’s last thought lingered on the images he saw in the muted mirror. Ciaran. Why the boy?

Sleep met Ianc’s weariness. In his dark journey, the black dahlia of his inner sanctum sharpened into focus. Its petals wavered in the starless void that he wasn’t supposed to separate. But he did. He saw the differences in the black, and it was coming at him. The dahlia faintly glowed in the middle, in the floret bud. Many tiny dots of white, not bright enough to reveal, but enough to edge out a figure laying on top of the disc. He couldn’t see her face, but her eyes opened. Blazing sapphire, Mirari’s eyes. Her hands held aloft, slowly pulling invisible strings to tug him closer. He felt that pull, gently becoming stronger at each fleeting moment. Until it became a yank, forcingly waking him up.

“Herald, wake up!” Kieran’s voice was hoarse and alerted.

“What is it?” Ianc gasped.

“We’re surrounded,” Rahorh whispered.

Ianc plunged to his feet. Infravision flared up and registered several heat signatures crawling on the steep cliffs. In all four directions, he counted over twenty of them.

“Barghest?” Campa shouted.

“No, Selenai beasts,” Ianc said.

Then they lunged at them. No howl marked their coming. No thundering charge. They simply leaped from where they perched. The moon was high when the first drop of blood spilled. A templar stood too far from the formation. In his struggles with the man-beast, his Solfire flared up. It caught them both on fire and when they stopped at a black-muddy pile, it blazed up like a pyre.

“Fuck! No fire again?” Campa roared. He stood at the front of the wedge formation, his flaming sword extinguished itself.

Then steel flashed from the dark, arc after arc. Clementine and a templar stood back to back, separated from the rest of the group. Their left was shielded by a wagon, but the Selenais were closing on them.

“Fire at will! Lit this place up!” Ianc bellowed, his voice cutting through the rising din of battle.

They obeyed, quick and decisive. With a synchronized surge of Solfire, the entire canyon was violently lit and turned into a kaleidoscope of light and shadow. As the blinding light revealed the Selenais’ precise whereabouts, the elite Templars of the Iron Maiden, their forms now sharp and defined, took short work of them. With their strength renewed, they fought with swift precision and practiced coordination.

Blades flashed, Solfire flared in controlled bursts; and the Selenais, stripped of their shadowy advantage, fell. Ianc didn’t even have a chance to get his hands bloodied. As the tenth Selenai fell, the remaining creatures broke ranks and ran for their lives, melting back into the deeper shadows of the wailing waste.

“That was quick thinking,” Campa said. He beckoned at Ianc while cleaning his sword.

Rahorh couldn’t help but make a pointy comment. “Way too quick. It could have burnt us up if we didn’t remember the spots.”

Ianc smiled. “The dead don’t know what the living will do to stay that way.”

Campa laughed out loud as the rhys opened his mouth wide to respond but closed it again. “He learned that cryptic talk from you, didn’t he?”

Abby came to Ianc’s side. Her hand slipped into his. “One more death. Let’s hope tonight ends with eight of us still breathing.”

Aaron shook his head. His hook hand was gone. ”We should sleep in the cave tonight.” He seemed worn out, and the loss of his prosthetic arm just added to the strain.

Cle shook her head. “Confine ourselves into a narrow path? I think not. We take turns as usual. They won’t come back.” She sheathed her zweihander back into a scabbard made of leather. Ianc saw the sigil on its hilt for the first time. A lion’s maw biting at a topaz.

It’s hard to argue with a lioness. He just nodded and beckoned Abby to join him in their next watch. He scanned the field and found a buckler shield left by the dead templar. He also retrieved a broken bow. Its sinew was still in good condition. After quick work, he came over the disheartened Aaron. “Here.”

Aarron raised his eyes and nodded twice. “Thank you, Herald.” He strapped on the shield, replacing his hook. “Do me a favor. If this waste claims me... tell my brother Liandra has the coin.”

“Call me Ianc. Or woodman.” He sat down next to Aaron. “We’ve shared more than bread and salt, brother.”

Aaron sighed, and through that, determination and bravery came back to his fatigued body. “It’s an honor to know you, woodman. I’m not pessimistic, but this place is haunting me. Did you hear the voices? Children’s voices. They are pleading for mercy. Why are we here? If all, we should be out there, fighting the Undead beyond the Sear.”

Kieran joined in, sitting crossed legs. “Voices, yes.” His eyes had lost resolve and the brightness that once was burning with Solfire. “Not just children, women too, and men. The voice that haunted me when Russ burnt himself to stop the Undead horde, and the voice of Mattius begging for help when he was swamped and dragged away. And I couldn’t do anything to help.”

“That means we’re closer to the hearth,” Rahorh said. There were conflicts hidden deep behind his eyes. “Gather yourself. We’re here to save thousands out there. They might be bleeding as we spoke.”

Cley, for the first time, took off her breast plate and trudged heavily to the group. “This place is playing on our heads. Each of us sees different things, haunted by the voices of our regrets, or fear. Brawl doesn’t do much good here. This is our test of resolve, of belief. This is our second Disciple Road to prove to Sol that we deserve to carry his power.”

“You guys should rest,” Ianc said. “I’ll take first watch with Abby.” He nodded at the two surviving templars. Their eyes met his. They took off their helmet, revealing young but sturdy faces. One has golden hair matted with grime; one has a crooked nose with eyes glowing ember under the campfire. “May Sol light our path and watch over us all.” With that, he retreated to his own guilt, unwilling but wanting to share. Abby was waiting near the broken caravan, her shadow was lonely, but it cast a blanket of warmth to Ianc under the pale moonlight.

By morning, they pressed onward, bruised but unbroken. The sun had climbed high behind the usual hazy sky of this wasteland. Its light was cruel today. As they crested the next ridge, a different sort of hush fell over the group—not the watchful quiet of soldiers expecting danger, but the reverent stillness of those who stumbled upon something meant to remain forgotten.

The ruin rose slowly from the rolling sand with each step they took. A great statue dominated the center. A titan wrought from ancient, volcanic stone. Its form had weathered through the centuries, but its message endured. One hand extended skyward, fingers outstretched in silent command, the other lowered toward the earth, palm open in judgment. Its face had been worn smooth by wind and time, but its absence of identity only made it more terrible. An anonymous god, or a forgotten one?

Beyond it, half-collapsed towers pierced the sky. They fluted like the bones of giant birds, jagged and swaying as if they might fall in the next breath. Their shattered windows wept motes of glass that glittered in the sun like teeth. Ramps spiraled toward their heights, crumbling but etched with runes now scorched into illegibility. Archways and stairwells coiled around empty cores. The silence was not complete. Water trickled somewhere beneath, echoing faintly, and the wailing waste itself groaned overhead.

The wind had changed, no longer whispered. It wailed. A drawn, keening cry that vibrated through the towers and across the bones of the ruin, like the world remembering its own funeral. A threnody, not of the Hallow Church, but of honoring what was lost by its creation. The wailing waste mourned the loss of the Aeivory culture.

Between the broken structures grew trees that were not trees. They were enormous cacti, twisted in shape, not by the wind but by wicked intention. Each one was shaped like an upturned hand with elongated fingers splaying toward the sun, as though offering prayers or preparing to catch the sky itself. Their bark was pale, the green of something half-dead, and the tips of the fingers trembled.

The moment Ianc stepped into the shadow of the statue, the trembling stopped. The world held still. He saw a vision, an avatar. It was a mirage at first, slowly taking the form of a boy. He glanced at the others. They were frozen. Not by magic, nor any other means. They were still like they were stopped in time, but Ianc was still seeing the sand blowing around the ruin.

“They’re fine.” The boy stepped out from the shadow. “Mother doesn’t know I’m here. We must hurry.”

“Ciaran? How could you be here? Where’s Helen?” Ianc asked.

“Not Helen, just Mother.” The boy’s voice was like an echo now, not clear like a morning bell anymore. “Please don’t hurt Mother. You brought fire on Father. The ground remembers. The roots moan, then and still.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Ianc crouched down to the boy level. He saw Ciaran but the eyes were wrong. Ciaran was too innocent; this one was too confused, too sad, too lost.

“I didn’t want to hurt them, but mother made me. She will hurt you.”

“Who? Are you the Aeimortis’s avatar? I mean it’s spirit?”

“The blood out there is feeding me. But it burns. They think I can save them. But I just wanted to remember our names. That’s all.”

A dreadful thought crossed Ianc’s mind. The templars were dying in the siege. Time was bleeding away. “Then help us. Release us from your inner sanctum. Let us talk to your mother.”

“I can’t. Mother owns this place. I’m just a catalyst. I’m not the god everyone thought.” Ciaran’s apparition suddenly crouched, hands over head. “Mama, I’m sorry.” Then he laid on the ground, his body dispersed into teal dust.

Who is the Aeimortis’ mother? Ianc searched his lessons with Rahorh. A name emerged, Necrai, the Aeivory priest tribe who fed the dead to the Aei tree.

The desert returned to its normal stages. And then the sentinels emerged.

The cacti’ spikes spurted black clouds that swirled into the palm, forming dunes with flashes of red lightning. And when the flashes reached blinding speed, the sentinels were born. Slender, elongated figures, draped in dark, glossy robes that shimmered like scorched ink. Their faces were shrouded by hoods that didn’t stir in the wind. Where their eyes should have been, there glowed twin coals—steady, bright, unblinking. Their skin was full of tattoos of similar patterns to Rahorh, Petran tribe.

“What the fuck is that?” Campa asked.

They didn’t see him? Ianc thought. The team were back on their feet, but they seemed not to witness Ciaran—the Aeimortis’ avatar—who just talked with Ianc.

“Petran. Spread out!” Rahorh roared.

Lightning snapped, red and hungry, arcing from one raised finger to the air. The sound followed, crackling like the break of dry bone. It struck Ianc first.

He flew backward. The world vanished behind a veil of red. Stone met his back and breath left his lungs in one shattered gasp. He didn’t scream—he couldn’t. The energy tore through him like thorns through marrow. Light, blood, and burning stars filled his vision. Then black. But he grabbed at the blackness and lurched up. His body was shocked, a numbing sensation spread on, paralyzing his movement despite his will. Ianc bit his teeth hard, fighting the invading magic. Bloodfire surged through his veins again. But instead of healing, it collided with the lightning, exploding into excruciating pain. He let out a groan, a high pitch, unending agony groan.

And when the pain lessened, he saw the Petran again. They were smiling. Not with mouths, but with their very bearing. The way they glided, heads cocked with disdainful curiosity. Only six of them, but all were shooting from the sky like gods punishing ants.

“Aaron—!”

Clementine’s voice barely cut through the echo of another blast. Arron charged ahead, shield raised, but the next sentinel flicked its wrist, and a net of crimson arcs wrapped around him. His shield exploded from the heat. Steam poured from the seams in his armor. He yelled, stumbling on the dust.

Ianc rolled onto one side, dazed, and lunged. His fingers caught Arron’s collar and yanked him free—just as a second arc crashed into Ianc’s own chest. It burned like a second heart igniting beneath his ribs. His vision shuttered. Blood filled his mouth.

The Petran sentinel advanced with an arrogant gait, like duelists toying with children. One twirled his fingers, drawing shapes in the air that became razors of condensed heat. Another lifted both hands and pulled sand into glass, then shattered it with sound.

Kieran moved fast, dancing between cover, blades flashing at the flying Umbrite. It wasn’t just meaningless flashing. It was momentum. The blade flew, piercing through the air and the black cloud that had just been formed to protect its caster. The sentinel fell like an apple and stayed limp. Abby shouted a spell, casting blinding threads of refracted light into one’s path. Campa stumbled but kept his footing, dragging a templar away from the fray.

Rahorh stepped forward. His eyes glowed with a counterforce. His hands moved in precise circles, tracing sigils in the air that bled black and white flame. “They’re too prideful,” he hissed. “Hubris took them down, hubris took them now.” A nova of inverted light exploded outward from his core—colors wrong, sound reversed, heat turned to cold. It swallowed the last two sentinels and crushed their forms into shards of air. One gasped. Another screamed without breath. They folded inward, limbs twitching.

Then silence.

As Rahorh was stunned, depleted from his spell, another sentinel turned at him. The red light snapped. A templar saw it and jumped to shield the exhausted rhys. Magic clashed. Arcane struck against new light. The templar chest exploded, then he fell down to his knees. Residue of magic cracked around his limp body.

Ianc seized the moment and lunged himself at the drained sentinel. His mace swirled in the air and knocked the Petran airborne.

Abby appeared in a flash of motions. Sickly teal light cracked and squirmed around her. She cut the sentinel mid-air and kicked him down to the ground. Ianc had seen her in action before, but this time was different. Her tattoos appeared, glowing faintly in gloss ebony. It was somewhat similar to Rahorh’s, but sharper and more crooked, weirdly pleasant to the eyes. Smoke and hidden blades, he thought.

“Kieran!” Clementine shouted.

The brave templar fell to his knees, smoke seeped through the seams of his armor. The other templar was worse. Blood poured out from every hole on his face. The last two Petran momentarily froze after depleting their magic. That was enough for Clementine. She leaped on Kieran’s shoulder and lunged herself in the air. The topaz ignited, and the lion’s maw on her blade bellowed with molten light. The blade was elongated by concentrated yellow light and cut the two Petran in half with a single slice. They fell and no blood escaped their wounds, just a sizzling sound that was quickly silenced under the howling wind.

Two more dead. Ianc sat propped against a stone. His left arm went numb from fingers to shoulder. Black lines like cobwebs rose in place of veins. Abby rushed to him. She spoke, but her voice felt far away.

He looked to the sky, unsure how much more he could take; looked inside, unsure what the black dahlia meant; looked around, sure he was now forever bound to the Iron Maiden.

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If you stay till this line, I thank you from bottom of my heart. This chapter the longest chapter and took me a while to write.

Stone groaned against iron as the keep absorbed the first true weight of the Inquisition’s assault. Somewhere above, siege engines struck, and the impact rolled downward through the dungeon like distant thunder trapped in a coffin.

They moved through Caladryn Dea’s dungeon, their shoulders brushing damp stone. The air was stale and cold, thick with rust and mold. No words were spoken, only hand signals exchanged. Ianc followed clumsily, returning nods and shakes while Rahorh led with absolute certainty, turning corners without hesitation like he was the mansion. They passed cells. Then a refectory—long tables overturned, benches rotting in place. Then stairs, climbing just enough to feel wrong, before another corridor lined with empty rooms. No guards. No voices. Only the castle shuddered harder with every strike above.

At a dead end, Rahorh stopped. He knocked once on the stone. Muttered. Twisted a wall sconce. Then another, upside down this time.

Nothing.

Then the wall fractured. Five stones fell first, forming an X-shaped void. The rest followed, collapsing inward in a controlled ruin that revealed a vaulted passage sloping downward, hidden behind the false wall. “How could you know this much?” Ianc whispered. “It’s like you chose to be captured.”

Rahorh glanced back. “After Havenstead, I suspected you’d be brought here. When the Selenai spared us, I knew.”

“You still didn’t answer me.”

“You are the successful case of my entire life,” Rahorh said flatly. “I… the Church planned this attack years ago. We know every corner in Caladryn Dea.” He cast a faint illumination sphere and gestured Ianc forward, telling him to get in the tunnel first.

“Still a big risk to get captured along with me,” Ianc murmured, crawling on all four.

“They won’t kill their own kind after my little magic show.”

The passage dropped sharply, then curved upward again, forcing them to crawl on hands and knees. The stone changed here, older and slicker. The air shifted into a weird combo of filthy and fresh. Explosions boomed overhead. Dust bled from the ceiling. “I hate this tunnel. How long till we–”

Another impact silenced him.

Rahorh cursed, “I warned them not to strike the tower bases.” He surged ahead. “We’re beneath the western tower. This is the underwork, the old aqueducts.”

The tunnel opened. They emerged onto a reinforced truss, an immense stone-and-iron framework built to hold far more than foot traffic. Below it roared a river, fast and black, running parallel to a sewage channel separated by a narrow causeway. This space stretched endlessly in both directions.

Ianc’s infravision flared. Magic threaded the vast depths in entangled lines, plunging far beyond the river’s edge. Massive, coiling structures anchoring the mountain itself. Roots of a colossal tree, he realized. “Aeimortis?”

“The siege offers an escape route.” Rahorh led with uncanny confidence now. His robes dragged behind him like smoke. “If the lich can walk in Sahada undetected, so can I in my own home.”

“Your what?”

“I… also want to share Solfire with my people.”

A weird thought crossed Ianc’s mind. “Are you feeding me to the tree?”

“Very funny, woodman,” the rhys chuckled. “That’s why we like you.”

“I hate this place,” Ianc spat. And this place hated him too. Something crawled through his spine, not physically but deeper like an echo you weren’t supposed to hear. As they crossed the bridge, the world suddenly changed. The thunder of siege engines vanished as if it was swallowed whole. No echoes. No vibration. Only the river below and the slow, pulsing cream-white light emanating from the roots around them. Each pulse sent a chill to Ianc’s mark. Cold crept up his spine. It wasn’t fear but pattern recognition.

“What is it?” Rahorh asked as he helped Ianc to cross the final steps off the bridge.

Ianc placed his hand on the wall as if he could hear its whisper. The stone thrummed, faint and without rhythm, like a dying heartbeat fighting for its life. “The Umbrite started something. A magic fusion, larger than anything I’ve seen before.”

“Your sister?” Rahorh asked.

“Whatever it is, we need to stop it,” Ianc snapped. “If the lich isn’t here, then what’s the reason?”

“What is left doesn’t mean to escape,” Rahorh heavily said. He frowned, arms crossed, like he was trying to dismiss his conclusion. “This place is a tomb for all of us.”

Ianc gritted. “The siege, the bloodshed are traps designed to steal Bloodfire from the fallen templars to replicate your spell again, but larger, meant to create an army of the dead within the Sear.”

Rahorh suddenly lurched to the wall. “Ashenvines are made from Aeikin’s root… We need to stop it before the entire army punches through the castle.” He quickened his pace, almost to a sprint. “Quick, we regroup with Cley.”

They emerged at the base of the western tower, open air slamming into them. Above, the battlefield burned. Fireballs arced in coordinated volleys. Rhys in pairs stood within templar rings, channeling magic into sustained bombardment. The walls collapsed. Homes burned. Umbrites fled screaming and fell silent. “This is madness,” he muttered under his breath. The image of Myrathus’ ruin flashed in his mind. He was helpless then, but now he might be able to do something.

“You are late.” Abigail emerged behind the tower’s dark alcove like a ghost. Her cloak soaked with sweat, her eyes were too sharp for any surprise.

He could only smile at her sight. He glanced at the rest of the party. All were present but Blake. There were six other templars but he didn’t know their names. Two of them had grey beards, sneaking out from the mouth gape of their helmets. He recognized Kieran and they exchanged a quick nod. “We need to sabotage the magic stirring inside.” He pointed to the way he and Rahorh just came from.

The rescue team looked at each other, confused.

“He’s right,” Rahorh said. “The Umbrite is using the war to fuse a huge Necromancy orb.”

Clementine glanced at the rest, then back to Rahorh. “Then what are waiting here for?”

“I need some weapons. Bow, sword?” Ianc asked.

Aaron tugged a leather folder on Ianc’s hand. “Knives, darts, and a few camp gears.”

Ianc glanced at Campa. “Give me your hatchet.” He turned to a nameless templar. “And that pickle too.” Then he turned around and became the vanguard of the tight Iron Maiden squad. He led them back to Caladryn Dea’s aqueduct system.

They descended back to the underground moat, each step amplifying the eerie quiet. ​The air hung heavy, charged not with the scent of water and waste, but with ancient magic that thrummed beneath the pavement. Ianc led the way, his eye fixed on the unseen destination, the roots of the Aeimortis. But he felt something else, something beyond. A pocket of existence twisted free from the mundane landscape, a portal to a dimension accessible only by unlocking a unique seal. Through it, a confined realm, an… Inner Sanctum.

​A precarious bridge spanned across the chasm of the structure, their only path forward into another section. Ianc kept on leading, his mark urged him to, his mind urged him to, his moral compass urged him to. The bridge turned into a stairway, leading up. ​Finally, they ascended an archdoors, much similar to the one above that led to the keep. But this one was translucent like dirty glass, without revealing the secret behind it, nor reflecting the image before it. “This is where I felt the magic,” Ianc said.

The pulses of the Aeimortis’ roots gave a source of light here. It was white, but it wasn’t, more like cream, then it wasn’t. A few more pulses passed, a few more colors flickered.

Rahorh circled around the translucent archdoors. No one dared to make a move. “I see not my reflection, but my desire,” he whispered. “Don’t look at it.”

But it was too late for Ianc. He saw himself with a boy who looked like Ciaran in his arms. And next to him was Mirari, pale and unalive, but she was his wife. Behind her, a shadow of wavering petals shape. The black daliah he saw in his Inner Sanctum. Then he saw a shadow of a woman, an apparition as beautiful as Mirari, but her eyes were bloodred. It flickered then, and became Abby with distorted eyes shape—too narrow, too sharp. “Enough!” Ianc forced his Bloodfire to cleanse his body. Sweat beaded on his brow, he glanced at Abby, who scrutinized him back. He nodded, signaling that he’s fine.

Rahorh stepped forward, pulling a small pouch from his belt. Blood and sand, mixed with a practiced hand, became a thick, dark ink. With solemn purpose, he began drawing intricate tattoo patterns onto the glassy surface—symbols of each Umbrite tribe. He murmured, a quiet revelation in the profound silence, “They still include the Heliok, despite all the misery we caused them,” a fleeting glimpse into a history steeped in complex betrayal and shared suffering.

​As the final stroke was laid, the mixture solidified the glass, making it opaque for a heartbeat. Then, it transformed again, shimmering, becoming utterly clear, dissolving into a liquid-like state that flowed and rippled. Without a word, he walked inside it. His hand raised back from the glass, signaling a safe passage to move forward. The team stepped in, one by one, passing through the undulating veil as if walking through water.

As Ianc stepped through it, the glass quivered as if briefly uncertain whether to solidify or shattered. It enshrouded him with a cold sensation, then lifted him weightless.

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“Mirari! We need to talk!” His voice rang raw, tearing through the stillness. The sound clawed at the echoing silence, twisting into a distorted, mocking wail before dying in the oppressive gloom. A cold shiver traced his spine, a phantom echo of the dungeon’s chill. He groaned out of agony from the Selenai’s scratches.

“That can wait,” Rahorh commanded from the shadow. “Your wounds can’t. Sit.”

“I don’t need a sermon,” Ianc said, “I need a remedy with my sister.”

Rahorh crawled closer, his fingers glowing with a faint red light. “Bloodfire isn’t just a weapon for the fist.” He pressed on Ianc’s wound. “Don’t fight the pain. Let Solfire knit the meat. Good. Now use yours.”

Ianc closed his eye, sweating, and forced the fifty-three thrumming filaments of his core toward his sizzling wound. Molten streaks of Bloodfire bloated his veins, scourged through his body, racing towards the wound. He screamed when the pain hit, and the air was filled with the smell of scorched flesh. As the pain lessened a tiny bit, he grabbed Rahorh’s hand. “The orb in Havenstead. Your creation, you said. Am I your first experiment?” he asked in between puffs.

“No.” The rhys’ gaze held no deception. “Mine meant to give real Solfire to the Suledins. That orb cursed them with undead flame. But the mechanics of both held a similar core.”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?” Ianc released his grip and swiped the stinging sweat in his eye.

“To test another of my theories. Quid pro quo, Ianc. You give yours, I speak mine.” The rhys’ voice was low, almost swallowed by the cavernous space. “You are protecting this Mirari girl, your sister I assume. She caused Camelford’s catastrophe.”

Ianc sank down, the cold bite of the stone seeping through his breeches. “She carries the true blood of the Myr in Myrathus. I’m just a stable boy.”

Rahorh’s eyes remained fixed on the uneven grids of the stone floor, as if deciphering a hidden language in the cracks. A faint, almost imperceptible hum resonated from his skin, a ghost of the power he usually contained. “My spell is an apostasy to the Church, but the Magisterium craves for it. To win in their war not yet fought, they need to control my Sanguine Libertas.” He finally lifted his gaze. His eyes now held a glint of something distant, almost sorrowful. “It never bore fruit until it did. I was overjoyed and left my study to inform my patron, Magus Aleksander deMolay. We came back, notes gone, device gone.” The memory seemed to physically weigh him down, making the stale air around them feel even heavier.

“Then why did it become this… Necromancy orb?” Ianc asked, a cold dread seeping into his bones.

“Why did your sister leave you?” Rahorh asked.

Quid pro quo, Ianc thought. “Because I… sold her for Solfire.” The weight on his chest was finally lifted. “ She killed the Magister’s son so we are both imprisoned. A slender shadow imposed itself as a rhys cured her. She asked me if I wanted to live and I woke up in that cage.” The memory was a cold shard, sharp and unyielding in his mind.

Rahorh nodded, seemingly pleased by the answer. “It seems the lich tested my Sanguine Libertas in Camelford.”

“Test?”

“My notes are fake. A trap for the rats.” He snorted. “I wrote the frame down, but the leylines are imprinted in my brain. It must have been trying to recreate my work.”

Ianc cleared his throat. An archlich who could walk inside the Sear with power to grant Solfire. Now that lich had acquired Mirari as a scarecrow for its causes. Her feud with the system could attract people of the same desire. The dripping of unseen water somewhere in the distant passages was the only sound now. A slow, methodical drip, drip, drip. “There’s still a secret untold. Why am I the only successful subject?” Ianc said.

“Because I said so.” A familiar voice rang in the stale air, soft and unnerving, like a shadow slipping through rusted hinges. Footsteps followed—click, click, click, echoing down the distant corridor. Only Mirari walked like this, her strides short and fast as if she was gliding.

“Mirari!” Ianc yelled, his voice raw with a mixture of hope and terror.

A shadow edged on the wall near the flickering torch, preceding her. The monotonous pattern in her speech was unmistakable, a flat, unsettling tone devoid of inflection and emotion.

A thousand questions exploded in Ianc’s mind, each a desperate plea. He had rehearsed them, sorted them, refined them countless times in the confines of his skull, but all of it was blank now, dissolved by the sheer presence of her. “Is the lich with you?”

“Yes and no. My liege is in my mind as we speak, but he isn’t here.” Her voice was like smooth, cold glass, utterly unreadable.

“Your liege? What has he done to you?” He rushed towards the cell door, his hands instinctively reaching for the cold, rough iron bars, but stopped midway, his heart pounding against his ribs. He forced himself to hold still, realizing his sudden movement could startle her, scare her away. “I’m sorry. It cured you, wasn’t it? Or was it controlling your mind?”

Mirari slowly took off her hood. The veil that had forever concealed her face drifted away, revealing her fully. Her glacial blue eyes, impossibly vivid in the dim light, raised to Ianc’s level, staring directly into his brown. The spirits were there, yes. The playful, mischievous eyes of the young Mirari he remembered, a ghost of her former self. There was no mistaking it. Her mind was truly cured of its former fog.

He stared deeper, drilling his way in, even using his infravision to scrutinize any sign of mind control spells. He saw nothing but the bright heat emanating from her head, almost too red, a searing core of energy compared to the usual bright orange of a Sacrosanct. “And it just left you here to talk with me?” he whispered, a tremor in his voice.

“No and yes. The realm changed when I left, but I’m here now, trapped between the squabbles of children in a gilded cage.” Mirari tilted her head slightly, and the corner of her lips curved up a tiny bit, a strange, knowing smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Fate has bound us together.”

“What are you talking about?” Ianc snapped, the tension in the air almost suffocating.

Mirari smiled without sound, a chilling, unnerving motion that revealed a glint of her perfect, too bright teeth. “ am, you are, harbingers of death. You never knew me. Simply a girl pretty enough for you to sell, perhaps an anchor for you to keep living on the miserable life. We are not blood, but you got a heart of a lion, full of possession and patroness ideals. You are ugly and beautiful.” As she spoke, chalk-white tattoos began to emerge from under her skin, tracing delicate, crooked and curved lines across her heart-shaped face. They followed its contours perfectly, enhancing her beauty into a dangerous, almost predatory pattern with sharp, pointy ends.

“I was wrong to arrange that marriage pact,” Ianc sighed, the weight of his past mistakes heavy on his shoulders. “But it didn’t matter anymore. I cannot save you from the Church when you follow that damned creature.”

Mirari tilted her head to the other side, the eerie, beautiful tattoos shifting subtly with the movement. “He cured me and granted you Solfire.” She patiently waited for Ianc to gather his points, her expression unreadable.

“I didn’t ask for it. If I want something, I will take it myself,” he gritted, his fists clenching around the cold iron bars, the metal biting into his palms.

“And so do I. Why is that wrong?” Mirari’s voice rose just a tiny bit, a subtle shift that carried a startling force, a tremor of frustration in its otherwise flat tone.

Ianc bit his inner lip, the metallic taste blooming in his mouth. “What now? Are you here just to defend the shadow or to help me?” His knuckles were white against the iron.

Mirari stepped closer, and with her, a subtle, sweet scent, like dried sage entrapped in the bitter cold of winter. Her fingers, cool as polished marble, reached through the bars, touching his. They were cold, yes, but not unnaturally so, explainable by the harsh weather of this Sol’s forsaken place. “Don’t play their games, love. You and I are destined for great and unfortunate things.”

He lunged, grabbing for her fingers, but held nothing. Her touch evaporated like mist, leaving only the lingering scent of sage. She retreated several steps, melting seamlessly into the deeper darkness beyond the reach of the torchlight. “Wait. I’m sorry. Mirari! Come back here.” His voice was a desperate rasp, echoing uselessly in the silent dungeon.

“So it was her, the true heir of Myrathus,” Rahorh said, his voice cutting through Ianc’s stunned silence. He had been a silent observer, a deeper shadow within the cell’s gloom. Since Mirari’s arrival, he has remained perfectly still. The air around him felt dense, crackling with a barely contained power.

Ianc gritted, “You won’t lay a hand on her.”

The rhys didn’t break eye contact, his gaze gnawing at every word, lingering, digging for Ianc’s honesty like a predator for weakness. “I thought you were an accomplice. But it seems you’re the first test subject and survived. So there must be something special in you that I don’t understand.”

Ianc knew then the quid pro quo had broken their friendship. “Apart from sensing the orbs, I… have reached fifty-three threads of Bloodfire,” Ianc said. “I can fight you.”

“Impossible, yet understandable.” Rahorh frowned, a faint tremor running through his body, like static electricity. “My design isn’t only giving Solfire to the masses, but also boosting their power as long as there’s enough Ishchoir, or…” He stared at Ianc, thinking, licking his lips absentmindedly.

“Stop blabbing, rhys?”

Rahorh grinned for the first time. “No, no.” With a swift, almost imperceptible movement of his wrist, the Ashenvines that bound his limbs came alive. Their thorns, previously dull, seemed to sharpen, punching through his skin with sickening pops, feeding on the blood that immediately welled. A low, guttural groan escaped Rahorh’s lips, but his grin didn’t falter. The tension in the cell spiked, the very air seeming to vibrate with contained force, before the ashenvines loosened after just a few agonizing seconds, retracting slightly from his flesh.

Ianc shook his head. “It’s no use. These vines absorb the sun in our blood.” The thorn of his vine felt punchy, cold, and utterly binding.

Rahorh’s grin was even wider now, a wild, defiant expression. “I helped create lymph-steel for the Solens to shackle the Umbrite.” His veins rose beneath the skin, throbbing visibly, and with them, the red-golden threads of Bloodfire flared into angry prominence. “I’m Rahorh Ashcroft, Ardrhys under Magus Aleksander deMolay, nothing in this world could bind me.” His voice boomed, resonating with raw power. With a sudden, explosive surge, the metal chains binding him glowed with an internal, searing heat, then dissolved into fine, grey ashes that drifted briefly in the torchlight before settling on the damp floor. A faint, acrid scent of burnt metal hung in the air.

“It was me, by accident, who cast you into this chaos, woodman.” Rahorh stood up, free from everything they thought could subdue him, his body radiating a terrifying, contained power. “Mea culpa, I shall repent,” he said directly to Ianc, his gaze unwavering.

“Repent to me? Then help me kill the lich.” Ianc stood up, the clanking of his own chains a stark contrast to Rahorh’s freedom. He extended his hand, meeting Rahorh’s firm grip. “I might not survive. Promise me, kill it and save Mirari in my stead.”

Rahorh’s nod was grim, resolute. “Let’s get out of here.” The resolve in his voice was a beacon in the dungeon’s crushing darkness.

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Note: The Mark has become the biggest mystery despite Rahorh’s confession. What’s your theory about it? Drop a comment of your wildest guess.

Kieran lingered at a distance, half-shrouded by a canvas lean to, where the camp’s chaos softened to murmurs. Beyond the rows of tents, wounded survivors from the Lunarkin ambush were being tended. The air smelled of rust and boiled cloth. Rhys worked their healing light everywhere, making the entire Inquisition campsite radiant with true holiness and miracle.

Inside the Pontiff’s tent, voices rose. Argument sharp enough to fray the seams of command. Kieran caught Clementine’s voice, cut-glass and burning. Then she burst through the flap, gait like a thrown blade.

He followed before he could think. “Lady deMolay—” he started.

“Don’t,” she snapped, not slowing.

“I want in.”

That stopped her. They were far enough from the guards now, her back turned toward the slope that fell away into the blood washed plains. She turned, eyes piercing. “In what?”

“I owe him,” Kieran said. “He saved my wife at Havenstead.”

“He saved mine too, and lost his eye.” She softened her stiff posture. Her eyes darted above the treeline as if she rewalked the moment.

“Yes, it is,” he said, stepping closer. “He’s the Herald. It rhymes with hero. He might not look like one but he’s always done good deeds, honorable deeds.”

Lady deMolay looked away—toward the black tipped mountains that loomed past the horizon. “We know he’s still alive, but it’s too much of a risk.”

“Then why wait. He didn’t wait to help us.”

Before she could answer, a deep voice joined them. “I trained the Herald myself,” Campa said, stepping forward from the shadows like a mountain come to life. “If he dies, I will have a bad reputation. I’m going.”

Clementine’s mouth twitched, not a smile, not quite anger. She sighed instead. “They’ll start the siege at first light, chaos will draw their defenses up the ramparts. We climb the left cliff. It’s steep, very steep, so they dig trenches over there. If we time it right… We can take advantage of the chaos and sneak in one of those towers.

“I can navigate the castle interior,” said Abigail, stepping forward. Her face has three pink lines of wounds recently treated but her voice held no tremble. “I’ve memorized the layout in Rahorh’s notes. I can take us through the sewers, then the dungeon.”

Kieran nodded, glad that they were all on the same page. Before he could speak again, Abigail cut her eyes to the side. “But Blake stays.”

“What?” The Ironshod twin growled, already halfway armored. “You can’t split us.”

“The climb then the stealthy mission,” Abigail said. She stopped there, eyes dropped to Blake’s prosthetic leg.

Blake clenched his jaw.

Aaron didn’t argue. He just stepped close and placed a hand over his brother’s shoulder. The two stood there in silent.Then the arms came, quick pulling into a hug, and something sharp passed between them. A prayer or a farewell only the brothers knew.

Kieran turned away, suddenly aware of the weight in his own chest. “Please excuse me. I ought to see my wife and kid before we go. A farewell.”

“Two miles to the west, meet us there,” Cle said.

“My lady.” Kieran tapped his chest then hurried away. He found his wife at the edge of the medical tents. She was busy with boiling water and soaking blood off the cloth. When he hugged her, she clung to him with bruised fingers. She pressed her lips to his ear. “May Sol keep you safe and burn the dark path ahead.”

Then a smaller voice. “Daddy, save uncle one-eye.” Ciaran’s arms barely reached around his thigh, but Kieran knelt anyway. Held his son tighter than was wise.

“I’ll bring him back,” he said. “I promise.”

He left before anyone could say another heart wrenching words. He left without kissing his wife because he was afraid that he would never come back. He needed his resolve now. One last resolve and he would retire. He would rather live a short life span of a Suledin with his wife and son than continue to throw his life under meaningless war in the promise of more power

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Below, nestled between two jagged ridges, lay Caladryn Dea. In its center rose a single gigantic tree, its crown topping the mountains like defiant fingers against the sky. The winter had stripped it from green and leaves, leaving only crooked branches that seemed like titan fingers grabbing at the mountain on the sides. White-bark stone surrounded the castle, pulsing with the grey rhythm of the great Aei-tree. Towers rose from the earth like a natural extension of the rock. The ironwrought gate punctuated right in the middle of the raised road, easily twenty feet tall. Waterfilled trenches winded in parallel with the outer wall. Spreading at its feet were houses built in many circles, each around a tree much smaller than the one in the castle. Each tree was connected to the vine of the mother tree.

Ianc snorted, amusing himself at the irony. He didn’t even know the place nor its history, yet he stood the leader of its ruin. Rahorh had a history with this place, yet he avoided facing it. More importantly, he avoided facing Ianc for the last couple of weeks after slipping up his involvement with the recent catastrophes across Sahada.

“A formidable sight, wouldn’t you agree, Herald?” Augustus Angelnet’s voice cut through the silence, silken and laced with a barely concealed sneer. He sat astride a magnificent black destrier. Its polished bard gleamed in the weak morning light. His eyes, the color of a winter sky, were fixed on Ianc. “Well, Herald? We await your... unique insight.”

“A siege,” Ianc said. He remembered Myrathus. “Hunger breaks people. Then whoever’s in charge of the resistance will have to fight on two fronts.”

Augustus raised his chin. His beady little eyes darted twice. “Basic. Did Clementine teach you that?”

Ianc bristled. “What’s your suggestion? My… please pardon me. I don’t know how to address you.” He retaliated. That slid right under the oily brat’s skin, and Ianc could hear a snort escape from the grim Iron Maiden herself.

“Commander Augustus of the Divine acolyte,” he gritted. “My order will get that tree down in half a day.” He pointed at the colossal canopy that shadowed what the eyes could see. Then he waved his fat fingers as if seeing desolation as a joke.

Ianc shook his head. “A siege. They will surrender.”

Augustus froze, then laughed. His retinue followed, a chorus of false mirth. Ianc realized he should have listened to Cley. Less talk, less exposed.

“We have… direct order from the Church,” Abby whispered. “Spare no one.”

“My dear Abigail, are you with the Herald now?” Augustus snapped. “So soon after our break up?”

The complications, Ianc thought. Perhaps he should probe for more, but it might hurt Abby’s feelings. He kept silent, unwilling to wound her for his gain.

“Sniff elsewhere,” Clementine hissed. “The pact was broken because you turned sour.” She subtly shifted her weight, hand drifting towards the lion hilt. The gemstone glowed, but only Ianc could see.

“I’m sweet enough for not taking retribution on her insolency,” Augustus’ beady eyes fixed on Cley’s hand. “I’ll have my company prepare for the siege engines.” He broke away, urging his horse out of her reach. “The Iron Maiden will vanguard for the first skirmish.”

“Begone,” Cley snapped. She pointed her sword at Augustus. “The day will come when names don’t mean nothing.”

“Now the light is back,” Rahorh said. “What do you feel in this crossroad where gods fell.”

Ianc glanced over the rhys. His eyes lingered for a moment, weighing if he should pursue the unspoken truth between them. He decided against it. Rahorh would talk when he’s ready. “Is that tree as large as Aeigiva in the tale?” he asked.

“Not quite yet, but it’s large enough to have its own name,” Rahorh said. “Aeimortis, hope sprouts from the tomb of fallen gods.”

Ianc closed his good eye, letting the infravision extend and expand. “I sense nothing. Just unfamiliar magical streams, but not the presence of necromancy like in Havenstead.” Then he saw what could be a pattern, these magical streams waved like ribbons in the air, then came back to the earth like they were being absorbed for a new cycle. He tracked the source of in and out, but found them scattered patternlessly. He turned to Rahorh. “Go on, tell the story of this place.”

Rahorh avoided direct eye contact, keeping his gaze fixed on the Aeimortis. “The Petran tribe raised this to challenge Aeigiva and Aeithora.” He took a deep breath. “Aeltheris, the hero, was born here. Zul’drak, the queen of thorns, was raised from this earth. It was by mere chance that she invaded Aeithora first, giving the Hierophant time to prepare the Descent. After the triumph, survivors were divided between the old gods and the new. Caladryn Dea is the last safehold for the old.”

Ianc frowned. “The current Hierophant? What happened to Aeltheris?”

“The point is, this place is sacred and stands on the leylines of a forgotten culture. The magic isn’t just from the people, but from the very cracks of the earth. Ancient magic, wicked seals, traps designed to kill,” Rahorh said.

“It’s not our job to be sentimental,” Abby cut in suddenly, “We’re mere soldiers in this conflict.”

Ianc’s mind shifted to Ike leGuay, the name brought only a cold snap in his mind. “I don’t like it. The grey man decides how we die.” With that he urged Chad back to camp. They used his name but left him silent to command.

The air around the Inquisition’s camp thrummed with a new, brutal rhythm. The steady thumps of axes felling ancient pines echoed from the surrounding forests, punctuated by the grunts of straining men and the sharp clink of shovels striking rock. The siege engines were hastily crafted, raw and menacingly huge. Ishchoir were engraved into its metal, radiating heat that mist the air. Across the devices that sprawled the valley floor, a huge ram with a wolf head carrying the flag of the Angelnet emblem stood mismatching with the rest. Art and symmetry was absent in the leader of the Acolyte, only boost and showy of brute force.

Ianc wondered how Abby entangled herself with such a swine. He stripped his tunic and joined the work nevertheless, hauling timber for a new ladder. On his right, columns of smoke plumed into the cold sky from countless fires, where men boiled water, melted lead, and huddled for meager warmth against the whirling chill. The exertion was a welcome distraction from the chilling revelation of Caladryn Dea being an earth wound. His muscles ached, but the familiar burn was a comfort compared to the unsettling hum of the magic beneath the fortress.

His mind drifted to another hum of comfort, of Abby’s kiss, doubts rose like thorns. Was she really into him or just indulge herself with her spy job? He recalled the story of the Quaeso’s Silent Sisters, a group of trained women since they were kids. Indoctrinated in the act of seduction, extortion, and assassination, they lurked in the shadow of the Magistrate’s castles, always watching, always waiting. No one knew their true allegiance.

“Herald.”

The voice, soft but clear, cut through the clamor. Ianc straightened, letting the timber fall with a dull thud. Helen stood at the edge of the labor detail, Ciaran clutching her skirt. His wide eyes fixed on Ianc. Beside her, a man stood. His face etched with lines of fatigue, his eyes a peculiar mix of intensity and unshed tears. Ianc couldn’t quite decipher the emotion. It was too raw, too layered, too directly projected towards him.

“Helen,” Ianc acknowledged, a flash of relief and concern crossing his face. He remembered her from Havenstead, her quiet loyalty, her simple faith. “You’re... safe.”

“Thanks to you, Herald,” she said, voice trembling slightly. She nudged the man beside her. “My husband, Kieran.”

The man stepped forward, his hand extended, calloused and firm. “Templar captain of Outpost thirty-nine.” He squeezed Ianc’s hand, his grip surprisingly strong. “They told me what happened. You saved my family.” His voice broke. “We owe you everything.”

“I… am glad you are safe, Captain Kieran,” Ianc managed the words. He glanced at Ciaran, who peered up at him with the same unnerving intensity in his eyes. The boy was real, his future was preserved.

Kieran’s gaze was raw, gratitude bordering on pain. “They told what happened in Havenstead. The whispers of Solfire from the ground, the turning. I thought I’d lost them all.” He swallowed hard, his voice thick. “I was in my third year patrolling the Sear when they marched through it. A massive horde of Undead. I knew then something was wrong but I couldn’t just go back to my wife. You don’t understand, I almost deserted but then I hear about a Herald who saved Havenstead.”

Ianc could only nod, his own throat tight. He looked at Helen, at Ciaran, at Kieran’s tear-filled eyes. This was the cost. This was the reason. It wasn’t just a battle, it was about protecting individual lives from the creeping horror of the undead. “Helen saved us with her warning. And your boy is brave.” He crouched down, petting Ciaran’s head.

“I shouldn’t borrow your time, Herald,” Kieran said. He shook Ianc hands again, then suddenly turned it into a hug. “Call me, and I’ll come.” With that, he led his wife and son back to their tent.

Ianc watched them disappear behind the cluster of supply wagons marking the Havenstead survivors area. Their faces were gaunt through diligence work, hands never stopped grinding starch and powder into pastry. Most avoided eye contact with the templars overlooking their labor. Poison would be pointless since Bloodfire will inertly cleanse whatever harm it brought to the body, and it would result in a mass execution to the other innocents. He clutched the Ishchoir in his hand, feeling its wishes. Free will is an illusion. For Suledins. For Sacrosancts. Even for me. The power that ruled this world flowed through the control of Ishchoir, not by the one who produced it. The irony burned.

Was it wrong for the Havenstead people to yearn for such power? No. It wasn’t. Ianc stood with them in this matter for he was once willing to strike a deal to achieve this. But this false promise of the zealot, of the husk that was controlled by the slender shadow, was evil. He had a feeling in his gut that he would see the shadow within Caladryn Dea’s wall. And Mirari, he would meet her eventually, and pull her from Makaiel’s sweet darkness to Sol’s cruel light.

The low sun receded behind the looming shadow of the Aeimortis. It cast long, distorted shadows across the village outside Caladryn Dea. Thousands of innocent figures swarmed around the castle’s imposing silhouette. Their efforts focused on the basic, mundane tasks after an honest day’s work. Light leaked through the windows, smoke escaped chimneys, and people returned home. The smaller Aeikins were twinkled with lanterns, where the people gathered for the final prayer before leaving the fields.

Ike’s command was simple. Strike hard and true, lure them into the castle. Such simple words spoken in deaf silence now started with a long horn, followed by thunderous hooves that charged at the ingenuous Umbrites.

Ianc found himself amidst the chaos of entangled steel and desperate screams. His sword hummed, heavy and reluctant, as though it, too, abhorred the slaughter. He parried, deflected, and disarmed, his movements fluid, almost instinctual. He could feel his Solfire thrumming, urging him to strike, to end life, but he held back, aiming for flat-blade blows, for the incapacitation, not the cold kill.

Clementine, a blur of polished steel, moved with lethal precision. Campa, more agile than his bulk suggested, disarmed and bound, his movements precise. Rahorh rode close to Ianc, his spells were aiming at empty space, luring the people into a designated path.

A grizzled old woman, her face a mask of fury and chalk white tattoos, lunged at him with a rusted sickle. Ianc easily dodged, striking the flat of his blade against her wrist. The sickle clattered to the dust, and she screamed, clutching her arm. His stomach turned as he saw her cast Umbrite magic. Dust and leaves formed into a tendril around her body, recoiled like a snake ready to strike.

“Surrender and you might yet live,” he shouted.

“You break treaty!” The tendril shot forward, spiralling with stones and her rage. A rider whizzed past. Her magic fell back on the ground, as of her head. The templars went berserk and showed no mercy. Their blows landed with chilling fatality now. The scent of blood began to mingle with the dust and air that wrapped around his face.

Amidst the madness, the creaks of rusted iron cracked in a quickening rhythm. The gate of Caladryn Dea slowly opened. He could hear the clinks of chains being pulled to move such massive doors from a hundred yards away. A howl, long and wailing to the suffering of lost lives rang through the entire skirmish area. It sounded like a human first, then turned guttural like an animal. His infravision flared up. Hundreds of heat signatures poured in behind the gate. He couldn’t see their shape, but their flames brickled his very skin.

“Selenais,” Rahorh gasped. “Beast-shifters.”

“Hundreds of them,” Ianc quickly added.

“We need to get back.”

A tide of creatures poured forth from the gate, evading the houses like water around stones. Their synchronised move quickly formed into a formation, wedged at the tip like an arrow. They were coming right where Ianc stood. Their bodies were lean and muscled, covered in coarse, grey fur with black stripes. Their faces were elongated into snarling muzzles, sharp fangs; and their eyes glowed with hunger for an early grave.

“Run,” Rahorh yelled. He turned around fast and whipped his horse in panic. His horse reared, throwing him off the ground, then sprinted away.

Ianc did the same but Chad was unresponsive as if it was stunned by the Selenai’s howls. He fought harder for control, but the destrier remained stoic. The wolf-like creature lunged at him. He ducked. Claws scored three burning lines across his back. His screams died when he hit the ground with a thud. Chad sprinted away. His teeth jarred, blinding white flashes flickered before his good eye while his left socket sent throbbing pain to his head. He groaned and rolled to the side, towards Rahorh. Black clouds poured from the rhys tattoos, shadowing them both in an onyx bubble.

Ianc’s right eye, his flickering window to the world, registered something unnatural. A group of Selenais had formed a circle around the pair while the rest kept flooding the battlefield. An orange beast crawled forward, baring its fangs. Then it stood on two legs, its claws grinded against Rahorh’s spell with the sickening sound of metal scraping against metal. That being showed, but Ianc saw a kind of harmony in nature of magic with his other eye. The beast tilted its head and patrolled around before finally sitting down. “Surrender and you both live,” it said in guttural voice.

Ianc clawed to his feet. He was separated from the main army, but at least Chad managed to escape.

Rahorh’s voice was a gritted stone. “I could shield us both till help arrives.”

“No you can’t,” Ianc said. “But at least we can take a few with us.” He saw the Selenai’s claws changed. Before, it was glinting with elements like metal, but now, something more familiar poured out. Fire. Solfire. These beasts were blessed with the false flame like the people of Havenstead. He looked over his shoulder, where the thick of the werebeasts army charged at the hastily formed templar’s line. They had no fear of the swords and spears that pierced through their flesh. They kept coming, eyes vacant, jaws agape in silent snarls.

They fight like they’re already dead, Ianc thought. A chilling realization settled in his gut. That’s not courage. That’s damnation. “Funny the Herald of the Inquisition dies in the very first skirmish,” Ianc said.

“It’s called irony,” Rahorh said.

But the orange beast licked its paws. It offered life. “Lady Carrion doesn’t wish for your death.”

Ianc shuddered at the word. Unbeknownst to Rahorh, Carrion was Mirari’s middle name. “Drop the shield, rhys,” he said. Before the rhys could protest, he let his weapons clattered on the ground. “My friend lives or I’ll kill myself.”

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“We cannot risk another outbreak. We cannot linger. We cannot divide our force to escort them to Lys Royeaux, nor can we spare guards to stay.” Clementine spoke as if fighting the logic of her own dark thoughts.

Abby stood with her arms crossed, her gaze sweeping the hall, giving nothing away.

“You can’t be considering killing them all, can you?” Ianc stepped up, facing the iron maiden in the flesh. “March them with us. They can provide… more Ishchoir.”

Campa sided with Ianc. “He’s right. We don’t know how long the siege will last. Let them patrol the perimeter so we can sleep.”

Cley closed her eyes. Ianc couldn’t tell if she was weighing the matter or praying for guidance. The moment held long, backgrounded by the wailing sob inside the hall. She opened her eyes, sparkled with determination as always. “We’ll march them with us, Herald. Mercy becomes you.”

It was decided. For the first time, his will had carried weight. “Thank you, Cley.”

She nodded. “Rahorh wants his tent back. You’ll bunk with Campa tonight.”

Ianc caught Abby’s eye and tilted his head toward the tree line. They moved into the deeper shadow of an oak, the only light from distant campfires. “You seemed ready to kill them all. And why is Rahorh avoiding me?”

She simply stretched, rolling her shoulders. “Which answer do you want first?”

Ianc felt the fight’s tension still coiled in his own muscles. He flexed his hands, mirroring her ease. “Your silence. What did it mean?”

“I know my sister. She won’t commit a massacre out of fear or inconveniences.”

Ianc stopped suddenly and grabbed her shoulders. “I didn’t mean that. I saw your eyes. They were too calm as if you paid no thought at all.”

She leaned forward. Their lips met. All words, all thought, fled Ianc’s mind. He returned the kiss slowly, afraid to shatter the fragile comfort. When he finally pulled away, breathless, he managed, “You still didn’t answer.”

She showed no irritation, only a smile. “A spellweaver’s mind must be still as pond water. That is why Rahorh must regain his space.” Her fingers traced the scar by his eyepatch. “I want to kiss you again. Don’t pull away until I’m done.”

Ianc didn’t object. Good things didn’t come easy and he knew better to not let it pass.

Dawn clawed its way across the plains. A cold wind whipped the frost-crusted grass like a flail. The Iron Maiden’s column stretched to the horizon, banners snapping—crimson and gold, emblazoned with Sol’s eye. Hooves thundered, a relentless drumbeat that shook the earth. Mournful horns blared, their notes sharp as grief. Behind them, nearly two hundred survivors of Havenstead trailed, their steps heavy, faces gaunt, their whispers swallowed by the wind. They carried no banners, only the weight of loss, their eyes fixed on the army like moths drawn to a dying flame.

Ianc rode at the column’s edge, his neckerchief snapping against the shaft he carried. On its top, the standard of the Herald—a gauntlet holding the sacred flame—gleamed under the new light. A scarecrow in armor, he thought, visible but hollow. The weight of it pressed against his ribs, not the steel armor but the lie. He couldn’t command a single templar in this army, not one of these stone-faced riders with their lances gleaming like icicles. Yet he could walk into Clementine’s tent, call her Cley, and she’d listen. It was odd, this power without power, a blade with no edge. He leaned forward in the saddle, the wind biting his face. He vowed to be their holy shadow, a man with hidden knives. Let them see the Herald they wanted. Let them miss the man beneath.

The army marched on, a river of steel and faith carving through the plains. The rhythm of hooves and the creak of armor merged with a low, resonant hum. A hymn rising from the ranks. Not a war chant, but a prayer, ancient and unyielding. Its verses were woven with the Church’s doctrine and the fabricated history of Sahada. Templars shared it through the hymn, their voices rough but fervent, each note a thread tying them to a past they’d sworn to defend.

Ianc listened, his infravision catching glints of heat from the singers’ breaths, like embers in the dawn. The hymn bled from their lips like confession.

Sol’s Mercy
Sol, tearing dawn—
Let us feel the warmth of his love,
Though we tread the winding path,
Where fleeting doubts coil in the dark cloud above.
The palm has two sides.
Exposed to him, the darker stains,
Yet we hide in the whiter light,
As if purity could mask our chains.
Faith is no trifle,
He knows the weight of every tear,
Feels the tremor of our breath,
See the Inner sanctum we hold dear.
Deserve him, we dare not name.
Still, he cleaves the night with his flame—
His tenderness, a callous dawn,
To scour the dark from which we came.
No more shall we drown.
For Sol has spoken,
Kneel! Then raise unbound.

This was the true face of the Inquisition. Not a pilgrimage, but a crusade. The hymn worked on the Suledins. They cooked, carried, sang along softly, their eyes darting to the templars for a sign, for permission to believe. The hymn swelled, and for a moment, the plains felt less empty, the cold less cruel. But Ianc’s hand lingered near his darts, the weight of Havenstead’s ash still heavy in his chest. He still needed an answer from Rahorh and the itch of confronting the avoidance rhys had only grown when un-scratched.

The ranks parted for Clementine deMolay. Her armor gleamed, the iron maiden’s greatsword slung across her back. They had reached the rendezvous point, a flat expanse of dirt and stone where the wind howled louder, as if protesting their presence. She gestured him to her side. Her voice was low, cutting through the clamor. “My tent. After supper.” Her eyes never left the horizon. “They will be here soon.”

Ianc kept his questions unasked and returned to the mundane tasks. He couldn’t find Rahorh as the army built up a garrison so he just practiced again under the shade. Abby brought him food and they shared a brief moment watching the sun go down over the hill. He didn’t press more questions, just letting the space filled with the sweet uncertainty of a blooming romance. She also didn’t press for a secure admission of a relationship. “I’m still on a mission to watch your every move,” she said suddenly, bringing a faint smell of lilies.

“I don’t know what to call this,” Ianc said. “Sleeping with the suspect? We haven’t done that.”

“Dancing with the wolves,” she whispered. Her low voice carried a rasp edge with a languid cadence, like a well-worn silk that Ianc was so inclined to listen to more.

“Wolves?” he barked.

“In Lys Royeaux, every Magister house is a wolf pack. The Hallow Church is a lion’s den.” She moved away from his arm. “Nothing survives alone there. Not even vultures and hyenas. You need a pack, or they will tear you piece by piece.”

“The Iron Maiden is my pack,” he said. He didn’t know why he said that, but they said the quickest response showed the truest feeling.

Abby smiled then kissed his forehead. “Go. Don’t keep my sister on edge. This Inquisition has only just begun.”

He almost protested but movement from afar drew his attention. An army crested a hill in the north with a forest of torches revealing its size, almost double the Iron Maiden company in numbers. He couldn’t make out their banner in the dark. Horns rang out, their notes falling across the plains below like a canvas of frost and shadow. A second force emerged from the east, a little more than seven hundred strong. Their armor heavier, their formation tighter, a disciplined tide of steel. The garrison flared up with hundreds of torches, blazing the entire delta.

Ianc found Clementine pacing before her tent. “You look tense,” he said. “You’re always tense. But this is… new.” He realized he was getting bolder in talking to the iron maiden.

Her jaw tightened. “Augustus Angelnet! They sent that swine to humiliate me.” She caught herself, her voice having risen and drawn too much attention. Swallowing embarrassment, she drew herself up. “Inside. Now.”

As they entered her command tent, Ianc asked immediately. “Who’s this Augustus?”

“A snake. A chameleon,” she snapped.

Ianc threw up his hands. This Augustus really drugged under her skin. He wondered what their grudges were about. “Who’s leading the other force?”

“An Ardrhys, and a Magus. His banner said it all.” Cley slammed the table. “And he will take charge of the Inquisition. I’m sorry Ianc, this changes everything. I can’t shield you anymore.”

His eyes narrowed. Personal feud was just an act, losing command was the real reason for her wrath. “Thank you. I’m always a prisoner. The Church will wring me dry. You gave me a little dignity. I won’t forget it.” He tapped her hand twice.

“If my father were here,” she sighed, “even the Hierophant would tread lightly.”

Ianc nodded but couldn’t say what’s in his mind for she had proven herself beyond his own discrimination judgement. “What about Gerald?” he asked. “Your fiancé. You never mention him.” He regretted it instantly under her stare.

“An arranged marriage to secure the Magisters alliance.” Her voice was flat. “I’ve never met him. Even a Sacrosanct is a bargaining chip.”

Ianc’s mind churned. Even with the spark of divinity with a strong family name, she’s still a currency. Her strength was unquestionable, but she was still a piece on the board, moved by hands heavier than her own. He dropped his eye to his own hand. He was the same. He played the game. He’d arranged Mirara’s marriage for his own gain. He saw it now, the frustration his sister felt, the confusion it brought to her fragile mind, the betrayal he had done to her trust—through Clementine. He wondered how long the iron maiden could endure it before her lance turned inward, or outward. “At least you have us.”

“Indeed,” she sighed. “Listen. Augustus collects lies like coins, then wager them on your downfall. Don’t speak a word to the Ardrhys. Feed them nothing.”

Two parties of riders stopped before Cley’s tent. Two distinct persons appeared right into sight. A fat, oily man with exquisite decorative silk dress got off his horse with two templars clawing on the ground to serve as the stair for his descent. He glanced around as if looking for someone before finally stared at Clementine when he stood directly opposite her. A smile crest on his plum face.

The other was a grey man who wore simple rhys habits. He was pale as bone, thin as a reed, and cold as stone. He brought more icy calculus of a bureaucrat than warmth fitting his title. His eyes were sharp and gray, sweeping over the Inquisition’s ranks, then lingered on Rahorh with a flicker of disdain. “My coadjutor.” He spoke in a very slow manner. “I sensed your confusion in the magic’s disturbance. You dabble in the old ways again. Do you confess?”

Rahorh knelt on one knee. “Counselor, my apology for a moment of weakness. The situation requires me to use Umbrite’s trick.” His jaw clenched, his eyes fixed on the Pontiff’s boots like a man reading his own epitaph. He never glanced toward Ianc.

“Leave the field to fire and faith. Return to your ink and vellum.” Ike looked down from his horse.

“Your advice carves deep into my heart, counselor,” Rahorh said, bowing.

The Ardrhys’ smile was thin and sharp. He turned his horse around. His gaze brushed over Ianc like winter fog, dense and impersonal, even dismissive, as if he were a shadow cast by better men. “Greetings. Herald of the Sacred Light.”

“Ianc. A woodman.” He stared at the Ardrhys defiantly. He didn’t like the way he talked down to Rahorh.

“Ike, Magus of house leGuay, Ardrhys of the Hallow Church, acting Pontiff of this Inquisition.” His eyes held a glint, like he’d peeled back Ianc’s secret in a single glance. “We shall share bread and salt, Myr, for our houses were allies once.”

Ianc was speechless. Ike had already traced his background to the root. What had he found out but didn’t make public? A stable boy with a burrowed name; a man with power that wasn’t true; a tool that was about to lose its function. The Hallow Church only sent a man, but its shadow was felt deep in Ianc’s heart a thousand miles away. How will I survive the Sage’s Mantle test? He managed a stiff bow but his fingers were nudging Clementine for help. “Pontiff leGuay.”

“Your reverence,” Cley said. “May I see the official degree?”

Ike slightly cocked his brow. “Long time no see, little Clementine.” He beckoned Augustus to his side. “Your action in Camelford didn’t bode well with your fame.”

Augustus presented a vellum sealed by red threads. “I would have you whipped for disobedience.” His voice was a weird mix of high pitch and low grow.

“Try and see your tongue parts from your mouth, you muppet.” Cley smeared. She read the content fast and bowed to the Pontiff.

Ike snapped his fingers. “Enough squabbles. Your company will lead the vanguard, iron maiden.” With that, he spent just a second looking at Ianc before riding back to his column.

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“Then Campa will assume you’re dead. Or a puppet.” Rahorh’s gaze sharpened. “These people reek of deceit. Too confident by half.”

Ianc’s eye stayed fixed on a distant shrine, newly lit and half-hidden in the corn. He addressed the smiling sister. “Where are your templars? They should be patrolling.”

“We don’t need them to. Our place is perfectly safe.” The rhys answered instead.

Rahorh glanced and Ianc could translate it as, stay on edge. “With all of these plagues occurring, you sound overconfident of your safety.”

The rhys turned slightly. “I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Karlsen, Ardrhys and acting Magister of Havenstead. This is Lyra and her niece, Poly.”

“What happened to your Magister?” Ianc asked. His fingers already grabbed the dart’s handle.

“He passed away recently,” Karlsen said, his calmness was unnerving. “Solfire is not just for the chosen. The time of hoarding light is over. Let the river flood the fields.”

Rahorh went still. “That’s not the doctrine.”

“Not yet,” Karlsen said calmly. “But miracles happen in dire times.” With that, they traveled without any more words exchanged.

Ianc steered close to his fellow rhys. His infravision caught glimpses of heat in the far cornfield again. Fleeting red dots scattered like spooked birds, then swirled back into a single, pulsing globe of heat. He stared at it, waiting for another loop. But it didn’t happen.

As they approached the feast hall on the left side of the village, he lost sight of the magical disturbance. A boy, around ten, waved at them on his porch. He mouthed words Ianc couldn’t catch. Then a woman emerged from the dark doorway and placed her hands on the boy’s shoulders. She offered Ianc the same thin smile as the sister.

He guided his horse closer. “Hello.” He let the silence hang before continuing. “Ianc Myr. Herald of the Inquisition.” He let the title land with its full, heavy weight.

The woman bowed, but her eyes only left sight of him for a fraction of a second. “My blessing, Herald. I’m Helen, the boy’s Ciaran.” Her voice was not shaking.

“Well met.” Ianc’s eye held hers. “The village is quiet. After harvest, there should be a feast. Where is everyone?”

“They have gathered in the cornfield, where the big rocks are.”

“And why are you not?”

The woman stepped forward and lit the lantern on the porch. “My husband, Kieran, is a templar, and he is fighting undead in the frontier. I would never attend any kind of festival and regret it later.” She was a fine woman with plum features and blond, curly hair.

Ianc nodded, secretly admired Kieran for his choice of life partner. “Well met, lady Helen. I’ll be on my way.”

“Cornfield danger.” The word seemed to form without her lips moving, a ghost of sound on the still air.

Ianc said nothing back, just a brief lingering glance at Helen. He nodded at the boy then rejoined Rahorh. Karlsen and the revered mothers didn’t seem to notice but Ianc knew that they were trying to read his reaction.

The air inside the feast hall hung dead still, as if the air held its breath. Shadows clung to the corners, undisturbed by the faint draft that should have stirred the tapestries along the stone walls. Rows of candles stood unlit in their polished silver holders, their wicks pristine, expectant. Platters of bread and salt, symbols of hospitality, sat untouched on the long oak table, their surfaces dusted with the faintest sheen of neglect. Wooden benches flanked the table’s length, their surfaces worn smooth by years of gatherings, now empty—silent as execution blocks awaiting their condemned. The place felt like a tomb and stillness was just a prelude.

Ianc stepped through the threshold first, his boots whispering against the cold flagstones. His hand hovered near the darts concealed beneath his cloak, fingers twitching with the instinct of a man who’d learned to trust silence less than noise. Rahorh followed, his posture deceptively relaxed, but his eyes darted across the room, scanning every shadow, every glint of metal. The air seemed to thicken around them, charged with the weight of unspoken threats.

At the far end of the hall, the Ardrhys—Karlsen—moved with a predator’s grace, his robes gliding over the floor like liquid shadow. He stopped before the high table, his silhouette framed against the towering stained-glass window depicting Sol’s radiant ascent. “Let us share in Sol’s light,” he intoned, his voice smooth as oil, resonant with a quiet command. With a flick of his fingers, flames exploded from wick to wick. Each candle ignited in perfect symmetry. Light burst across the hall, sharp and unrelenting.

Too bright—blinding, like the sun itself had been dragged into the room.

Rahorh cried out a raw, guttural sound. Li—!” He stumbled back, his shoulder cracking against a bench.

Karlsen whirled. His movements were serpent fast. Palms lashed out, Light gathered at his palm, coalesced into a pulsing knot of white-hot energy. The spell cracked through the air like a whip, a jagged arc of radiant energy that took Rahorh square in the chest. He flew backward, slamming into the wall, bouncing on the bench with a sickening crunch. Wood splintered, shards scattering across the floor like broken bones. Rahorh slumped, dazed, his breath ragged, his eyes unfocused.

Ianc was already moving. His muscles coiled, senses screaming. His hand snapped forward. A dart flew, its tip molten. It grazed Karlsen’s forearm, slicing cloth and flesh with a sizzle. A second dart followed, burying itself deep in Karlsen’s hip. He snarled, a sound more beast than man, and staggered, his balance faltering as pain rippled through him.

Ianc didn’t pause. He surged forward, low and relentless, his shoulder driving into Rahorh’s side. With a swift kick, he shoved his partner behind the cover of a toppled bench, shielding him from whatever came next. The air vibrated with the aftershock of Karlsen’s spell, the scent of scorched wood and death-sear was sharp in his nostrils.

Lyra and Poly descended like twin vipers, their movements synchronized, a deadly dance born of desperation and devotion. The elder clutched a kitchen knife, its blade worn but wickedly sharp, held aloft like a sacred relic. Her eyes burned with a mother’s fury, her lips set in a grim line. Poly, younger, wilder, bared her teeth, her voice low as she muttered a prayer that crackled with unnatural heat. Her palms glowed amber, a crude mimicry of Solfire, the air around her hands shimmering as the flame burned the air.

Ianc ducked under Lyra’s slashing strike, felt it whistle past his ear. He countered with brutal efficiency, driving his elbow into her throat. She gagged, her body folding as she staggered back, clutching at her neck.

Poly lunged, her glowing hands outstretched. He sidestepped, the heat from them scorching black lines across his sleeve. Seizing her wrist, he twisted hard, bending her arm into an unnatural angle. His palm slammed into her ribs with more force than he intended, and she crumpled, breathless, her eyes wide with shock.

Lyra’s scream tore the air—and cut off as Rahorh’s spell hit her. Flame raced over her clothes. She screamed again, launching herself at Ianc. He pivoted, his heels driving into her gut with a dull thud. As she doubled over, he struck the side of her head with his forearm, a precise blow that sent her sprawling to the floor beside her niece. Both women caught flame, their breaths screeching the entire hall, their defiance extinguished.

Ianc stood over them, his chest heaving but his stance steady, his eyes cold as steel. The hall was silent again with only the dying groan of the pyre on the ground and the faint crackle of the candles on the wall.

Behind him, Rahorh stirred, dragging himself from the wreckage of the bench. He wiped a trickle of blood from his split lip, his voice hoarse but laced with grim humor. “You should give a better signal,” he muttered.

Ianc’s gaze didn’t waver from the far end of the hall. “We’re not done.”

He turned toward the rear exit, where the Ardrhys had escaped through a narrow window framed learning to the cornfield beyond. In the flickering candlelight, the stalks glowed an unnatural red, pulsing like a heartbeat, alive with something malevolent. The sight sent a shiver down his spine, a warning that whatever waited out there was no mere superstition.

“Let’s go,” he said, raising the bone whistle to his lips. A single, piercing note tore through the hall, sharp enough to rattle the glass in the windows. He blew it twice as agreed with Campa then doubled back to the village and found Helen. Her slight frame was half-hidden in the shadows again. Ciaran clung to her side, his small face pale, his eyes wide with fear.

Run to the Iron Maiden’s camp. Find Clementine. Tell her everything.” His voice was low and sharp like a blade to cut through fear. “Now.”

She tightened her grip on Ciaran’s hand, then vanished into the darkness beyond the doorway, her footsteps fading into the night.

Ianc shifted his attention to Rahorh, still wiping blood from his chin. “You good?”

Rahorh grimaced, testing his weight on his injured side. “We’ll have to walk. Bloody horses ran away.”

“Then we walk. Can’t let them finish whatever is brewing in the cornfield.” He felt it now, the power of the Necromancy orb loomed true. Its presence pulsed faintly, but gradually increased, like a beast awakening.

“No. We should wait for reinforcement,” Rahorh protested.

Ianc nodded. “We could, but it might be too late. The orb could have turned them all to undead.” He grabbed Rahorh’s hand. “I don’t want to see another Camelford.”

The high corn parted reluctantly as they crept forward. Its dry stalks rasping against their cloaks like a chorus of restless spirits. Boots crunched on packed dirt, the sound muted by an oppressive, windless hush that seemed to press down from the starless sky. The air carried the damp weight of turned earth, laced with a faint metallic bite—like blood or rusted steel left to rot. Ianc’s breath clouded briefly before him, each exhale swallowed by the night. In his vision, a molten point pulsed—a second heartbeat only his cursed eye could trace, tugging him onward through the maze of shadows.

The corn gave way to a clearing trampled flat. A couple hundred villagers stood gathered around a raised platform of six boulders. A Sacrosanct was bound to each. Templars of Havenstead, they seemed. Their armor was dulled with rust, pocked and peeled as though devoured by time. Thornvines burrowed into their limbs, their chest, their neck. They dripped not just blood, but Bloodfire—golden strands shimmering like molten arteries. A grotesque sacrificial altar. Rahorh’s breath hitched. “Ashenvines. How did they even get that cursed thing?”

In the middle stood a hooded rhys, next to him was an anvil forged of many Ishchoir. The once sacred light now inverted and contorted into a blasphemous color of muted green that seemed to squirm in the dim light. Encircling them were brass rods thrusted deep into the earth, latticed with glossy black grease. The Magister of Havenstead, judging by his clothes in a ragged stage, stirred on a boulder. “He’s not… Rhys. This… no Sol.” He roared, but his voice was weak and raspy.

The templars next to him seemed to hear the beacon of their last hope, also stirred, struggling in vain. Rahorh whispered, “This is… no. It couldn’t be.”

A hooded figure emerged on the raised platform. His silhouette sharp against the sickly glow. He spread his arms wide like a dark prophet commanding the night. “Behold the flame denied to you!” His voice cut through the silence, clear and venomous. “No templar will chain you! No Church will bar your way! Solfire belongs to the people! Let the river flood!”

He pivoted, hands tracing patterns in the air as he began to chant—a braided spell, ancient and warped. Its cadence twisting the very fabric of the dark and the people started to repeat after him. Rahorh stiffened beside Ianc, his breath catching in a hiss of recognition.

The ritual erupted.

The Ishchoir blazed into a unified circuit, their lattice igniting in a spiraling helix of light. The energy surged into the anvil, and the Bloodfire it consumed flared red-orange, growing brighter, more unnatural, until it seared the eyes. Then, at its core, a spark kindled, then bloomed.

A new orb of magic took form.

Unlike the white sphere of Camelford. This one shimmered with radiance, pulsing in hues of orange and molten gold, replicating the very sun that just left the day. Rahorh recoiled, his whisper was barely audible over the hum of the people. “M-my creation…”

From the gathered throng, a woman stepped forward. A Suledin given her dark color fabric, her face carved with the deep lines of wind and labor, giving her brown skin and uneven walk. She hesitated, her gaze locked on the orb, trembling yet resolute. “Will it hurt?” Her voice was a fragile thread, nearly lost in the murmur of the crowd.

“Only briefly,” the zealot Rhys replied, his tone dripping with false warmth, a shepherd luring a lamb. “Then, you will breathe fire.”

She nodded, a desperate smile on her lips, and stepped forward into the light.

The orb flared a searing burst. A tendril of liquid fire lashed out, piercing her chest, then her entire body. Her scream ripped through the clearing, but she did not fall. She staggered upright, her body trembling as molten light traced her veins, a glowing web that spread from her feet to the crown of her skull. Her gasp was sharp, pain first then relief. A gout of flame erupted from her mouth, an Emberspit that roared across the clearing and reduced a fallen log to smoldering ash in an instant.

The crowd drew a collective breath. Then it erupted.

“I want it!”

“Bless me your Holiness!”

“Let Sol flow through me too!”

Three villagers shoved forward, their faces alight with desperation and greed, hands clawing toward the Orb as if it were salvation itself. The zealot’s smile widened, his arms spreading in a parody of grace.

Behind him, the orb shuddered.

Its tendrils struck again, too swift, too many. Four spears of light lashed out, one punctured a man’s throat; another pierced a woman’s eye; and a third caught a girl mid-prayer; silencing her plea in a heartbeat. Their bodies jerked violently, limbs thrashing as though puppeted by unseen strings, then crumpled to the earth.

When they rose, their eyes flickered green for a brief moment. Their skin turned ashen, flaking like burnt parchment. Their mouths gaped, hollow and slack, and their eyes—once alive with hope—were opaque white. The Emberspit they exhaled twisted into acrid smoke, curling upward like the breath of the damned. Undead.

The cheers died, replaced by a silence so heavy it seemed to crush the air from the clearing.

The rhys who escaped appeared next to the zealot. “Brethrens of the new dawn! He corrupted the ritual.” He pointed at the Ianc. “The Inquisition is upon us. Fight! Kill them if you want to live.”

The villagers turned towards Ianc. Their eyes were flaming with anger.

For a moment, the world held its breath. Then the screams were deafening.

Ianc moved without thought, dragging Rahorh with him. “Run!”

He ducked beneath a searing tendril, just pure luck. The heat blistered the air above him. He rolled into a mass of corntree, almost entangled by it. Rahorh crouched next to him, casting several Ishchoir on the ground before them. A sigil flared on his palm, “Varathas!” He threw it out like feeding chicken. A wall of flame roared up from the stones, cutting them off from the mob. The people fell back, eyes wide with shock and rage. Behind them, shadows flashed to either side of the firewall.

Ianc plunged back to his feet. “Told him I need a fucking sword,” he gritted through his teeth. The mace could bash one person and he would be swarmed. At least with a sword, he could swing for a while. A tendril flew in and Ianc had no response but tossed his last weapon on it. It bounced against the magic, then a black cloud shot from Rahorh’s sleeves. Red lighting flickered as the cloud engulfed the orb’s magical tendril.

The magic collided as blast mid-air, throwing everyone down. Ianc swirled around hard, clutching Rahorh with him. “Run!”

They left the cornfield and the Sacrosanct of Havenstead behind. The cornstalks lashed at his face as he ran, their edges sharp and unforgiving, the uneven ground threatening to trip him with every stride. His lungs burned, but he pushed on, driven by the weight of his recklessness and the will to survive.

Hearing no footsteps chasing him anymore, he turned around again. Smoke billowed in thick, choking waves, carrying the stench of charred flesh and molten metal. Screams rose and fell, some distant, some so close they clawed at his ears. Above the now tiny altar, the Templars still dangled, their delirious whispers mingling with the hum of the Ishchoir. Each one glowing brighter, feeding the orb’s insatiable hunger.

A horn blast shattered the night. Three piercing notes that rolled down from the hills like a judgment. The Iron Maiden’s company stormed from the treeline in waves of steel and vengeance. Campa led the charge, his shield a battering ram that smashed through whoever entered his path. Clementine followed, her lance streaming Solfire like a comet’s tail, cutting a blazing path through the dark. Abby rode at her flank, her spear flashing in the firelight, and behind them surged columns of templars in lockstep—a righteous tempest descending upon the field. They offered no mercy.

“There are innocent people in there!” Ianc yelled, but his voice was lost in the din.

The Suledins fell down like wheat before a scythe. Some crumpled without resistance, their minds surrendered to the void, or hopelessness of fleeting power. The zealot rhys here had tricked them. He raised a trembling hand to cast, but Abby’s spear found his chest first, pinning him to the earth. Clementine leapt from her mount before the Undead, her sword igniting with the brilliance of dawnlight distilled. With a single fluid strike, she cleaved through them. The undead let out a collective shriek before collapsing into lifeless heaps.

Only the hooded culprit remained. He knelt at the clearing’s heart, still as stone, his head bowed as if in reverence. Ianc edged closer. The zealot lifted his head. His face was a void—no features, only twin flames of green fire blazing in the sockets. Rahorh hissed, “He’s possessed by a lich.”

The flames curled upward, spiraling like smoke from a dying ember, then vanished. The body slumped forward, abandoned.

Ianc’s heart thudded. “It can wear people,” he muttered, the truth settling in his gut like a cold stone. He turned to the orb. Its light now a faint, twitching pulse. But the silence that followed was not peace. Around the clearing, survivors huddled, their whispers threading through the air like tendrils of their own.

“He gave us a holy flame…”

“Why did it burn us?”

“But it worked… didn’t it?”

Ianc shut his eye, the weight of their words settling in his chest like ash. This was no triumph. It was a spark—buried, smoldering, waiting to ignite something far worse. Was this how I was made? If so… how many more will there be? He wondered and looked at Rahorh. He had the answer, and Ianc was ready to trade it. Quid pro quo.

Lost in thoughts, but his infravision caught a sight. A shadow slipping between tall grass at the clearing’s edge, not the Ardrhys of Havenstead but someone taller. Just before it vanished, it turned back. Two pinpricks of green flame swirling in its shadow. The slender man, the archlich, Mirari’s master. Ianc’s infravision burned with its presence. He sprinted forward, but in the space of a breath, the figure was gone. He clenched his fists to keep him from screaming, but the word only became louder in his mind. Mirari.

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As the sun descended over the hill, its light fanned into iridescent petals. From the crest of a rolling hill, a huge structure emerged amidst a verdant land. It was dark, heavy, studded with unlit windows—a hundred or more on each side, stacked four levels high.

“Welcome to my humble business,” Campa said with a sting of pride beneath his voice.

“Your family’s business. These inns were standing before your grandfather’s day,” Rahorh said.

Campa shook his head and said nothing more, then quickened his horse. He spat after twenty strides away from the rhys.

Ianc also shook his head. “Let the man have his moment.”

Rahorh smirked, then he chased after the oaf. “Hurry for the grave?”

As if proving the rhys terrible joke, the wind carried a faint char. Beneath it lingered something fouler, ancient like the smell of a blight. The inn was built on a graveyard, Ianc thought. He stared at the inn’s hexagon shape, then at the unnaturally dark earth. That was a mass burial ground, large enough for thousands. He passed a sign that read BD–VI 16753. The air shifted with a faint smell of the curling smoke from chimneys, even just a faint, he could tell they were making spice food to hide the history. Grilled pork and roast beef, Ianc licked his lips and quickened his horse.

The inn swelled as he approached, larger than he’d imagined. It looked like a barracks fused with a tavern. Beneath the metal frames, the golden hue of Ishchoir leaked out like starlight. Despite knowing nothing about magical construction, Ianc sensed the inn was a giant seal, or a giant tomb, that either kept the land prosper or warded it against black magic.

Stables and ranges sprawled from its sides, hosting around three hundred horses. The light was almost out, but Ianc could still trace the farmland of potatoes, tomatoes, carrots and radish. A very self-sufficient military base, he concluded.

As they reached the gate that said, Verhaltens Inn. Campa bellowed, “Welcome to my humble business.” This time he was staring at Rahorh as if another sarcastic word slipped through the rhys’ mouth would result in a brawl. “Take salt and bread and no harm shall come under my roof.” He pointed at the basket on the yard’s central fountain.

Cley led the pace, plate armor chafing after weeks of travel. “Hurry up, I need to take a bath.”

“Wait for me, sister!” Abby called after her, already gnawing her bread.

Ianc scanned the interior again. It changed into a mix between a prison and a fortress now, but something was missing—a chapel. Arron and Blake whizzed past him, seemingly in the same hurry as the rest. “Come on. Don’t just stand there? Real food awaits.”

“We will spend a few nights here,” Rahorh said. “This a rally point for the Iron Maiden company and the Inquisition. The survivors of Camelford went different roads, directly to Lys Royeaux.”

Ianc nodded and followed the rest. The bread was dry like the desert, which drew his eye to the water on the fountain. Then he saw the names carved in stones. Three Gravesoil martyrs, and thousands of Suledins, were killed to make the Hallow Church allow this kind of settlement being under the Magisters’ control. Autonomy had a price and it seemed not only the Myr craved for it, not only the Myr had paid for it. The question remained how long till the arms curled back to hit the head. The Crusade… wouldn’t that be a sight when it turned its tip towards Lys Royeaux.

He shook his head. That thought would get you killed, he told himself and turned his attention back to the warmth of the feast hall. The lingering cold on the road retreated to the void in a snap and his stomach bellowed before platters of bread and venison gleamed under lamplight. Shadows bent across old sigils barely visible on the stone walls. The hum of voices was low, polite, but laced with the edge of courtly games. He sat between Campa and Rahorh, his plate piled with bread and meat, the warmth of the hall easing the ache in his bones.

They ate in silence, just sharing glances between each swallow.

Blake and Aaron, across from him, were already deep in a game of knucklebones with two merchants, their laughter cutting through the murmurs. Blake’s fingers moved like a thief’s, a weighted dice appearing with a flick of his wrist. Aaron, less subtle, palmed a coin, his broad grin and constant chatter drawing all eyes away from his brother’s hands. Ianc caught the trick, he didn’t even need his sharpened vision to pick out the sleight-of-hand. He chewed the tough beef, watching. When Blake’s gaze met his, Ianc merely tapped a finger beside his own blind eye.

Blake grinned unashamedly and tossed the dice again. “Join us, Herald. Plenty of coins to win.”

“I’d rather keep my purse. You are in luck tonight.” In fact, he has no coin at all.

Aaron snorted, nudging the merchant beside him. “He’s just scared he can’t keep up.”

The merchants laughed, oblivious, their faces flushed with wine. Abby glanced at him, her eyes sharp with a question, but he shrugged, letting the moment slide. The Verhaltens code held them to peace, not honesty, and he had no stomach for stirring trouble over a few coins. Still, the air felt charged, every glance and word a subtle test.

The hall’s warmth wrapped around him; the hearth’s crackle blending with the clink of flagons and the soft scrape of knives on plates. A serving girl refilled his wine, her smile shy but genuine, and for a moment, he let himself relax. The Ishchoir in his pack gave a faint pulse, its half-filled grid a quiet reminder. Suledin prayers fueled his Solfire. He tore off another chicken maryland. Its crust was crisp and warm, and savored the butter’s richness. Blake told a story of a botched raid on an Undead nest, his voice rising and falling, drawing laughs from the table. Aaron clapped him on the shoulder, spilling wine, and even Abby’s lips twitched, her usual reserve softening.

The night shifted into deeper silence with the occasional clinks of servants cleaning up. Across the hall, Cley spoke with Campa, her posture relaxed, leaning over a pillar with a glass of wine in her hand. Ianc leaned back, his voice a low whisper near Aaron’s ear. “Why cheat merchants?”

“They are not usual merchants,” Aaron shot back, then lowered his voice. “They’re Angelnet merchants. Rich. We’re poor. A man needs candles for his twilight years.”

Ianc frowned. “Then how can they not see the trick?”

“What trick?”

“The dice are modified–”

“Sh! Don’t say it out loud.” Aaron almost put his hand on Ianc’s mouth. “How do you know?”

My infravision, Ianc thought, they don’t have it? He cleared his throat. “Just the way it bounces. Normal dice would give a five more than any numbers, and yours give a three just a sting more often.”

“You’re good with only one eye, woodman,” Blake said. “Have you ever played a card game?” He presented a deck of cards with ten different sets of pictures, each with three levels of bronze, silver, and gold.

Ianc shook his head.

“This is called face-off. You win by…”

After hearing the briefest tutorial, Ianc shrugged. “I’d love to play but you see, I’m a Herald with no currency.”

“We’re still playing, woodman. Loser got to drink with less Ishchoir in their pocket .”

It wasn’t until mid-day that Ianc could pry his eye open. It felt like breaking a scab over a wound in his skull. He groaned and swore not to ever drink again, or play with the twin, or both. He couldn’t think straight now but it was best to take a bath, or a walk, or whatever to help him forget this hideous headache that was hammering his skull.

The stables bustled with activity as the Sacrosanct prepared to depart, their tired horses traded for fresh ones from the Inn’s stock. The act was mundane and necessary, a shedding of weariness for the trials ahead, but to Ianc, it felt like a promise of harder roads to come. He had forgotten almost all of his past stable boy life, but he remembered how magnificent a destrier compared to a farm horse. Before him stood a destrier, its coat a deep, gleaming chestnut. It weighed close to two hundred stones and stood over eighteen hands.

“That one is old, a bit fat from stud duty,” Campa said. “But he’d like a proper fight before the end.”

Ianc felt its fur with his palm, admiring the exquisite care of the Inn for its hygiene. “Does it have a name?”

“Chad, the one and only,” Campa chuckled and handed Ianc the reins. “Go on, take it for a ride.”

Ianc stood side by side with the destrier’s head, letting it see him. It snorted, urging him to get on its back. The moment Ianc found the saddle, Chad burst into a canter, then a full sprint. The horse allowed no adjustment, as if starved for a run. If it wasn’t for the second bar enhancing his body, he would be thrown off into the ground. He leaned his entire body down, arms embracing the destrier’s torso but it didn’t seem to calm down a bit. As he began to think that Campa had pranked him, Chad slowed down, accepting its new rider.

By the time he was back on the stable, Cley was there, waiting with her arms crossed. “I felt it.” Her voice lowered. “Be careful. The Church watches those who burn too bright, too fast.”

“So the horse is another test?” Ianc spat, dismounting. He crossed his arms, mirroring her stance.

Cley shrugged. “I felt your power but waited for you to open up about it.”

“What about it?”

“We march tomorrow. I need to know if it’s safe to keep you within my company.” She measured him. “Your growth is unnatural. I think you consumed the orb in Camelford.”

Ianc dropped his eye on the grass, absentmindedly nodded. “If you are right. Then what am I?”

“Hard to tell until we reached Lys Royeaux, but you understand my concern, right?”

Ianc nodded again, this time his eye met hers. “Thanks again for your honesty. I think I’ll just sleep alone tonight? Or maybe with you so you can keep an eye on me?”

Cley smiled, almost laughed out loud. “I’m betrothed, remember? Besides, Abby seems to like you more than she let out.”

“Perfect. Let me find her and propose my offer.”

Cley grabbed his arm. Her gaze was suddenly intense and piercing into his inner sanctum. “Break her heart and I’ll break your frail limbs.”

“Alright, my lady. Mention of that. I’m Sacrosanct now, why am I still three stones skinny compared to Campa?” Ianc asked.

Cley stepped back, shaking her head. “You will get there. And why don’t you use Bloodfire to burn the reek of wine in your breath? Discipline yourself, drunkard.”

I can do that? “Nobody told me I could do that!”

Cley broke eye contact altogether and stared at the grass. “Take a bath or whatever. I’m done here.” Then she strolled away purposefully.

The fields turned brittle as the Iron Maiden, a full company of five hundreds, moved past the last of the pine ridges. Under a dimming sky ahead, a large village lay shrouded in stillness. It was quiet in a way that wasn’t peace but imposed harmony. Neatly arranged hamlets, twenty sets of them clustered in tidy blocks of cottages sagged under years of harsh weathered, thatch roofs curling at the edges like dried leaves, and fences leaned like broken ribs. Wooden chimneys puffed orderly trails of smoke, and rows of lanterns flickered to life as if on cue. Chickens pecked inside perfect coops. Not a single dog barked. Not a single child cried. Even the scarecrows felt wrong, six of them had heat signatures in their chest.

The army made camp in the field just outside. Tents sprang up in neat rows. Signalsmen raised the Inquisition banner above the knoll, while clerics circled the camp’s perimeter, pressing blessed ash into the grass. Campa finished securing the horse lines and tossed Ianc a nod. “This palace is blessed amidst the plague, it seems. I think it’s called Havenstead, owed to the leGuay magister house.”

“Doesn’t really matter, we resupply and keep going,” Rahorh said.

Ianc shrugged, not really paying attention since he felt odd, almost suspicious at this village’s layout. “Guess we still need to pay them an official visit, right?”

“Yup, we go now. They saw us and I saw a rhys riding out,” Campa said. “He better bring the Ishchoir vault with him.”

“Strange,” Rahorh muttered. “The harvest is weeks early. And where is the coppice? I see no ash piles.”

As the trio descended a slope, a rhys in rusted gold robe emerged from the lower end. He wore the usual spade hooded robe, and behind him were another two riders in grey robes of the Quaeso Chapel. They seemed to avoid Campa’s gaze, but Ianc could see they were scanning the camp’s defense. As they lined the walkways and dismounted, the rhys took off his hood, revealing a middle aged man with a grey beard and short hair, quite muscular and confident. “May Light return with us soon,” the man said, just as the sun’s last light vanished.

“May Light guide us through darkness,” Rahorh replied.

The two smaller riders also took off their hoods. Two revered sisters dressed in bone-white gowns with yellow embroidery habits. One presented a tray of salt and bread. “Please share with us.” Her hands were even whiter than the bread, and her skin was smoother than even a Sacrosanct.

“We are not going into your territory,” Rahorh said. “But I need to collect all the Ishchoir from the prefecture. Inquisition business. Here’s the decree.”

“The warmth of Sol is strong in you,” the other sister said to Ianc. Her smile was wide, but didn’t reach her eyes. “Will you dine with us for the night, just you, and the officers?”

Ianc narrowed his eye. Something tugged inside him, faint at first, like static in the blood. His heartbeat faltered, then settled into a heavy, loud rhythm in his ears. “No, we are good. No need to disrupt the peace of good people.”

“Then who will carry the stones?” the rhys asked. “We have three chests.”

“We will,” Ianc said. He shouldered Campa aside. “He stays. Lead on.”

As the village’s trio turned around on their horses, Ianc whispered to Campa. “I sense the Necromancy orb here, alert the iron maiden.” As he said its name, his inner sanctum sensed its presence.

“You what? Then why do you go with them?” Campa whispered back.

“Can’t risk them knowing that we know.”

Campa’s jaw tightened. He slipped a carved bone whistle from his belt and pressed it into Ianc’s hand. “Take this. One blow if you confirm. Two if you’re caught.”

Ianc took it without a word. Shadow comes after welcome.

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Rahorh had warned of the physical pain, but not of the war within, not the excruciation of rebuilding his flesh from marrow outward. First, a tension locked his body, as if he’d held his breath too long. Threads of Bloodfire plunged through him, not sharp pain, but a deep, cellular burn. He shuddered, muscles trembling like over-tuned bowstring, spitting bile that tasted of rust and regret. This was the purification, a scouring years of consuming Suledin food from his flesh, returning him to a purer form. A reborn husk, better suited to host the divine Spark.

He opened his eye as the tense lessened. He retched up another gush of tarry sludge. Then his eyes flared, both of them. The eternal blackness on his left was replaced by blurry swaths of blue and a single, sharp red. He closed his good eye, still in doubt. A blur of fractured blue filled his blind eye. Jagged shadows cut with a single red spark. He opened his good eye to compare. The candle flame, the heat, had become red and the blue were objects inside the tent. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Yeah, my tent smells like shit.” Rahorh entered, left a comment, then backed away without a single moment wasted. “Go. Campa waits,” He said behind the canvas.

“I don’t need to clean this up?” Ianc asked. He quickly grabbed the eyepatch and covered his new found eye. It was disoriented at first but as soon as the blackness covered the red and blue vision, he could walk with steadier footing.

“I’ll burn it.” The canvas flap was yanked aside, and a strong hand pulled Ianc into the morning light.

The sun scorched on the grass, leaving dews that sparkled. They were even more twinkling in his once blind—now an infravision eye. The purge had left him lighter, sharper. He felt the breeze on the back of his neck like a distinct finger of air. His bones felt hollow, resonating with the thrum of the distant Sear, or perhaps it was Bloodfire simmering just beneath his skin. He moved through Campa’s drills again, brutal impacts on the wooden pells, punishing sprints, complex disarms executed not with grace, but with a newfound, predatory economy. Each strike landed with a cleaner thwack, each pivot was tighter, his breath a steady furnace rhythm against the dust-choked air.

Campa called a halt, a single grunt cutting through the rhythm. Sweat stung Ianc’s eyes, salt on the raw canvas of his face. He didn’t pause. The wired energy demanded release. He strode to the weapon rack, his hand bypassing the worn practice batons, closing instead around the leather-bound hilt of a blunt training sword. Its weight was alien, a dead thing in his grip, yet compelling. He turned, hefting its weight, and let the point rise until it aimed at Campa’s broad chest. A silent challenge. “Ready for sword work?”

Campa stood like a weathered monolith, arms folded. Dust motes danced in the sunbeams around him. His expression was unreadable, but his flint-sharp eyes held a glint that saw too much. “I told you. This is not a weapon for the Dead.” Campa’s voice was flat. “A sword is a symbol. A question of grace. Not a butcher’s tool for sparring.”

Ianc nodded. The sword in his hand felt suddenly heavy, not with steel, but with the cold, exposed weight of his intent. “I’ll learn it myself, and thank you for your wake up call.”

The drill bled into faster and harder closer work, where Ianc’s frustration led his movement. He saw an opening when Campa’s weight shifted minutely. A feint low, a twist of his hips, then a sharp, controlled strike aimed like a dagger thrust at the oaf’s ribs.

Campa flowed like water, just a subtle turn of his shoulder was enough to spin Ianc’s momentum into empty air, leaving him stumbling and off-balance. Then he simply stepped out of range, precise and swift. He stood still, his gaze fixed on Ianc with unnerving calm. “You fight like a pit dog. All snarl. No strategy.”

“Easy for you, a much bigger man, to say that,” Ianc puffed.

Campa stepped in, his fingers tracing a quick, unknown sign in the air. “Too big, too small, doesn’t matter. Death doesn’t care.” He pinched the space between his thumb and forefinger. “This much steel, in the right place, is all it takes.”

Ianc squinted. “You mean a sneaky dagger?”

“Or an arrow. The point is” —he tapped his temple— “train smart and don’t ever enter a fight without seeing what your opponent got up in their sleeves. Watch and learn their moves, play the fight in your head, know what you want to do and do it.”

Ianc realized that Campa had already figured out his secret but didn’t want to call them out. Was it respect? Or a trap? It didn’t matter. Campa wasn’t just muscle. He was a combat master who understood the line between fury and techniques, between intuitive and method, between life and death. Ianc tapped the mark on his chest and bowed. This time came from real respect from his heart. “Thank you, Campa.”

“Enough for today. I think we have deer stew with potatoes and carrots. Abby’s special,” Campa licked his lips.

The stew felt like a real reward after all of those jarring tests. It wasn’t as salty as Ianc preferred it to be, but the texture was right, and the smell was heaven with herbs that Abby sprinkled on when she gave him the bowl. It was rosemary, but the touch was light, yet enough to balance the smell of the deer’s fat. There was something else underneath, a bittersweet aftertaste that Ianc couldn’t recognize. It bugged his mind from dawn till dusk, then he recalled the taste. It was a root meant to help people sleep through the night undisturbed. Odd that she put it in a morning stew but it was just a trivial matter to him.

The sun bled orange through the skeletal branches of the deadwood grove, casting long, grasping shadows. He stood under the shade of a huge tree with thick vines and tough branches. Crude effigies hung suspended; sticks lashed with knots of rope, weighted with dense stones. He had built them out of stubbornness to train sword play. Taking a deep breath of his own lingering sourness of his purge, he stepped into the center. Campa’s words still echoed in his mind. Don’t be the dogs, be the man who offers bones.

Ianc nudged at a hung stick, measuring the rebound. Confident enough, he quickened the pace. His enhanced senses allowed him to see the swings, even in his blind side where the infravision offered little to no help. His hips swayed back and forth, left and right; and he refused to move his legs, letting them take all the rocking weight, training their resilience and flexibility.

Thwack! A branch he misjudged caught him high on the shoulder. A sharp, precise crack of his forearm deflecting another before it found his temple. The weights swung, clacked, rebounded off tree trunks – chaotic, relentless, a physical manifestation of the turmoil he sought to master. Finally, he ducked under a whirling stick whistling past his ears. In his mind, it was Gerald’s fireball. The only way to beat a seasoned warrior was to let him land hits. Once, twice, as many as it took. Lull him into certainty. Then, a single burst of speed moves would surprise him.

He kept on a few rounds playing with hung sticks and crude effigies. Each time, a different scenario emerged in his mind, and the dusk sky gave way to twinkling stars at night.

“Would you untie all of those or just cut them off?” Abigail’s voice rang in the air, clear and soft, pleasant to the ears. She carried a lantern in one hand, a wooden bowl in the other. Steam curled lazily from the bowl, a small defiance against the chill. “Campa’s special.”

Ianc took the bowl and snorted immediately from the invading burnt smell of the brown stuff content inside. He looked up into Abby’s eyes, which were flaring amber with the weak lantern glow. They held a directness that scraped against the quiet. He admitted that she was very pretty with those long eyelashes. “Thank you.”

She didn’t offer pleasantries in return. “Clementine asked me to watch you.” Her voice was low. Fact delivered like stones dropped onto hard packed dirt.

Another weird test. But her bluntness didn’t feel like a low blow. It felt like clarity, like a knife scraping rust off old iron, rough and effective. “I appreciate the honesty.” He breathed in the stew’s steam. “Better to know where I stand.”

“Why don’t you wear my eyepatch?” Abby asked, seemingly irritated by the fact.

Ianc swallowed a big gulp of stew. “I’m about to wash. Didn’t want to get it wet.” So his infravision eye didn’t show physical signs to them.

“I’ll let you do you then.” She took the empty bowl and winked.

“Wait. Did you add lotus seed or sarsaparilla root in those stews?”

“Age and recipes are a woman’s privacy.” She held up a wriggling finger with a smile. “Perhaps you can taste it if you didn’t slurp so eagerly.” Then without wasting a single moment, she strode away.

Ianc was left alone again, with the admission hung in silence. Clementine’s distrust was a cold stone in his gut, but understandable. Abigail’s bluntness, Campa’s perception, even Rahorh’s cryptic—they were warm and honorable, without deceit. It was a stark, barren landscape where things were exactly what they seemed, suspicion, watchfulness, but also a strange, grudging space. A space where words weren’t poisoned honey. It felt less like a cage, more like a trench dug deep, exposed and vulnerable, but offering a clear line of sight. A foundation built on rock, not sand. Budding friendship, he concluded. The term was strange and fragile as spun glass in this harsh light. Yet, it held a weight, forged in something mundane with a touch of hidden kindness.

The camp stayed quiet in the deep night, but Ianc was on fire. With each phantom thrum of the distant Sear, his Solfire pulsed in cadence. He sat cross-legged, stripped to the waist, skin prickling against the chill as his sixteenth threads of Bloodfire emerged. It came without the help of the Ishchoir, just forming under the rare night where his sleep wasn’t haunted by nightmares. It’s a wonder to witness it up close in his inner sanctum. He knew where it was now, the sanctum resided in a different plane of existence that linked to the heart. His blood came in, and the divine Spark enhanced it, a metamorphosis process that honed and forged a bloodstream into a thread of concentrated Bloodfire.

As the sixteenth formed, the other threads gathered. They entangled, forming a red, chaotic line that pulsed and swirled, like it was alive. Then it floated over and merged with the Spark, becoming a black line on the white sphere. Sixteen threads, one bar, sixteen bars—he could imagine it now when the power peaked. The divine Spark would be caged like an Ishchoir stone.

The power surged effortlessly into him, way too effortlessly as his body had already been purged to receive it. It filled his bones, his joints, his muscles with deep thrums of distant thunder. The bar settled, a humming latticework of anti-light. Then, deep in the starless dark of his inner sanctum etching out a shape, like a flower. His hand instinctively flew to the mark on his chest. It was cold now, a patch of dead skin beneath his fingers. The source? The purpose? The slender shadow that had bestowed this affinity? The questions were icy water thrown on his new ascend. The Spark hummed, a contented beast within its cage, while the dread of the unknown, of the puppet-master’s design, coiled around his spine like a serpent made of frost. He felt powerful, yet irrevocably owned. The terror set in, was this power truly mine?

He fell asleep again, afraid, paralyzed.

Rahorh’s shadow filled the tent flap at dawn, blocking the weak, grey light. “Cley wishes to see you now.”

Ianc’s head felt heavy despite his quick movement. His entire body was healed, even his ankle gave no pain, not even a subtle pin. Should he tell Rahorh about his Spark and the dahlia flower? He had no answer and dared not to pursue so he followed the Rhys blindly, letting the morning breeze calm his mind.

The camp was alive with templars and refugees busting in the morning routine. He noticed each pair of templars would herd sixteen Suledin like shepherds. Clementine appeared in the center, her posture ever straight and commanding. She held one hand aloft and began a new chant. Others followed, weaving a choir that echoed in the mind itself.

O Sol above,
Burn away what hides from sight.
Cleanse the false, enshrine the true,
Light the heart of every Suledin too.

By flame, we kneel; by fire, we rise,
Ashes drift, pyres never die.
Grant us will, and grant us flame,
That all may burn in Sol’s own name.

The routine was brief and effective as the rest just monotonously knelt and mumbled the hymn after the iron maiden. The chant echoed in Ianc mind, but for him it feels hollow. His Solfire, the divine Spark, didn’t answer songs. It stirred through grief, love, and raw will.

The Iron Maiden noticed Ianc was approaching and flicked her head toward her tent. It was larger, more austere. Maps weighted down corners of a heavy oak table. The air smelled of parchment, dried herbs, and cold authority. Clementine stood behind the table. Her gaze, when it met Ianc’s, was the color of flint under ice, solemn and unyielding. Rahorh melted into the background, becoming another shadow against the canvas.

Her voice cut the stillness, clear and sharp as a blade drawn from its sheath. “For bravery amidst corruption. For the unique gift you carry.” Clementine’s voice was the ceremony itself. “By the will of the Hallowed Church, you are elevated to Sol Templar. You will bear the title and responsibilities of Herald of the Sacred Light.”

“Kneel,” Rahorh murmured at his side. “State your full name.”

This is really happening. He lowered himself to one knee. “Ianc Pyllis.” A hesitation, felt by all in the tent. “Myr.”

“Your task, Ianc Pyllis Myr, is to bear the flag of Inquisition against the Umbrite of Caladryn Dea.”

The promotion settled on him. It felt less like an elevation, more like a sealing of a tomb. He was the victim of an Inquisition, now leading another on someone else? He felt like a vessel of the Church’s holy flame, but what else could he do to find Mirari? The path narrowed, walls rising steep on either side. The silence after the iron maiden’s announcement stretched thick and suffocating, like dust settled in after the wrestle of the stag and the tiger. A spark of rebellion, feral and desperate, flickered in Ianc’s gut. The question escaped him, scraping against the stillness. “Do I have a choice in this?”

A faint, grim smile touched Clementine’s lips. “No. We are the sword in war and the Church is our sheath.” Her gaze sharpened again. “We serve the divine agenda. You are under my custody until your true nature is laid bare and tested under the Sage’s Mantle.”

Any illusion of freedom, of earned position, shattered like cheap glass. The promotion wasn’t recognition; it was branding. He was a valuable weapon, one that was locked securely in the Church’s armory, to be pointed where they willed. He wasn’t a Templar. He was a condemned man walking a gilded path to an unknown executioner’s block. He stared into Cley’s deep blue eyes. “I understand, lady deMolay.”

Clementine didn’t dismiss him. The air was thick with the residue of his shackling, and grew heavier still. She straightened, her gaze shifting from Ianc to the maps, to the unseen threat beyond the canvas walls.

“The darkness spreads, Herald,” she stated, her voice regaining its cutting edge. “Like rot beneath healthy bark. More Necromancy orbs have surfaced. Scattered across the land, far beyond Caladryn Dea’s shadow. This is not an isolated infection. It is a plague awakening.”

Ianc felt the cold dread deepen, spreading roots alongside the humming Spark within him. The slender shadow spread its grab across the map of Sahada. He wondered if he was the only one.

Her gaze snapped back, sharp, delivering truth like a blade thrust. “We will march and destroy the lingering thorn that had been spared by his Holiness grace in the centuries past. We will be reinforced with two contingents of templars. We will annihilate this ancient betrayal then move to the new future. The true war awaits after this Inquisition, Herald. The Crusade against the Blackened Land awaits.”

He avoided her gaze, afraid that his eye might betray his naked thoughts. This level of ambition would cost thousands of lives, even more. It started with him as the gathering spot, the harbinger of death in the name of distant divinity. This Inquisition was only the prologue to the apocalypse—a narrow blaze cut through eternal night, a trench where corpses would heap for reasons they never fathomed. The words escaped him, quiet but clear in the tense air. “And I have only just formed my first bar on the Spark.”

That didn’t surprise them, they just nodded. Then the rhys made a hand sign. “I can feel the power in your mark. Raw and unstable. This is why walking the pilgrimage road is important to the mind towards wielding Sol’s blessing.”

“To control the flame? Or let the light control you?” Ianc asked.

Clementine crossed her arms and shook her head. “Mind that tongue, woodman. Or you will have none by the time we reach Lys Royeaux.”

“Why?” Ianc’s control frayed. “I can’t even ask questions?”

Rahorh quickened his pace as he passed Ianc’s side. “Not like that,” Rahorh whispered, the sound like dry leaves rustling. “Be clever.”

“Get ready, Herald,” Clementine said softly, but it still sounded like a tired command.

Outside, the camp stirred with clacking pots and horses neighed eagerly for the massacre.

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Sigh, more training montage and official promotion. Though, the team are becoming important to Ianc so I guess spending time to build up bond is needed.

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The air inside Rahorh’s tent was unnervingly still as if life beyond the canvas had stopped. Yet within Ianc, a storm raged. He sat cross-legged in the center, the Ishchoir cupped in both hands. Its surface was cold and rough with those bright grids. When his fingers closed around it, heat erupted and raced up his arms, fast and invading. A hum, soft and deep, whispered in the air. It pulsed like it had crossed the land of the dead to his very space. His breath quickened as the first wave of prayer energy poured into him. Envy, greed, sorrow, hope—human desires of all kinds surged through him in unstoppable tides.

The air changed, broiling, burning.

He felt their dark energy invading his mind, twisting his thoughts, gnawing at the edges of his sanity. Faces blurred in the chaos; screams caught in his throat. These weren’t just emotions, these were lives lived in torment, souls clinging desperately to the earth, unwilling to fade, hanging on a prayer of a better day. His heart pounded a drumbeat to the frenzy that consumed him. His hands trembled, fingers curling tighter around the Ishchoir. The heat in his chest flared as his Solfire fought to cleanse the impurities, to burn away the weight of those emotions. But the flame within him… it was different this time. It was hungry. The divine Spark lashed out, devouring even the negative emotions as if it had been starved. And as it burned, something else stirred beneath the surface.

His sweat smelled like old pan on fire.

Bloodfire. It rose through his veins, not like lava but living fire, pulsing in time with his heart. Volatile, ravenous, his own blood turned predator. It burned through him, filling his limbs with an unnatural force, a strength that was both alien and intoxicating. He didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know why. But it felt good, tasted good, like rare steak.

He blinked rapidly. Sweat beaded on his brows, its sting barely a distraction from the torrent in his chest. His fingers dug deeper into the Ishchoir, the stone bit back, almost as if it was feeding on him. The lone divine Spark ate away at the negative energy, consuming it faster than it had ever before. Then a sharp crack in his mind. Fifteen threads of Bloodfire. The number hit him like a blow to the gut. It was too fast, too much, and he saw them swim around his Spark.

“Fifteen,” he whispered through clenched teeth, feeling a strange mixture of awe and dread. The Ishchoir trembled in his hands. He could still hear the prayers, feel the weight of their desires pressing against him. He could see them, those lost souls, their faces full of unspoken pain and hope. Their hunger bled into his. Their rage ignited his own.

“Why are you here?” Ianc’s voice was strained, but he could barely hear it over the thunder in his skull. Something twisted inside him, a new surge of power, almost like a command. His body felt like it was on fire. His pulse was louder now, a steady thrum of energy that rattled his bones. The pain was unbearable, but beneath it was a truth he couldn’t deny, their power had become his.

“Stop,” he gritted through the dull ache in his chest. “Just stop.” But the flame inside him did not stop. It surged higher, faster.

Purify it. Burn it all. And burn it did. The black mark on his chest throbbed, connecting to the abyss where his left eye had once been. A second core yawned open within him, feeding on fire, on pain, as if suffering itself were fuel.

The weight of it pressed down on him. It was power, but it came with a price. The voices clawed at him, insatiable, screaming for more. The Ishchoir hummed louder now, responding to the energy inside him.

“Enough,” he muttered, gritting his teeth against the rogue flame. But it wouldn’t stop. He felt a presence then, a figure looming outside himself.

Rahorh’s voice cut through the chaos, but it was distant, muffled. “Ianc.” The voice was more insistent this time.

Rahorh’s face swam into view, his eyes narrowed in observation. The rhys had been watching him, but now there was something different in his gaze, something piercing. He stepped closer, his expression unreadable. “You are what Abby said… or something else entirely,” Rahorh said, testing each word.

Ianc’s head spun as the flood of power slowly subsided. His breath came in ragged gasps. “I…” He didn’t know how to respond.

The rhys’ gaze intensified suddenly. “Tell me, woodman,” he said, voice soft but sharp. “What are you?”

Ianc remained silent, his mind a jumbled mess of images. He couldn’t give voice to the truth. Not when he wasn’t sure he even understood it himself. “A cursed object?”

Rahorh’s lips twitched into a knowing smile, a touch of irony hidden beneath it. “You’ll learn to control the purification, eventually,” he said, stepping back. He tossed something at Ianc, and the stone landed with a soft thud. “It’s a lesser Ishchoir, you use them to refill your Bloodfire.”

Ianc glanced down at the stone. It was round and smaller than the Ishchoir, but its energy felt familiar and more comforting.

“Now,” Rahorh added, his voice taking on a lighter tone, “You should train with Campa. He might knock some truth out of you.”

Ianc narrowed his eyes. “Truth?”

Rahorh shrugged, a sly smile pulling at his mouth. “His method is rather unconventional, but he is our best templar.” His eyes twinkled for just a moment before turning serious. “And your mark”—his gaze shifted at Ianc’s chest—“I might know a thing about it.”

“You sounded like a lich.” Ianc clenched his fists on the bunker’s edge.

The intensity of the moment lingered, then the rhys simply shrugged. “I’m a scholar who wishes Solfire for everybody. Come, don’t let Campa wait.”

Ianc held up a finger. The Bloodfire that swarmed around his Spark stirred and moved around his body. “This itch is very uncomfortable. It feels like my body is bloated.”

“You will be taller, bigger, stronger. And you need to fight so the raw energy has a place to drain,” Rahorh said. He grabbed Ianc’s arm and pulled him up. “Go. Now. I need my bloody study space.”

Ianc wanted to protest but just gave the rhys a nod instead. He clenched his teeth against the pain of standing up. With the rhys’ help, he stepped into the open and the world tilted. Fifteen threads, just one more before he could carve a bar into his Spark. He pressed two fingers to his chest, feeling the unfamiliar thrum. People died when they tried to cage the Spark. It should terrify him. Instead, it felt like waking from a long sleep to find you’d grown claws in the night.

The camp sprawled along the riverbank like a temporary fortress of canvas and conviction. Its tents pitched in grim, precise rows that mirrored the Iron Maiden’s unyielding discipline. Dawn bled into the sky, casting long, grasping shadows over the survivors from Camelford. They were a ragged cluster of a few dozen souls, huddled around low fires that guttered with borrowed Solfire, their light a feeble defiance against the coming dark. He sat on a log at the edge of their circle, the rough new eyepatch a raw chafe against his skin, the training stone from Rahorh a cold, hungry weight in his pocket.

The Sol templars moved among them with impersonal efficiency. Campa distributed rations hurriedly, dense loaves of sanctified grain and strips of meat cured against corruption. His massive frame was a reassuring, yet somehow ominous, bulwark. “Eat slow,” he grunted to a wide-eyed boy. “Sol’s strength fills the belly as much as the Spark.”

The boy nodded, his eyes glazed with a hollow reverence. He ate like it was communion. Perhaps, to him, it was.

Rahorh knelt beside an elderly woman, her hands trembling like ancient leaves as she clutched an empty Ishchoir. “Pray into it,” he instructed, his voice a blend of compassion and cold command. “Let your fears flow out. Makaiel whispers will bother you no more, for Solfire purifies them into light of hope.” She bowed her head, her murmurs twisting private anguish into public devotion.

Abigail moved through the group like a benevolent phantom. She bandaged wounds with salves that gleamed with a faint, yellow essence. She whispered encouragement that sounded like verses from a forgotten scripture. “Solfire grows with sacrifice,” she told a young mother. “One scar, a warrior. Eight, and you touch the divine.”

The woman clutched her chest like she’d been given remedy. Maybe she had. Her voice gained strength, as if the words themselves were a ward against her own dreadful memory.

Clementine deMolay stood at the camp’s heart, her presence a beacon of inexorable authority. She oversaw the morning rite, her greatsword planted against a stump like a crucifix. “Gather,” she called, her voice cutting through the dusk. The templars and survivors formed a loose circle, the Iron Maiden’s ranks now bolstered by reinforcements to nearly fifty.

Ianc joined reluctantly, drawn by the insidious pull of his newfound Solfire. This was the life of rituals that bound the blessed and all the broken alike.

“We honor the fallen of Camelford,” Clementine began, her gray eyes sweeping the group. “But Sol’s light demands more than mourning. It demanded purity.” She held an Ishchoir aloft. This one was huge. Ianc felt its hunger for faith calling him in. The survivors stirred as if heeding the same call. They knelt where they once sat and began to pray. Each braced their hands above their head, their lips started chanting the psalm, then their backs bent as the Ishchoir slowly lit up.

The templars paid their respect with grim faces. They mumbled their vow and the stone also devoured it. Solens indeed, for Sol’s required complete submission. The Ishchoir glowed with accumulated prayers, siphoning them into its awaiting grid of hunger. From the dark of his blind eye, cracks of light emerged. He thought it was the pain at first, but as he closed the other eye, it made a different scene altogether. He saw magic tendrils pouring out from the prayers to the Ishchoir, including Clementine. They filled the stone with different light than the eyes could see. He saw envy green, wrath red, greed gold. Each prayer wasn’t a virtue, but a vice made holy.

He opened his eye, realizing he was the only one who hadn’t prayed. The stone hummed, urging him to, threatening as his brain refused to submit. It seemed the stone holder also felt his resistance. Clementine glanced at him, frowning. Her hand slid to her sword. He knelt and thought about his desire. Saving Mirari from the shadow, yes, but it wasn’t enough; vengeance on the one who was responsible for his parent’s death, yes, but it also wasn’t enough. This required a deeper truth. Power, yes. The roots for his other desire grew, to save, to kill. He needed it. He wished he would have more and the only path appeared before him. If they wanted him to lead the Inquisition, even only as a scarecrow, he would do it full heartedly so he would have more Ishchoir. With that pure desire, the stone approved. A tendril of prayer tore from his mind and floated brighter than all of the rest.

As the rite concluded, Clementine raised her hand. “Before dawn, we remember the roots that helped us grow. The old songs remind us why we fight, not just against the undead, but against the thorns that once choked this land.” Her gaze flicked to Rahorh, who nodded subtly. Ianc’s breath caught. This wasn’t a standard hymn. It echoed the Umbrite lore Rahorh had shared, twisted into Church’s narrative.

Clementine began the Song of Aeltheris, her voice low and resonant, initiating the melody like a call to ancient echoes. “In shadows deep where Aei once bloomed,” she sang, her tone solemn, “Thorns rose high, devouring the groomed.”

The Templars joined the iron maiden. Their voices layered in harmony and the verse laid bare in their unified fervor. Campa boomed the bass, Abigail added a haunting alto, and Rahorh weaved in subtle dissonances involuntarily.

“Leaves of ink, roots of might, Elders whispered through the night. But greed awoke the outer call, Makaiel’s breath, the endless fall.”

Survivors murmured along, some stumbling over words they’d likely never heard, but the repetition drilled it in. Ianc felt the pull as the song reframed Umbrite magic as a cautionary tale, their necromancy a perversion that Sol had righteously purged. Yet beneath the lyrics lurked the truth Rahorh had whispered. The tribes had been powerful, balanced, until the Church renamed their land Sahada and scorched their trees.

“As Zul’drak claimed the shade, Myrmidons fell, the Descent was prayed. The Second Sun burned their blackened earth, sealed our fate, gave us rebirth.”

The chorus swelled, voices rising like a wave. Ianc’s lips moved involuntarily, the Spark urging him to join. This was a resonance within, a beautiful lie, sung to bind the singers to Sol’s will. The survivors’ eyes shone with renewed zeal, their traumas alchemized into faith. Even Ianc felt the seduction—the promise of belonging, of power without the shadow’s curse.

“But in the embers, thorns may creep,” Clementine continued alone, her voice dropping to a warning whisper. “Guard the light, lest shadows reap.”

The others echoed the final line, the song fading into the night like smoke from a dying fire. Silence fell, heavy with unspoken oaths. Clementine met Ianc’s gaze, her expression unreadable. “Breakfast now, a long day ahead for us.”

As the group dispersed, Ianc lingered by the fire, the training stone warm in his hand. The Song of Aeltheris echoed in his mind, a bridge between the old world and the Church’s iron grip. He’d seen the Sacrosanct life, duty, power, erasure of self. But the indoctrination? It was a song that silenced questions, turning survivors into soldiers. His Spark flickered, red-tinged with hatred, reminding him of Mirari’s shadow.

Clementine approached and sat next to Ianc, her eyes narrowed when they met him. “You seem cynical of the Church’s teachings and lack hope for a better day.”

“In my experience, no one has a choice.”

“We do have a choice, but whether are we strong enough to carry its burden is another question.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “I chose to believe in the Hallow Church. But might it force me against my virtue one day, I will not submit easily. Could you do the same?”

“Yet you herd people like sheep.”

Clementine sighed, shook her head, and bit her lips. “We are Sacrosanct. We fight undead so they don’t have to. We die everyday on the frontier so they don’t have to. You are one of us now. Kill the oppressed Suledin within you, for great sacrifices are required on a Herald of Sacred Light.”

The word Suledin landed like a stone in his gut. He softened down, seeing the truth in her words. “Thank you, Cley.”

As she stood up and went back to her tent, his unspoken fear struck. Not of undead or liches, but of being absorbed by the church’s indoctrination and being used as a weapon with a starless soul. After all, who could resist a religion that gave you magic and privilege?

He wandered the camp’s edge, belonging nowhere. The survivors flinched when he passed, whether at his scar or his silence, he couldn’t tell. The Ironshod brothers were deep in conversation beneath an oak, their metal limbs flashing. Not worth interrupting.

He found a log and sat, testing his ankle. Still hurt, but it held.

Abigail approached without fanfare. She held a simple strip of dark leather. An eyepatch. No embroidery, no ornament. Just functional black. She stopped in front of him and extended it. “Here,”

He took it, fingers brushing hers. The feeling lingered, unexpectedly gentle. She stepped closer and with careful precision, fastened the patch over his left eye. “Not to hide what was lost,” she said as she drew the strap tight, “but to show what you’ve endured.”

Ianc nodded. The patch felt foreign, heavier than it should. He couldn’t see less than before, but somehow, it made the loss real. “Thank you, Abigail,” he muttered.

“Call me Abby,” she said with a wink.

Before he could dwell on the thought, a shout cracked across the yard. “Morning! Herald.” Campa’s voice boomed like a drumbeat.

Ianc turned and caught a fist square to the ribs. He clenched his entire body against the sudden pain. Then came a storm of blunt strikes. No rhythm. No warning. Just brute force. Campa kept on advancing and Ianc refused to submit despite his arms having already gone numb from blocking. He dodged. His ankle gave in after a jolt, and the ground rushed up to meet his face.

He rolled aside quickly, using every muscle of his aching body. In the repeated flashes, he saw the oaf templar stood still, his frame a giant. Sprung up to a kneeling stance, Ianc puffed, his fingers shaking. “What in the Light was that for, man?”

The oaf charged again. He shoved Ianc out like a toy, sending him airborne, weightless for a moment. He landed terribly on his ankle. A jolt of pain forced him to cringe and hobble. “Fucking oaf.”

Campa laughed out loud, not pursuing another assault. “You’re good. Good reflex and know how to wrestle.”

“I’m a woodman. Of course I wrestle with bears and run with wolves, hellfire, I may even fight tigers,” Ianc grunted. “You’re supposed to teach me swordfight and shieldwall or something.”

Campa laughed again, clearly amused by the joke. “Swordplay’s for show. Against the dead, steel alone is worthless,” he said and offered a hand. “Cley told me to train you, I need to see if you can be trained.”

Ianc took the hand and stood up. He crossed eyes and saw Campa up close for the first time. The oaf had grey eyes with brown-red brows, and his hair was braided on the sides like a highborn, even in Sacrosanct standard. “Anyone can be trained as long as they are blessed with the divine Spark,” he muttered.

“Then why do templars have ranks?” Campa tapped on the shield image threaded next to Sol symbol on his arm. It had a star of eight petals below it.

“I thought it signaled how many bars you have on the Spark.”

Campa scoffed. “After four, our body is done with the purification process; and the spells we cast increase in tiny scales. It’s the mind that matters. You either spend time training with martial arts like me or learning spell formation like Rahorh.”

“So after four, I can take on templars like Gerald?”

Campa slapped Ianc’s head like a big brother, which wasn’t appreciated. “This is the second time you mentioned him. Are you from Myrathus with a last name Myr? Don’t answer. I want to keep my speculation.”

“No one answered my questions,” Ianc said, half joke, half serious.

Campa smirked. “Because you keep your secrets deep. Anyway, have you ever ridden a horse?” Then, with a grin, he whistled. A sturdy brown horse strutted over from the bank. Campa demonstrated, climbing into the saddle and showing posture, grip, and balance. He offered a hand again. “Come on, I don’t want to be late.”

The camp stirred as Campa said. Templars guided the survivors into line and they began marching.

The sore started to kick in his hips as soon as the horse picked up speed. It was a rhythm of enjoyable pain. The gust of wind through his face felt comfortable, but couldn’t compare to the view in the slightest. Space seemed to loosen itself from a higher view. He had climbed trees for a wide bird-view, but the scenery you experienced while moving fast was something else. The world itself carried backward while the horse surged forward, and the only thing between you and freedom was the howling wind.

He had spent his life in Myrathus stacking hays and shoveling waste. Now that he had a horse’s strength beneath him, the work had paid itself off. He was now what he had dreamt of, a templar, riding a destrier into battle. The jouncing became a rhythm, and the horse’s breath became frequent. “Can I feel the reins?” he asked, eager to feel the strength of the beast beneath him.

“Pull is stop. Steer by yanking twice, but the horse knows the road better than us.”

Ianc had to lean forward, letting his entire torso touch the oaf’s back. It was difficult to see through and he couldn’t help but look in-between the templar’s armpits, once at a time when Ianc’s back felt the aches from leaning to a side for too long. His legs had nothing to latch on so he closed his knees together. It seemed to upset the horse a little by the tense muscles it put up against his own. Ianc relaxed his grips a hit, both knees and hands; and the horse gave out a few appreciated snorts.

“Feel the horse’s breath and body temperature. An experienced rider could feel its heartbeats and know how much longer it could carry on at the gaits,” Campa said. He shouted a few dialects unknown to Ianc and the horse slowed down to a three beat rhythm. “This canter gait gives the longest travel length.”

Ianc allowed a small smile. They rode along the bank to the valley opening up like a canvas of flame grass and stone. The oaf templar wasn’t a brute, but perhaps just a stoic warrior.

“Thanks again,” Campa said suddenly. “For Clementine. And for us. The Iron Maiden’s name carries more weight from your actions.”

“She’s more than capable. But I do have prejudice on anything named Inquisitor. And what’s the deal between these Magister Houses and the Hallow Church?” Ianc probed after realizing he had somewhat validated Campa’s speculation.

“Power and suspicion. Templars orbit the Magisters; Inquisitors serve only the Church. Each keeps the other in check. But with you at the Iron Maiden’s side, we carry both their banners.”

So that’s what we are, the swords with a just cause.

They rode till sunset and Ianc forgot that he hadn’t eaten anything at all. He fell on his knees when he got off the horse. Campa boomed a laugh behind him as usual. He didn’t feel embarrassed this time and just limped off the yard. The late afternoon sun cast long, skeletal shadows across the training grounds, and the air, usually thick with the sweat and grunts of exertion, now held a faint, unsettling chill.

His thoughts drifted to Mirari. She had asked him if he wanted to live, an easy question. But live like what? Not so easy to answer. She ran off with the lich in his dream, but was it a dream? Then the lich drowned him into the earth, then he woke up with the mark, how came it be? He dipped into silence. He arranged her marriage based on the belief that she was a half-wit, but she wasn’t. Was she punishing him? He shook the thought away. He better focused on the moment, on training himself, on empowering his position so he could save her when she needed him.

As he was strolling, voices reached his ears, low and conspiratorial, from a shaded corner. It was Aaron and Blake, their heads bowed in hushed conversation, their usual boisterousness replaced by a grim seriousness.

“Sickness spread in the north,” Aaron grunted. His voice was a low, gravelly thing. “This time, it’s got a witch at its head.”

The other twin, Blake, clicked his tongue. “Just one? Three, I heard. A coven. One with eyes as blue as a winter sky, another with eyes like burning embers, and the last with eyes green as a serpent’s heart.”

Ianc’s head snapped up, the pain in his thigh momentarily forgotten. Red eyes. He moved toward them, his limp more pronounced now, a silent, predatory thing. He slowly sat next to them. “Why witches but not liches?” he asked, his voice a low, rough thing that made both men jump.

“Light’s sake, woodman.” Aaron looked him over, his head tilting with a theatrical wince. “Did you wrestle with your old Solfire?”

Blake snorted, poking a stick at a charred log. “Easy, brother. He saved Cley, and us.”

“Then he should present himself better to leverage his image after a heroic deed.” Aaron measured Ianc a beat too long. “With that eyepatch, he could pursue a pirate aesthetic. The ladies in the capital would go crazy for it.”

Ianc touched the rough leather of the patch, a dry smile tugging at his mouth. “At least I don’t look like an ironworker’s scrap pile,” he retorted, glancing at their metal limbs.

“Hah! Told you he was one of us.” Aaron nudged his brother. “In all seriousness, look at his jaw, Blake. The slackness is gone. He’s starting to look less like a hay-shoveler and more like a proper dire wolf.”

“It’s the nose,” Blake added, pointing a finger. “Sculpted and mature. If we cleaned the grime off, he might actually convince a barmaid he’s someone important. Until he opens his mouth and the wood-rot falls out.”

Ianc tilted his head, looking at his reflection in the dark surface of his waterskin. “I do look different.” Only his eye still held a slight downturned shape at the outer corner. His dark hair, once matted and dull, held a strange, healthy sheen despite the dirt. He looked younger, yet somehow much older. “How?”

“The Spark changed you to the best shape of yourself,” Aaron said. “Wait until it purges your body, a spectacle you will never forget.”

“Already had.” Ianc pulled the eyepatch down, showing the hollow of his left eye. “Now that you’ve finished appraising me like a prize hog, tell me about these witches. Why the fear?”

Aaron, recovering his composure, shrugged. “It’s simple, woodman. Witches bring plague. A lich brings questions. Witches are a disease. They corrupt the land, people, and everything they touch. Liches, they’re more like scholars, they twist your mind. They build things. Witches tear them down.”

“I see.” Ianc turned this new information over like a smooth, dangerous stone. “Can liches have witches as their brides?”

Blake, emboldened by the conversational tone, leaned forward. “Possible. You know what’s crazy? The Queen of Thorns has archliches as her concubines. She called them Prince Consorts.”

The sun dipped below the horizon, and the first star, a cold, indifferent pinprick of light, appeared in the darkening sky. A chill ran down Ianc’s spine, a premonition of a coming storm. “What do you call a witch,” Ianc asked, his voice softer now, “who brings lust… haunts your dreams?”

Aaron shrugged again, his face a mask of simple-minded certainty. “Still a witch. Doesn’t matter what she does. The end result is always the same. Death.”

Blake shook his head. “No, it’s an enchantress. They enchanted your mind with honey-cakes and poppy-dust.” He laughed, a short, nervous sound.

Ianc stood up. The sore in his thighs returned with a hateful stab, but he barely noticed it. Could the lich take Mirari as its apprentice or its bride? “Good talk, brothers in misfortune. I’ll excuse myself then.” He turned and walked away, toward new doubts. He and her were trophies in someone else’s game.

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This chapter is quite long, I shove the training montage and technicality of the power system here + a little world building through a ceremony, and it ended up 4k6 words. If somehow you stick with it to the end, thank you so much.

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How is he?

He is fine, just couldn’t save his…

Tough little bastard. Lost so much blood and still…

He sees what we can’t. And he saved me.

The ground lurched slightly beneath him, a rhythm out of sync with the pain pulsing in his skull. Ianc stirred, canvas scraped against his back. He was on a stretcher, carried by two templars. Armor clinked around him in soft patterns. His mouth was dry. His throat refused to speak. Then the left side of his vision refused to wake. A crescent void hollowed his sight, darker than sleep, an eclipse that did not move. Wrong, yet persistent, as if it had been waiting for his awakening all along.

The pain hit next, sharp and raw, sawing behind his brow like teeth gnashing bone. He realized his left eye was gone. Not just blind but absent, a wound that throbbed with fragmented memories. He reached inward and found his inner sanctum. It was changed too. His self avatar was gone along with the apparition statue of Sol. Just a single spark remained, a pinprick of Solfire glowing in a sea of starless dark. “What happened?” he rasped.

Clementine leaned in from his left, her silhouette caught between torchlight and dawn. “We won, thanks to you.”

He tried to turn, but a sharp pain lanced down his spine pinned him back on the stretcher. “Details please,” he whispered.

Her hand touched his shoulder with two steady taps. “The invisible tendril caught you when you jumped to shield me. It drained you, turning you into an undead. You fought back well, but lost. Your left eye turned white. Then…” She hesitated, brows furrowed. “Your eye,” she said. “It lit up. A ray of pure Solfire came out like a spear of sunlight. It hit the orb and imploded it.”

Ianc blinked his remaining eye. The memory didn’t return in full. Just a flash, a moment when he aimed at his corrupted Solfire with an imaginary arrow born of desperation and defiance. Was it my power? Was it Sol’s helping hand? He couldn’t tell. But he could tell he wanted that power even though he knew it wasn’t him commanding it. But if it had answered him once, he could make it happen again. With that power, he might be able to save Mirari from the slender shadow. “Guess I don’t have to close an eye to see my inner sanctum now.” The joke didn’t land, but he sensed the heavy air was lifted.

“And you don’t have to worry about being a suspect to us,” Rahorh said from Ianc’s blindside. His voice was fried but remained wry. “What you did has earnt you a place in the Iron Maiden company.”

“Come again?” A place? He’d never had a place. Only Mirari.

“We serve lady deMolay,” Rahorh rolled his eyes around the area as if there’s a lot of them. “Reinforcements are coming to take care of the aftermath.”

Ianc clicked his tongue. “What if I don’t want to join?” I want to track the shadow, not stick with the Church.

“Then we will shackle you up and drag you with us.” Before Ianc could protest, the rhys continued. “You must understand the blast from your eye… even a high templar with eight bars could not do it. So there’s a chance that you are a Scion of Sol.”

“A what?”

“The sixteen champions chosen by Sol to fight against the Queen of Thorns. They sacrificed themselves to summon the Second Sun. The Descent, you surely had heard of that. The Sear is the rim of its magic.”

Ianc raised his remaining brow. “What’s next?”

Rahorh shrugged, sweat rolling off his temples. “You ask questions like a prince on a pillow while I’m here wheezing like a dying goat.”

“Have you no compassion for a wounded man?” Ianc chuckled, the motion sending a jolt of pain up his chest.

Rahorh almost smiled. “Only if you agree to share a tent with me tonight.” He jolted back, shaking his head. “We pair off to sleep. Usually I’m with Campa. But that oaf snores like three undead yearning for flesh, and his feet could summon Makaiel himself,” he added quickly.

“Hey!” Campa barked from somewhere behind them.

Laughter rippled around the group. Ianc couldn’t stop his own smile from breaking in with them, raw and startled. He laughed through the haze of pain and suddenly he realized he’d never been treated like this before, as equal. The thought warmed and terrified him, because deep in his chest, past the cracked ribs and charred bone, he knew this truth. If it came down to them or Mirari… how could he choose? The pain of that thought was sharper than the hole in his skull. He looked up, one eye to the heavens, and saw the sky turning blue again, washed clean of the orb’s shadow. He fell asleep, feeling safe in the care of strangers whom he had grown to value.

The night camp was unusually crisp with the buzzing of insects and squealing of a distant owl, and the tent was dim with shadows stretched taut across canvas seams. The only light source came from a dying lantern, and inside him, the dull flicker of his Spark pulsed like a heartbeat lost beneath unseen ash. His ankle was elevated, wrapped tightly with cloth and a paste that stung like betrayal. He could barely shift without a lance of pain shooting up to his hip. But none of that mattered, not with what waited in the dark behind his eyes, not when he was weary.

Mirari waited in the starless dark, but she was not alone. Beside her stood something tall and still. Its presence loomed; its stillness slithered under his skin; its silence moved the air. Green flames burned where eyes should be, patient and hungry.

His body trembled, not from pain but deep fear in the dark of sleeping paralysis. He opened his eye to the physical world, even trying to wriggle his toes. Yet, his body refused to fall to the brain’s command. Then even in reality, the shadow of Mirari emerged in the corner of the tent, just behind the hearth of the campfire. Her pupils gleamed red, her hand reaching for him. He raised his to catch hers, but Rahorh stopped it. Then the rest of the Iron Maidens appeared in chains, kneeling before the shadow. He couldn’t choose, hesitation became lateness. He failed to save them, and his last vision was Mirari walking away with the shadow again, leaving his friends bloody on the ground.

He growled out of the paralysis nightmare. He had the Spark now, he could fight back. It was just his fear and years of bent-neck playing a tool on his exhaustion. He needed to understand the shadow’s motive if he had any hope of saving her from it. He recalled the series of events, trying to put two on two together with chains of ‘what ifs’ tightening around his thoughts. If Sol had truly blessed him, then the orb wouldn’t even exist to claim him.

It had to be Mirari. She was the last heir of the vonMyr’s. She had a fragile mind traumatized by the massacre of the Inquisition on her house. What if a war was waged on her name on the ground of seeking justice? With all of that chaos and death, the shadow would have enough corpses to raise an undead army inside the Sear. Ianc realized that was looking at an ancient schemer weaving black magic.

That meant the Inquisition against Myrathus was part of its plan, and Gerald Duranthier might either be a pawn, or an accomplice. The truth didn’t matter, Ianc wanted his due. The vision of that event flashed before the darkness of his inner sanctum. His father, a horse master of Myrathus, was stabbed in the back as he held the lantern to check the noise of wicked betrayal. Lady Lycindra, Mirari’s mother, tugged her and Myrcella into Ianc’s care before drawing the Inquisitors to her. Myrcella drowned when they escaped. Mirari was also drowned but Ianc brought her back, and she was never the same anymore.

He stared at the bite mark on his arm, proof he had elbowed undead-Oscar to its second death. It had been sealed with burnt marks outside, but the hatred inside Ianc was still burning. He didn’t regret tasting sweet revenge. He wanted more. More so he could control his fate, more so he could fight Gerald, more so he could save Mirari from the lich. Warmth flared again in the pinprick left of his Solfire, then it brightened up. It wasn’t white nor golden, it was flickering red driven by hatred. He exhaled tiredly. I’ll walk through storms and shadows, burn through the living and the dead, to you, he promised himself.

The tent’s flap rustled. Rahorh stepped in, his silhouette haloed by torchlight. The smell of incense and ointment followed him, earthy and sweet. “You are awake,” he said, dropping a waterskin onto Ianc’s lap.

“My head hurts,” Ianc muttered. “My eye hurts. My body hurts.”

“So you’re still alive,” Rahorh said, settling cross-legged beside him. “I’ve got news.” He reached into his satchel and produced two objects. A green-glass jar, sealed with wax; the other a small Ishchoir, bright as a bottled hymn.

The stone sat cold in Ianc’s hand. Its obsidian skin etched with perfect geometry of sixteen rows, sixteen columns, squaring cells for prayers. Only three glowed faintly. When full, it would burn warm and golden, like you were holding a piece of day. Now, it was a hollow stone, holy by design, hungry by nature.

“Good news and bad.” Rahorh clapped his hands. “Which first?”

Ianc grunted, “let the good wash out the bad.”

“Cley contacted Lys Royeaux. A town and three villages had faced the same end like yours. We are under an array of attack, not a mere incident,” Rahorh said blankly and ended with a sigh as if these plagues didn’t bother him but just some overtime work.

“How could Cley have that information?” Ianc asked. He already knew that the lich wouldn’t stop at Camelford. What he was afraid of was Mirari could be an accomplice, even becoming the lich’s apprentice.

“When you carved the eighth bar, your divine Spark pulsed. People of the same caliber can feel it,” Rahorh said. His voice contained more rhythm when talking about magic and wonder, almost couldn’t hide the excitement.

“I didn’t feel anyone. Mine is a starless void.” Ianc began to know the rhys’area of interest. When you listened and probed and the right subject. People started to talk.

“You haven’t even purified your first Ishchoir yet,” Rahorh scoffed. “Let me walk you through it, woodman. Prayers contain negative thoughts like ambition, greed, pride, even anger. You’ll hear them as you absorb the Ishchoir’s essence. Your Spark burns those to pure cosmic energy that form a thread of Bloodfire. But if your willpower is weak, the prayer will taint the Spark… that’s why we have the dungeon to purify rogue templars.”

Ianc nodded. “What’s the bad news then?”

“You are going to be the Herald of the Sacred Light,” Rahorh said the title blandly as if it meant nothing.

Ianc clenched his jaw. “What?”

“Because only the culprit or a chosen one could do what you did.” He passed him the ointment in the green-glass jar. “Salve for your leg.”

“You didn’t really answer my questions. And giving me a choice is just another joke,” Ianc said with a hint of anger in his voice.

“A playful one, harmless and helps me have fun.” Rahorh rolled up his sleeves, revealing black ink coiled across his arms in elegant, ancient spirals. The symbols shimmered faintly, embedded in the skin like veins of power. “Do you recognize these?” he asked.

“I’ve seen similar patterns before,” Ianc whispered. “I don’t remember where, but they look like cracks on a tree’s bark.” He recalled the lich’s magic. Those black tendrils that bound him had similar qualities to this rhys’ tattoos.

“These are Umbrite marks, Petran tribe, to be precise,” Rahorh said. “I’m half blood, and the Hallow Church wanted to purge the last Umbrite city inside the Sear.”

The silence stretched. Ianc’s pulse slowed, as if the tent had turned into an interrogation chamber. He wondered what history was buried behind those eyes, what struggles Rahorh kept locked away. Perhaps the rhys stood as an example Ianc could learn from.

He waited for Rahorh to continue, and the rhys waited to see his reaction to the news. The latter finally gave in, “The Church believed the Umbrite had sided with the Undead once again, sneaking abominations, perhaps liches into Sahada through the creek of Caladryn Dea. So you, with the new title, will bear the flag of the Inquisition against the city.”

“Fuck off,” Ianc grunted. This rhys talked about genocide of his other half heritage without a trace of dread.

Rahorh adjusted his robe, and rolled down his sleeves. “The Church has reasonable claims. The Umbrite, once called the Aeivory, was the original dweller of this land, Aeio, before it became Sahada. The Aeivory are Heliok, Selenai, Astrari, Petran and Nekrai tribes.

“We lived in harmony under the shadow of the Aeikin, where we buried our elders. Heliok craved for brighter light and was the first to depart from the shade. The Selenai… were all brawn, no will, at least when the moon struck them. The rest stayed within the shadow to care for what gives.

“The trees became sentimental, an accumulation of our ancestor’s spirits. Its ink, sap, bark, leaves, all of it, provided magical essence. We put them into the tattoos and thus our power materialized. Civil war happened when the Petran claimed supremacy. The resistance was losing and the Nekrai’s necromancy…”

“Bring back fallen warriors,” Ianc finished the story. Mirari’s face flickered in his mind, what kind of spell had the lich imbued on her that made her turn against him? “So the Nekrai created the Undead to fight the Petran tribe?”

“Close enough. Makaiel is an outer god, and when necromancy art is used, it draws his attention towards Aeio. He sent his daughter, the Queen of Thorns, Zul’drak, as vanguard for his conquest. The Heliok formed an alliance between the tribes, and thus we exist, the Solens.” He pointed at his chest with his chin held high. “But some Aeivory kept their old ways and the Church named them Umbrite.”

Ianc recalled the songs and stories in his memory. “So the Second Sun is Sol’s divine intervention… killed the Queen, and protected us from the Undead ever since?”

Rahorh nodded. “Right above Aeigiva, where Lys Royeaux was built upon. These Necromancy orbs incidents aren’t random. The Church believed the Umbrite caused it to retake what was lost to them. Perhaps an Archlich of Aeithora is involved. It’s another Aei where the queen built her empire of the Blackened land when she first descended.”

The Ishchoir stone warmed in Ianc’s palm. “Fate does not ask. And the door of my hearth is wrecked.” He clenched it until the edge cut his palm, a small pain, almost a prayer.

“That’s enough laments on what we can’t change,” Rahorh said without showing emotions. “If you can walk, then join us and see what we could change.”

Ianc grabbed the rhys’s wrist. “Why tell me all of this?” The information was a leaden weight, too much for his fractured mind to hold.

Rahorh smirked. “You’re a Sacrosanct now. You need to know the real history of our origin.”

Ianc could see deep pain in the rhys’s eyes. It was more than just real history; it was a story untold but revealed too soon. People only did that to manipulate, to plant the seed of doubts. But to what end? “You want something from me.”

“Hah.” He laughed out loud, but his eyes were avoiding Ianc’s gaze. “Mystery cast a mirage around you, woodman. One of which may relate to mea culpa.”

“Mea what?”

“Never mind, rest.” He threw Ianc a blanket reek of sweat. “Dream of what you’ve learned.”

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The Sear hummed faintly in the distance, like an applause when necrotic magic was stripped away under its crushing light. The eternal yellow barrier pulsed with Sol’s light, as if even divine intervention had strained against the Lich’s assault. Bodies of fallen templars lay in solemn rows. Their comrades purified them with threads of Solfire that danced like golden embers over pallid skin. The flames consumed armor and bone alike, leaving only sanctified ash to scatter on the wind. A mercy against the curse of reanimation. Matthias’d received that blessing, but Russ wasn’t.

Kieran’s Solfire flickered dimly in his Inner Sanctum, thirty two threads of Bloodfire barely holding form after the night’s frenzy. Exhaustion clawed at his limbs, a bone-deep ache from channeling through endless waves of undead. Yet he pushed on, directing the survivors with a steady voice that belied the tremor in his chest. “Stack the last remnants here,” he barked at a young Templar, Duncan, whose hands still shook from his first real kill. “Burn them clean. No traces for Makaiel’s whisper.” Kieran clapped the lad on the shoulder, forcing a nod of approval. Stay strong for the young, he reminded himself. They looked to him now, these outpost guardians, as if his survival made him unbreakable. But inside, doubt gnawed like thornvines. Had he truly held the line, or merely delayed the inevitable?

A horn blared from the eastern ridge, sharp and insistent. Kieran’s head snapped up, his hand instinctively dropping to his sword hilt. Riders crested the hill. Their banners fluttered with the Hallow Church’s sun emblem of gold on crimson, unmarred by the wasteland’s grit. The lead messenger, clad in polished plate that gleamed under the fading dawn, dismounted with crisp efficiency. “Kieran of Havenstead,” the man intoned, producing a sealed scroll from his satchel. “Decrees from Lys Royeaux.”

Kieran’s throat tightened. Messengers from the Church rarely brought good tidings. Reinforcements, perhaps, or worse, reassignment. He accepted the scroll, his gauntleted fingers trembling as he broke the wax seal emblazoned with the Hierophant’s mark. The words blurred at first, then sharpened into clarity. Elevation to Captain for valiant defense against the Lich’s horde. Commendation from the Templar Marshall himself. A surge of pride warred with dread in his gut. Captain? The title meant command, resources... but also scrutiny, pulling him deeper into the Church’s web.

He glanced around, ensuring no eyes lingered on him, then slipped a hand beneath his breastplate. His fingers closed around a small locket warm from his skin, a simple silver oval etched with Sol’s rays. Inside, faded portraits of Helen and Ciaran stared back, his wife’s plum features soft with that knowing smile, his son’s wide eyes full of innocent wonder. Havenstead felt worlds away, nestled in its orderly hamlets, but the Lich’s gaze had pierced too close. What if the shadow spread inward, beyond the frontier? “Sol, shroud them in your light,” he whispered, the prayer a desperate thread. “Keep the taint from their door. Let me return before…” He trailed off, tucking the locket away. The promotion was Sol’s will, they would say. But to Kieran, it tasted like another mountain that kept him from home.

The barracks hummed with the low murmur of weary voices; the stone walls echoing the scrape of boots and the clink of armor being shed. Kieran stepped inside. Dim lantern light casting long shadows over the bunks where his depleted squad recovered. Only four Templars remained from the original sixteen. The breach had claimed the rest, their screams still echoing in his ears. He rolled his shoulders, ignoring the pull of fresh scars, and straightened as the door swung open behind him.

The new batch of Sol templars filled in, supplied by the envoy from the Holy City of Light. Fourteen novices, fresh from the Disciple Road. Their faces unlined and eyes wide with the naive fire of the untested. They were a mix of four women with braided hair in Solen style; six burly lad from the northern ridges; and four others bearing the pale complexion of a frost-born city from the uncharred south. Their armor shone too brightly, unmarked by the Sear’s relentless dust, a stark contrast to Kieran’s weathered plate, which was etched with years of frontier grit and Solfire burns. They saluted crisply, fists to chests, but Kieran caught the flicker of awe and fear in their gazes.

“Welcome to the edge of Sol’s grace,” he said gruffly, masking the unease churning in his belly. Captain now. The word sat heavy, like an ill-fitted helm. “I’m Kieran. Your new commander. Stow your gear there, then report for duties. Duncan will show you the trenches. We purify at dawn, patrol at dusk. No slacking. Makaiel doesn’t rest.”

As they moved to comply, the messenger from earlier, Damien Lux, lingered by the door, his polished demeanor at odds with the outpost’s rough edges. “Captain,” Damien said, his voice smooth as sanctified oil, “the decrees include more than your promotion. News from the interior.” He unrolled another scroll, his eyes scanning the novices as if assessing fresh recruits. “Brewing danger inside the Sear. Necromancy Orbs sighted—corrupting villages. Camelford has fallen, twisted into undeath. Two others reported similarly afflicted.”

Kieran’s blood ran cold. Camelford, close enough to Havenstead that trade caravans passed between them. His mind flashed to Helen, sweeping the lantern-lit porch; Ciaran waving from the doorway. The Orb’s shadow could slither inward, unseen, turning the living into puppets. He clenched his fist, nails biting into his palm, but forced his voice steady. “Sol’s light holds the veil,” he said, addressing the room but aiming the words at himself.

One novice—a sharp-featured woman named Lindra, her braid threaded with novice beads—stepped forward, hesitating in her stance. “Captain... Why draft more of us here? The Lich walks free beyond the Sear, yet the Church pulls us from training. If the Orbs are rising inside, shouldn’t we fortify the heartlands first?”

The room stilled, the other novices exchanging glances. Kieran felt the weight of their eyes, the subtle test of his new rank. Indoctrination began in questions like these, he knew, the Church’s teachings drilled into every templar’s soul from pilgrimage onward. But Lindra’s words echoed his own buried fears. Why chase shadows abroad when corruption festered at home? He met her gaze, channeling the stoicism that had kept him alive. “Doubt feeds Makaiel,” he replied, his tone firm but not unkind. “Faith forges our fire. The Lich tests us here to weaken the interior. Divide and corrupt. We draft more because Sol demands vigilance everywhere. Question the why, and you question His light. Forge your Spark; let them burn away the shadows in your mind.”

Lindra nodded slowly, her expression shifting from skepticism to resolve, the Church’s rhetoric taking root like it had in him years ago. The others murmured agreement. The moment diffused into assigned tasks of sharpening blades and mending fences. Damien watched with approval, but Kieran turned away, his mind racing. Humanizing words, perhaps, but they rang hollow in his chest. The Church critiqued itself in whispers, never aloud, for to voice it was heresy. Yet as he was assigning patrols, images of Havenstead plagued his mind. If the Orb reached there. No. He would march as commanded, but Sol helped him, he’d pray harder for a path home.

Damien cleared his throat. “The decrees also include reinforcements for your outpost, Captain. And... a call for experienced hands in the coming Inquisition.”

Kieran’s heart sank further.

Evening fell over the outpost like a shroud. Above, the endless yellow veil of the Sear hummed faintly in the distance, a low, bone-deep thrum that vibrated through the cracked earth, as if Sol’s ancient wound still pulsed with unresolved fury. The campfire crackled in defiance, its flames licking at the night sky, casting flickering shadows across the novices’ faces.

Kieran sat on a weathered stump, the group gathered in a loose circle around the fire pit, their forms silhouetted against the wasteland’s glow. The air carried the sharp tang of smoke and sanctified oil, mingling with the distant screech of scavenging crows. The novices huddled close, their unscarred features etched with the day’s unease. Lindra’s braid undone from nerves, the burly lad fidgeting with his novice beads.

Kieran’s promotion weighed on him like an extra layer of armor, but he masked it, stirring the embers with a charred stick. The fire popped, and in its heart, he glimpsed Helen’s smile, warm and teasing, Ciaran laughing as he chased chickens in Havenstead’s yard. The brewing danger of the Orbs twisted the vision. Shadows creeped into their hamlet, turning laughter to screams. He blinked it away, focusing on the young faces before him.

“Tell us a tale, Captain,” Lindra ventured, her voice tentative but eager. The others nodded, their eyes reflecting the flames, hungry for reassurance in a strange place. “Of heroes who held the Sear against greater evil.”

Kieran nodded slowly, the request stirring old memories drilled into him during his own pilgrimage. Stories and songs weren’t just entertainment. They were tools, weaving Sol’s will into the soul. He leaned forward, his voice gravelly from the day’s commands. “Aye. Gather close. This is the tale of the Descent of the Second Sun, when the sixteen Myrmidons stood against the Queen of Thorns and her endless horde.” He paused, letting the words settle, then began in a rhythmic cadence, inviting responses like the chants of Lys Royeaux’s halls.

“In ages past, when Aeigiva bloomed,” he intoned, his tone low and steady.

The novices echoed, hesitant at first. “Aeigiva bloomed, roots deep and true.”

Kieran continued, building the call-and-response: “The Umbrites drew from Aei’s sap, ink of power, leaves of might.”

“Leaves of might, elders’ whisper in the night.”

“But greed awoke the outer call. Makaiel’s breath, the thorns’ dark thrall.”

“The thorns’ dark thrall, devouring all.”

He wove in the undead lore organically, his words painting variants born of that ancient corruption. “Shambling corpses rose first, mere echoes of Makaiel’s whim. Slow and mindless, falling easy to Sol’s flame.”

“Falling easy,” the novices chanted, “to the light’s righteous claim.”

“But Liches followed, whispers of death, bending wills with shadowed breath. They command legions of thorn-vined horrors, twisted flesh and bone, no mercy, no rest.”

“No mercy, no rest,” they repeated, voices gaining strength, the rhythm binding them like Bloodfire threads.

Kieran’s mind intercut with visions. The flames danced, and he saw Ciaran ensnared by thornvines, Helen’s eyes turning blue with the Lich’s fire. The Orbs’ brewing danger mirrored this tale. Corruption rose from within, thorns creeping through the Sear’s veil. What if Havenstead became another Camelford, its people twisted into those shambling echoes? He pushed the fear down, emphasizing the heroes. “The Queen of Thorns conquered Aeithora first, her horde descending like night eternal. But Sol chose His champions, the Myrmidons, warriors of pure light.”

“Myrmidons of light,” the group echoed, “standing firm in endless fight.”

“They battled her legions. Corpses that shambled, liches that whispered, vines that choked the earth. Sixteen strong, they held the line, but the Queen pressed on, her shadows devouring.”

“Shadows devouring, light enduring.”

In the fire’s glow, Kieran’s thoughts darkened further. The Orbs were like those thorns, sprouting inside Sol’s domain, testing faith as the Queen once did. He ended with the sacrifice, his voice dropping to a grave whisper. “The Myrmidons sealed the breach with their life, calling the Second Sun to descend, burning the Queen and her horde to ash.”

“Burning to ash,” they chanted, “Sol’s champions endure at last.”

“Greater evil tests us,” Kieran concluded, meeting their eyes, “but Sol’s light prevails. Remember that when the whispers come.”

Silence fell, broken only by the fire’s crackle and the Sear’s hum. Lindra stared into the flames, her expression haunted. “My brother... he turned in the last raid. Shambling, like you said. Eyes empty, but I swear he knew me. Begged with his gaze before we burned him.” Her voice cracked, mirroring Kieran’s hidden anxiety. The personal cost of this war, families torn by undeath.

He reached out, gripping her shoulder. “That’s why we fight. To spare others that pain.” The words deepened the bonds, stakes rising in the shared vulnerability. But inside, Kieran vowed silently. I’ll endure this march, Sol, but bring me back to mine before the thorns take root.

Dawn broke over the Sear like a reluctant promise, the yellow veil shimmering with the first rays of Sol’s light, casting long shadows across the outpost’s stone walls. Kieran stood at the gate, his new captain’s insignia—an embroidered sunburst on his cloak—feeling like a brand rather than a badge. The novices bustled nearby, loading supplies under Duncan’s watchful eye, their faces set with the night’s tale still echoing in their resolve. Elias, the messenger, prepared to depart, but Damien Lux, the true envoy from Lys Royeaux, lingered like oil on water. Charismatic in his embroidered robes of crimson and gold, Lux exuded Church elite, a subtle sneer curling his lips, eyes sharp as a confessor’s blade, his presence a reminder of the capital’s unyielding grip.

“Captain Kieran,” Damien said, his voice smooth and praising, stepping closer as if sharing a secret. “I’ve seen enough in these brief hours. Your defense against the Lich was exemplary. Sol’s hand guided you, no doubt. The Hierophant himself takes note of such valor.”

Kieran inclined his head, but tension coiled in his gut. “High praise, Envoy. But my post is here, on the frontier. After my service, I’ll go home.”

Damien’s smile widened, charismatic yet laced with condescension, his embroidered cuffs catching the light like gilded chains. “Ah, the pull of hearth and home. Admirable. But Sol needs templars of your quality for this holy war. The Inquisition against Caladryn Dea. Umbrite remnants stir, dabbling in necromancy, threatening to unravel the Sear from within. Your experience is vital.”

Kieran resisted, his voice firm but edged with plea. “The Lich struck here last night. If I leave, who guards this breach? My wife, my son, are much safer if the Sear holds.”

“Sol’s will marches us all, Captain. Doubt not His plan; it forges the faithful. Refusal invites shadow. Would you let Makaiel whisper through your hesitation?” Lux said, his tone as unyielding as scripture.

Cut the crap, Kieran thought. “I got promoted only to leave?”

Damien leaned in. “The Prune Pontiff’s here,” he whispered.

Kieran hitched. The Pontiff rarely left Lys Royeaux. If he was here, it meant the breach was serious; it meant the lich would die. He acquiesced outwardly, nodding stiffly. “As Sol wills.”

As Damien Lux mounted his horse, the envoy’s party riding off in a cloud of dust toward the eastern horizon, Kieran turned his gaze to the Sear. There, beyond the veil, a distant silhouette flickered. Tall and still, robes shifting without wind, twin blue fires burning in the haze. The Lich was watching.

Kieran closed his eyes, kindling Solfire in his inner sanctum. The Spark flared, threads of Bloodfire surging through his veins, steeling him for the march ahead. The hum of the Sear answered, a reminder that the veil held. For now.

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Note: A quick history why Kieran is leading each Episode. He is originally created as the protagonist for this story (he was Ianc before), but then I just doesn’t feel the storyline. So he becomes a foil to Ianc, he is what Ianc should be if he get Solfire by following Darren Bravoda to Lys Royeaux. He is Ianc in a classic hero journey wrap into 3 chapters.

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“Isn’t he too old for her?” Ianc asked. Clementine looked his age, maybe older. Gerald was at least in his forties.

“That is not my place to comment,” Rahorh said.

Marshall, the title was reason enough. The Sacrosanct intermarried to hoard Sol’s favor. His memory flashed, recounting what he knew. Clan deMolay, though a vassal under house Mieres, carried great weight in the southern uncharred ridges of Lys Royeaux. Perhaps they had ascended to a proper house, judging by having an Inquisitor like Clementine.

In the grand cathedrals of the Hallow Church sat Tietra del Saintinas, the closest man to Sol. His pact with house leAbelle and leAngelnet allowed the Church to control the Quaeso chapels, thus the flow of Ishchoir in the world under the Sear, Sahada. The Church’s executioner, the Prune Pontiff, held absolute power to call Inquisition on the Magister houses.

“Woodman!” Rahorh’s voice snapped through Ianc’s dark thoughts. “Stop dreaming. Make yourself useful. Drag those corpses here.”

Ianc nodded, carrying himself towards the plagueborn. They sorted limbs, heads, and torsos into separate, twitching piles. The air reeked of spoiled meat and roast flesh as they started the fire. He dragged the two templar corpses, adding to the pyre. Then he retrieved their heads. Those same opaque eyes to the stag, and those jaws were still biting the air as he threw them in the flame. “What will happen if we eat these undead meat?”

“Hah,” Campa snorted. “You will leak on both ends, then die, then join them in the pyre.”

“What about the animals?” Ianc pressed. “The ginger field. A hunter named Thomas brought back three boars, and then the sickness came.”

“And you, woodman?” Rahorh asked, not looking up from his work. “Same profession. Did you have better luck, or better judgment?”

“I didn’t find success in my hunt and had to use my old stack to pay levy for the Tenure feast,” Ianc said, another half lie. A rhys mentioned that he was infected. He’d skinned the tiger. Could the plague be transferred just by breath? No, he had a few scratches on his fingers, must be the blood.

Clementine stared at him in the entire speech. She gazed back at the piles of corpses and gave a hand signal. As the flame spread, they chanted a low, resonant threnody Ianc didn’t know.

“No Sol reaches for your warmth. No crows feast on your mortal form,
No plague curses your domain, bring forth husk of dominion.
Only us, the ashen warriors. Only us, the devoted shepherds,
Only us and his true flame, sets forth your righteous path.”

When they finished the chant, the fire fed on the flesh, shifting from red to a sickly blue. Then from black smoke blazed a pure, screaming white flame. The taint itself was burnt out of the dead. He stared deep into the pure white flame, seeing shadows in the middle of the burning flesh. Incineration is an honor, they said. His gaze flicked to a dark doorway. A secret dungeon to torture my people. Mirari, if they found out about her, she would face the same fate.

His jaw clenched. Never. I’ll give her mercy first. Who was the shadow, an Archlich like Clementine had suspected? Then how could it cast a spell under the Second Sun’s protection? How could it even impose a rhys and walk inside the Sear? He understood one thing now that he had to become stronger. Wear their insignia. Learn their fire. He had to be a thorn. His voice came rough when he spoke, probing the wound. “Of what law allows the Quaeso chapel to torture people?”

Campa turned, his bulk filling Ianc’s vision. “What are you blabbing about?”

“I think the Quaeso chapel is the plague,” Ianc said, tilting his head up to meet Campa’s eyes. “You don’t torture despair out of someone. You create it.”

A gauntleted backhand caught Ianc across the jaw. Light exploded behind his eyes before he hit the ground. Clementine stood over him, her voice a deadly calm. “That talk will earn you a pyre. We hunt corruption. Sometimes it hides deep. The methods are harsh.” Her jaw tightened. “The furnace is a mercy, for what Makaiel makes of failed subjects.”

Ianc pushed himself up, spitting blood. “People break.”

Clementine bit her lips, her eyes were wide with anger. He could sense Solfire was burning inside those gray orbs. She unstrapped her cloak and the armor beneath, showing her bare shoulders. It was crosshatched with scars, each a healed scream, each a lesson carved into flesh. “Sacrosanct faces temptation the same as Suledins. Your prejudices towards us need to end. You are one of us and shall endure the same if you live long enough.” She re-equipped each piece of her gear with a sharp, final movement, punctuated by her words.

The fire left his anger, leaving his jaw throbbing and a cold understanding in its place. He was a novice judging masters of a war he’d just stumbled into. “Apologises.” He bowed.

With a wave of Clementine’s hand, they made a swift, grim campfire. Ianc watched, stunned, as they ate hardtack and dried meat in the chamber of stench and ashes.

“We also don’t have time for soft methods, woodman,” Rahorh said, “Like grogblossom, if it’s there, it’s there. You take it out, forcing your body to heal. You leave it be, it will explode when you are most unexpected. We have Undead to fight on the frontier, can’t let our backyard turn on us too.”

Ianc nodded. Their reasonableness was a new kind of trap that seemed to latch on his collarbone. The kinder they were, the deeper the betrayal would cut when he chose Mirari over them. “At least, let me have some weapons. I’m useless to this course without a means to protect myself.”

“Haven’t you just heard about ‘explode when you are most unexpected?’ We are not giving you any weapons until the orb is destroyed.” Rahorh shrugged.

“Not even a shield?” Ianc insisted.

Campa finally barked a laugh. “Persistent little badger, aren’t you?”

They moved out before swallowing their last bite. The guys took a piss in the corner. Clementine and Abigail were having a conversation in private, leaving Ianc no choice but to stand practicing his new kite shield. It was heavy and unbalanced from the cracks it had endured after the plagueborn confrontation. At least when it eventually broke, he could have two pieces of wood to throw at his opponents.

He mimicked what he had seen the templars did in the training yards, crouching down and pushing. One step, two steps, and at the three, he sprung hard at the imagining enemy. This motion, if combined with a line of soldiers, would bash the undead to the ground for the next line to pin them down; or the templars would just bring down a mace, while the next line advanced through the gaps. He had always loved the craft of formations and group motions, to join a group of men fighting evil. But his situation forced him to be a lonely hunter.

“That’s a good move, but you have to let out a battlecry in the last push,” Blake said. Then he demonstrated with a wink.

“Yes, yes, it will send the undead crumble in fear. Keep your breath, the undead will not,” Arron said, shaking his head.

Ianc looked between the brothers. “How come your group fights so differently?”

“We are the Inquisitor force,” Clementine interrupted, “We don’t fight the mass of undead, nor the people protest. We seek things like that plagueborn, or people who dabble in necrotic magic to execute Sol’s punishment. Which is this way, towards the source of all this trouble.” She turned, signalling them with hand signals and took the lead from Campa.

Ianc followed the group, with two sol templars behind him. They had lost four, but it seemed death had not shaken them a small bit. Perhaps it was the responsibility of the blessed soldiers, perhaps they were just brave. The corridor led up in the same fashion as it had led them down to the furnace, promising another confrontation that Ianc didn’t want to face. He might find Mirari there and it imposed a shroud of fear upon him. Could he side with her to fight against the people here? He knew one thing that he didn’t want them to be hurt. He bit his lips, then spat. Mirari comes first.

“It’s locked, not barred,” Campa said, “Guess I’ll be first to lead us into the light this time, Inquisitor.” He heaved himself, about to charge at the door.

Abigail yanked the hulky templar aside, but the attempt resulted in her being pulled up two steps, almost toppled over Rahorh. “The noise risks being heard by whatever inside the fort. I can pick the lock.”

She busied herself for a while, no one else made a sound but the tiny clicks of her tools. With a sharp clink, she pushed the door open. It was awkward, for the rusted hinges gave out a series of mocking creaks that could be heard in the far end of this corridor. Even though no one made a comment, Ianc saw their chainmails shaking. Clementine quickly took charge as usual and burst out of the narrow space they were in, followed by Campa, then the siblings.

“Clear.”

The bright light felt like an assault as Ianc entered the courtyard. It was absent from life, not even a corpse was walking or lying on cold stone. Behind him was the watchtower, probably the one he had been kept imprisoned in that bird cage when he woke up on the opposite side. The two templars behind whizzed through him and opened the portcullis while the rest kept vigilant eyes on the wall, the servant quarter, and the big arch doors that led to the courtroom where the lord hosted the feast.

The templars they had parted on the chapel below reappeared, marching in order. The leader strode right before Clementine with a grim face. “The escort party sent a signal. The people we saved yesterday… turned instantly when the barrier was down.”

Clementine glanced around, counting the numbers. “Then we are surrounded, but we are at the heart of this plague. Sol Templars! Make your stand here. I, Inquisitor Clementine deMolay, swear under the light of Sol, that we will prevail.”

She turned to Ianc, her armor scarred, her eyes hollow with a failure she’d never admit aloud. “Your connection to the orb. Use it, or we all die here. This town is just the first.”

It stunted him. A Sacrosanct asking for help? He breathed in slow and deep, then nodded. “I follow your lead.”

The templars mounted the walls in a matter of seconds, chewing on their supplies as they moved. Ianc saw no sign of fear in them, or they might have hidden it well under their helmets. But in him, fear was a cold worm in his belly. His knees felt water-weak. He had just given a promise and might have to break it if he found Mirari behind those great doors.

Campa was the first to ascend the staircase, his armor cladded, his boots thudded, his cloak floated. He charged the great doors like a battering ram. They boomed open, vomiting out streams of black, grasping smoke. The oaf templar rolled forward, then sprung to the side, hiding himself behind a pillar.

Rahorh and Abigail burst in right after. Their hands were holding torches that radiated white light that beat the black smoke deep into the throne room. Ianc gazed inside, his mind was so focused that time seemed to slow itself down. In the hall’s heart hung the orb, a pulsing, diseased egg. Gray tendrils dripped from it like roots, piercing through the nobles of Camelford, now dangling marionettes of death. They twitched with each pulse, puppets to the orb’s black magic.

The group acted as they used to. Blake shot while Arron pulled the benches together, making a blockage. Campa and Clementine joined forces on the left flank, blocking, pushing, slashing whatever came at them.

Ianc knew instinctively he had to help Rahorh and Abigail, for these undead were much faster than the stragglers he had fought before. He crouched behind his shield and hurried to the right flank, where the rhys had already got rid of the torch and fought with a pole. Ianc bashed one undead onto another and saw a flash of metal from a far. The armored corpses drew swords. Their eyes glowed like hellish coals, gray smoke leaking from every seam. “Is that normal?” He yelled.

“No! Keep your wits about you and protect my sister,” Clementine roared. She disappeared into the shadow on the far end of the hall.

Ianc glanced at Abigail. She was puffing, her arms continuously dancing in the air to conjure some kind of huge spell that formed a big orb of flames before her.

“We need to burn them lest they become another plagueborn,” Rahorh roared. His arms also danced in a whirl of movement. But instead of conjuring another ball, his Solfire spurted into Abigail’s, enlarging it dramatically.

Blake joined Ianc’s side. “Take the aisle near the wall.”

Ianc skipped to the right aisle. The combined spell of Rahorh and Abigail swelled into a miniature sun, its light a physical force pushing against the orb’s necrotic glow.

Ianc reached his position and found one undead was cramping over. It stumbled on the benches, but its target was clear. He wished he had his composite bow here so he could end this quickly. He inhaled sharply, and charged with the kite shield pointy end. The undead dodged with unnatural speed and slashed low. Agony ripped from hip to armpit. As they clashed, the thing’s face swung into view. Ianc’s breath died. Oscar, Mirari’s victim. Death had not erased that spoiled arrogance in those hollow eyes.

“Oscar!” He gritted through his teeth. To his surprise, undead-Oscar reacted to his calls. It stopped moving and gazed at him. A crazy idea appeared in Ianc’s mind. They weren’t mindless undead, they were controlled by the necromancy orb. “Cle! They still have their mind.”

Undead-Oscar launched itself at him, sword coming down. He blocked it, then used all of his strength to push it towards the wall. A foul smell invaded his nostril as it opened its mouth to bite him. Cluck-cluck-cluck. He hammered an elbow at its throat, then its mouth, its nose. You died and returned but my sister is alive and gone. Why? Die! He kept releasing a barrage of hatred until the pain bounced back. With the last drop of hate, he spun around, bringing the kite shield to a full circle that ended on undead-Oscar’s neck.

He gasped for breath, his arms and legs were shaking as he picked up the sword. He shouldn’t let his anger take him like that, not when surrounded by undead. A mistake he swore he wouldn’t make again.

The air cracked when the orange orb clashed with the black egg. Sparkling embers glowed and diminished, leaving plumes of smoke that soon evaporated into thin air. Across the room, Clementine and Campa were throwing fireballs at the corpses, preventing them from being re-animated again.

A movement snagged Ianc’s eye. A pale strand, nearly invisible, slithering from the orb toward Clementine’s back. He blinked. Campa, right beside her, gave no sign of seeing it. He sprinted. “Cley, behind you!”

She turned, confused. The strand coiled behind her like a serpent.

He leapt from the bench, sword swinging. It sliced through the strand, but didn’t cut it. It turned toward him, recoiled again and struck him in the chest, right on the black mark. Numbness spread from his chest to his neck, his limbs, even his mind. He was pinned in mid-air. In his sanctum, the white tendril speared toward his tiny, newborn spark. It will eat me. Become me. Make me undead. Despair met a deeper, stubborn rage. His inner self didn’t think. It acted, calling out a hatchet by pure memory. With a woodman’s practiced swing, he chopped at the tether connecting the strand to his spark. No plague curses my domain.

“What in the light is that?” Campa shouted.

That was the last thing Ianc heard.

The hatchet bounced back. Gray mist wrapped around his spark. His body was drifting away from his mind, serrated by the orb’s invasion. The avatar in his inner sanctum still has a chance. He imagined his weapon, a bow, and it appeared on his hand. He drew an arrow. In Sol’s true flame, sets forth my righteous path. With sole commitment and a stubbornness to live, he released it. His corrupted spark splintered, then exploded.

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This chapter marks the end of Episode 1. Please feel free to comment or share any feedback. I genuinely welcome honest criticism.

Here’s an extra poem to sum up Episode 1.

The Sear hums,
Blue eyes stare back.
A dear’s future sold for Solfire,
A nightmare returned from hollow prayers,
Chains and Blood. The brooch lies broken.
A shadow wearing a rhys’s smile whispers a killing spree,
The cages swing, a woodman flying free.
In the furnace heart a gray egg pulses, 
From a confused heart, arise a new resolve.
The Sear hums,
Death's eyes stare back.

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