The Cryptarium for Matrys whispered as it breathed. Hisses of steam crawled through thin copper veins coiled along the stone walls, gently pulsing like arteries. Overhead domed ceilings stretched into pale arches, etched with old scripture and faded murals of martyrs being led to pyres beneath golden skies. Brass lanterns flickered, burning quiet blue fire, casting muted halos against the darkness.
Mary walked ahead, silent and dignified. Her coat swept behind her like a trailing prayer. The medallion from House Valenne glinted once in the lamplight before she passed it to the gatekeeper - a robed man with joints like brittle glass and an eye problem. He took it, looked at it without speaking, and led us inward in silence.
The sanctum smelled of oil, old incense, and sterilized stone. There was even a faint smell of perfume, you wouldn't even notice the place held hundreds of the dead - awaiting their eternal graves.
We stopped outside a room marked Martyr-72C. The wooden door, which was at least a meter thick, pulled open with a loud creaking sound.
Inside, the dead man waited.
He lay on a table of blackstone, surrounded by thin rails of steaming silver. His body had been washed until no speck of grime remained, robed in illustrious white, and lightly perfumed with myrrh. Copper-banded vents beneath the slab kept him cool, which filtered air from the outside in. Light filtered through tinted cathedral glass behind us, painting the chamber in a haze of soft oranges and sepias.
He looked like he could have been sleeping just another day off. The only indication otherwise was the lack of movement from his chest.
Mid-fifties, by my estimate. Hair grayed at the temples. He had a soft, oval face and a thin scar down his jawline, likely from a shaving accident, as he wasn't a military noble. His expression was peaceful. No tension in the jaw. No lines of pain in the brow. His hands were calloused, thick-knuckled, resting gently on his stomach.
Mary stepped closer, eyes fixed on him.
"He looks oddly peaceful," she said quietly, head lowered slightly. "For someone who may be damned."
I studied the corpse without responding, analyzing everything I saw. I pulled on my gloves and leaned in. It was better to work with the dead first, before diving into anything divine. I'd rather use Charlottes new trick after I had deduced everything I could.
"Right-handed," I muttered. "Calluses and tendon wear on the pen fingers. Can't have been from sword-fighting, so he wrote a lot."
I lifted one hand slightly, rotating it in the light, where his knuckles seemed to be inflamed abnormally.
"Arthritis. Been dealing with it a while. But his posture's good. No signs of spinal compression. Ate well. Drank clean water. No signs of chemical rot."
Mary looked at me, her head tilting questioningly.
"Arthritis?"
Without acknowledging her, I brushed it off.
"Just something from my home town, an ailment that effects the ligaments."
I stepped back, eyeing the chest and neck.
"No signs of violence. No bruising. No defensive wounds even. Veins look clean for a fifty something year old. If I had to guess, it was definitely a slow acting poison. Something that kills but leaves the body dignified."
I slipped the gloves off and stepped back, standing up straight. I didn't want to ask for Charlottes help, but I had no choice, especially since time wasn't on our side.
Ironic.
"Time to cheat."
I closed my eyes.
Charlotte, lend me your eyes.
She stirred like silk behind my skull, it almost felt like she was talking to the left of me. But when I looked to my left, she wasn't there.
Mary gave me a weird look, but I ignored it.
"Mmm. I was hoping you'd say please," she whispered, her voice like warm honey filtering through my mind. "But since I missed your voice…"
"Please," I grumbled, this time audibly.
She laughed gently.
The warmth rushed forward. My eyes itched, burned faintly, but it wasn't unpleasant. It felt similar to how my limbs felt when I needed to stretch.
When I opened them, they shimmered pink-red, and the dead man's eyes opened with mine, staring aimlessly and lifelessly at the ceiling.
His pupils were stained the same color as mine.
Mary blinked, startled, but didn't flinch.
"Who were you talking to?" she said, her voice a bit concerned.
"Myself."
Her golden eyes gazed into mine, and she looked slightly confused, as if something didn't make sense. A small smile formed on my face, unable to hold back the slight sense of victory against the invasion of my privacy.
"You can't read if I'm lying because of my eyes. There's only about ten other people that you couldn't do that to, so don't feel too disheartened."
She look a bit downtrodden, but than looked disgusted at the mention of the ten. She clutched her eye and looked like she wanted to rip it out.
I stared at her, pity in my eyes.
"You know, just because you were born with a curse doesn't mean it has to be one."
She seemed to calm down slightly, but I could see she was still slightly uncomfortable about the subject surrounding her eye.
"I can't believe there's others... ten more people cursed like us. Ten disgusting abominations roaming this world."
My gaze lingered for a bit, before I smiled and made a joke.
"Okay, maybe I'm not the most good looking man, but I'm most certainly not an abomination."
Mary rolled her eyes a bit at my joke, but it had its intended effects, as she seemed to calm down a bit.
Her gaze lingered on the open eyes of the man sprawled on the table.
"The Emperor once said that the eyes are the gateway to the soul."
I glanced at her with a dry expression. "Some people leave their doors wide open. Others booby-trap the porch."
She frowned slightly, but didn't reply.
I leaned closer to the corpse, staring into its eyes. I didn't know subconsciously what do, but it felt like I had done it before.
The world began to shift.
Everything around me, without warning, bleached into a white void. The color drained from the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Mary was still there, unmoving, her golden eyes watching me curiously. But to me, she was de-saturated, like a painting scrubbed of its pigment. The only thing dyed in color being her golden irises.
And then, I saw it.
A slow unraveling of red mist began to curl from the dead man's eyes. It slithered upward like smoke, folding over itself in delicate threads. Each strand moved independently, weaving across the room in slow, weightless arcs. The color pulsed faintly, crimson at the core and glowing with a divine softness at the edges. It danced around me, fluid and eerie, until it began to take shape.
Figures formed.
First, a pair of hands, ink-stained and trembling.
Then the rest of a man.
The red mist folded into a memory, fully visualized, made of light and shadow stitched together by emotion and divinity. Charlotte's doing, I presumed.
The man made up in the red mist was younger, sitting at a dinner table. A little girl laughed beside him, messy-haired and beaming as she opened a small silver locket. The man's smile was wide. Proud. His fingers gently touched her hair.
"You are my greatest prayer answered," he said.
The scene melted away into swirling mist.
Another image formed, slower this time. The lines more jagged.
He stood in a kitchen, reprimanding a servant for talking to his children. His voice was clipped, cold. Not cruel - but condescending, like he was berating a pet that had made a mistake.
"They're not like us," he muttered to his wife next to him, who also had the same look in her eyes. "We give them too much, then they forget their place."
His wife said nothing. Just sipped tea from fine china, eyes downcast in disdain.
More mist swirled.
Another room unfolded - a study lined with books and scrolls. The man sat at a polished desk, pulling open a drawer, which looked to be made or ornate wood.
He retrieved a letter. The seal bore nothing, just a red stamp with no sender named. Neat, clean, threatening. I could tell due to his hands trembling at the notion of opening it.
After the man gulped once, he opened it, forcing himself to read the contents.
We know about the unpaid tithe. The ledgers from House Irelien. The falsified taxation reports. Comply - or be exposed. This is your final warning. If you fail to meet our demands, we will expose you.
"Damn those Akatsuran Scum!"
I wasn't shocked, more depressed at, what was effectively his confession.
So the Eastern Empire - the Akatsuran Empire - is working with the cultists...
The mans hands trembled as he slammed them against the desk. He set the letter down beside a picture of his daughter, and slouched back on his chair, exhausted with stress.
A second envelope followed, slid across the desk days later. This one bore no crest. Only symbols - angular, wrong, etched in ink that moved faintly like oil in water.
He hesitated before opening it. Fear in his eyes. But his hand did not stop, quickly reading the page.
The room collapsed around me, the mist folding in on itself, retreating into the corpse's eyes like it had never existed, scurrying like scared mice.
My vision cleared.
Color returned. The walls were gray-blue once more. The steam whispered from the vents. Mary still stood where she had, brows slightly raised.
"Your eyes went empty," she said softly. "Only for a moment. But your eyes weren't moving at all."
Without waiting, I cracked my neck, a loud snapping sound being produced.
"I saw everything," I replied.
She stepped closer, waiting.
"He didn't know who he was actually working for," I said. "He really didn't. He was sent threats from the Akatsuran Empire. Falsified tax records. Donations. He was scared. He wanted to protect his family, yet he effectively dug his own grave."
Mary's eyes narrowed slightly. "So he folded."
"Folded with faith in his heart, at least."
I exhaled, troubled by the new knowledge.
"The letters are hidden. A false-back in one of the books."
She raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"
"Empire's Treasury: A Citizen's Guide to Lawful Taxation."
A silence passed between us. Mary cracked the faintest smile.
"Poetic."
"Ironic," I muttered, rubbing my temple.
Mary walked to the side of the corpse, kneeling. She placed her fingers gently against his forehead, drawing a simple sigil with light. It pulsed once, then vanished.
"May the divine find the truth in your repentance," she whispered.
We left in silence, the door sealing behind us with a whisper of steam and scripture.
And though the corpse remained still, I couldn't shake the feeling that a part of him - what was left of him - had watched us leave.
Maybe with guilt.
Or maybe, finally, with peace.
Though in truth, I doubted it.