The cathedral exploded into violence.
Aidan didn't move at first. His body had already learned to react—heart rate slowing, muscles flexing, eyes scanning for exits. But nothing could prepare him for the Hollowed.
They didn't fall from the roof. They descended, like parasites from a living wound.
Seven of them landed in silence.They wore faces not their own—stitched skins, borrowed uniforms, ceremonial bone masks. One dragged a rosary of human teeth. Another's arms were replaced with spiked bone protrusions. Their joints bent wrong.
The lead Hollowed stepped forward, the fabric of its throat bulging with breath it did not need.
"Ignarius…"
The name hit Aidan like a slap from an old dream.
He didn't remember that word.But his blood did.
The first Hollowed lunged. Aidan fired—twice—shots landing dead-on.
Nothing.
The creature absorbed the impact and hurled itself into the pew he had just vacated. Wood splintered as Aidan slid beneath the chaos, came up behind it, and drove his trench blade clean through its side.
There was a sickening crack—but no scream.
Instead, the creature turned its head 180 degrees, staring at him with sealed eyelids.
Aidan ripped the blade free—and something inside him snapped awake.
He felt it.From his spine to his palm: pressure, light, intention.
His left hand erupted in fire—not flame of this world, but something colder and brighter. Veins lit like runes. His vision swam. Symbols danced behind his eyelids.
Burn.Burn now.They are your mirrors.
A second Hollowed came from the flank.
Aidan didn't dodge this time.He turned, extended his hand—and the creature stopped.
Frozen mid-motion, its entire body outlined in light. The air shimmered. Flesh boiled in silence. Then it collapsed into ash.
The others faltered. Hesitated.
They felt it too.
The blood in them recognized what he was becoming.
One by one, they lowered their heads.
And in a single rasped breath, they whispered:
"Blood of the Flame. Son of the Covenant. We remember."
And vanished.
Aidan collapsed to his knees, breathing like he had run ten miles.
The fire in his arm receded, but the veins remained etched. He could feel them now—not as power, but as memory. The strength was borrowed. The cost not yet revealed.
Elijah approached, unshaken.
"Now you understand. The Flame doesn't serve the righteous. It answers only the survivors."
Aidan didn't respond.
He stared at his palm and saw more than flesh. He saw doors. And behind those doors, fire without end.