The scent of burning incense lingered in the corridor long after the candles had died out.
Malrek stood by the arched window in the upper gallery of the Church, fingers clasped behind his back, his thoughts as still as the cold morning air outside.
A soft knock broke the silence.
He turned.
It was one of the lesser acolytes, eyes downcast, breathing too fast.
"Speak," Malrek said, tone clipped.
The boy swallowed. "The physician... the one from the clinic. He was granted entry last night. Visited the prisoner."
Malrek didn't respond at first.
He simply blinked, once.
Then: "Who allowed it?"
"I....I believe it was Luminer Tovran, sir."
Of course it was.
Malrek dismissed the acolyte with a flick of his hand and made his way down the gallery, robes whispering over the polished stone. Tovran would be in the prayer alcove this early he always was. Routine was a weakness.
He found him lighting a tall candle beneath the statue of the Radiant Father, hands steady, expression soft with ritual.
"You let him into the cell," Malrek said before the priest could even finish the blessing.
Tovran didn't flinch. "He had the right."
Malrek took a step closer. "He's no longer a healer in service to the Church. His status should mean nothing."
Tovran turned to face him. "His past means something."
Malrek narrowed his eyes. "What past?"
There was a pause. Just long enough to matter.
Then Tovran sighed, quiet and measured. "The doctor served the Duchal Court. Under Duke Halvren. He was chief medical advisor and one of the trusted few during the wars."
Malrek blinked.
"That man?" He glanced back toward the window, mind recalculating. "He's that doctor?"
"Yes," Tovran said. "The very same."
"And no one thought that worth mentioning while I was interrogating a possible heretic connected to him?"
Tovran folded his hands in front of him. "It's not a connection you want to drag into daylight."
Malrek stepped forward again, voice low and sharp. "You think this is about politics?"
"I think," Tovran said calmly, "that the man you're poking at is woven into deeper fabric than you realize. The Duke still has influence, even here. And the Church has long memories. Some debts are better left untouched."
Malrek held his tongue, though his jaw tightened.
The Church had allowed the doctor's retirement. Quiet. Undisturbed. But that didn't sit right anymore.
Tovran gave him a pointed look. "You asked for truth. You've found more than you were assigned to chase."
Malrek stared at him. Then turned without a word and walked away, the echo of his footsteps mingling with the soft chants rising from the sanctuary below.
The boy might be dangerous, he thought. But the man who raised him... might be worse.
---
At dawn, a church messenger arrived, on a silver mare, robes edged in white and sun-gold, the unmistakable seal of the Sanctum of Radiance pressed into the wax of the scroll he bore. Acolytes bowed. Guards stepped aside. No one dared delay a courier of the High Church.
Malrek met him in the cloister garden, surrounded by dew-slicked stone arches and the smell of sage.
The messenger didn't bow.
He simply unrolled the scroll and read, voice cold, formal, echoing:
"In the name of the High Luminary Seraphine, Keeper of Flame and Doctrine, Let it be enacted: The accused heretic currently held under the name Cero shall be transferred without delay to the Sanctum Citadel, to stand before the Flame Tribunal. Charges: Unauthorized reading of banned scripture and possession of forgotten old tongues, and suspected contact with agents of the Old Powers."
He paused, then added:
"Due to a past connection with a retired Crown Physician, the matter is now considered politically sensitive. All local investigation is to cease. The Inquisitor Malrek is to escort the accused under sealed guard."
He handed over the scroll.
Malrek took it in silence, his gloved fingers tightening slightly around the parchment.
"Orders are signed," the messenger added, tapping the wax. "Seal of the High Luminary. Direct authority."
Then he turned and walked away.
Malrek remained still, staring down at the decree.
The High Church had intervened.
Not just for the heresy but because of the doctor.
They weren't just investigating Cero anymore.
They were retrieving him.
He folded the scroll and slid it into his coat.
So that was it, then. The boy was being moved. To the capital. To face judgment before the Tribunal of Flame, mused Malrek inwardly.
---
The next day...
The morning sun filtered weakly through the clinic's shutters.
The doctor sat alone at his desk, leafing through an old ledger with half-focus. He hadn't slept. The ink blurred, numbers flickering like ghosts from a calmer time, when the worst his patients brought him were fevers, broken ribs, or the occasional snakebite.
Now the town was whispering about witchcraft, magic, and the doctor's boy.
A knock.
He looked up. One of the younger acolytes stood in the doorway, breathless.
"They're moving him," the boy blurted.
The doctor stood so fast his chair scraped sharply across the wooden floor.
"Where?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"To the capital," the acolyte said, shifting nervously. "An edict came this morning. High Luminary's seal. They're taking him to stand before a high luminary."
The doctor's hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"They're calling it 'politically sensitive,'" the acolyte added, eyes flicking toward the door. "I thought... you should know."
The doctor didn't reply.
He simply nodded once. Curt.
The boy left without another word.
The clinic felt colder when he was gone.
The doctor moved to the back room, unlatched a narrow drawer hidden beneath the shelf of dried herbs. Inside, a single folded cloth wrapped something long and thin.
A letter opener?
No....a scalpel.
He closed the drawer again, slower this time.
The doctor turned to the wall where a faded, dust-covered map of the realm still hung. His eyes traced the route to the Sanctum Citadel weeks of road, guarded all the way.
The Church Dungeon
The iron cell door groaned as it opened. Torchlight spilled across the stone floor, revealing Malrek's silhouette tall, armored beneath his robes, every step controlled. Two silent guards followed behind him, faces hard with trained indifference.
Cero stirred in the corner, head lifting slowly.
Malrek didn't speak. He only produced a scroll bearing the High Church's seal, held it in the torchlight, and then motioned to the guards.
"No more questions," he muttered. "Only obedience."
The chains were unlocked.
Cero winced as his arms were pulled behind him, the manacles re-fastened, heavier this time engraved with warding symbols and blessed iron. His legs threatened to collapse beneath him, but he managed to stand, barely.
They led him out of the dungeon, up through stone corridors slick with morning moisture, until the great oak doors of the chapel creaked open and the outside world met him like a punch to the chest.
The town was waiting.
Villagers gathered near the church steps, some holding baskets under their arms, others simply standing with crossed arms and smug expressions. Murmurs rippled through the crowd like wind through dry grass.
"There he is."
"Finally."
"Should've done this months ago..." "Demon child..."
Malrek didn't acknowledge them.
He merely raised a hand, and the escort formation moved forward with four guards flanking Cero, one ahead, one behind. All wore the white and brass armor of the Radiant Order.
Cero kept his eyes down, but he felt every gaze like a weight on his back.
He didn't struggle. There was no strength left to fight.
From a window above the clinic, someone watched a shadow behind the curtains. A familiar presence. But Cero didn't look up.
The villagers stepped aside as the Church's envoy passed through the square. Some spat on the dirt. A few made the sign of the Light across their chests. Children peeked from behind their mothers' skirts, wide-eyed and silent.
The cart stood at the edge of town reinforced wood, marked with Church symbols, more a mobile prison than a carriage.
The guards helped Cero inside.
Malrek followed, closing the door behind them with a metallic thud.
The wheels creaked. The horses snorted. The caravan began to roll.
Behind them, the village faded into dust and silence.
Ahead lay the winding roads of the kingdom, and at their end, the Sanctum Citadel, where the Flame Tribunal awaited.
---
Cero sat in chains, eyes closed, head resting against the wood. His throat still burned. But his thoughts burned hotter.
The cart rocked with every stone in the road. He felt each jolt in his ribs, a dull ache that echoed through his bound limbs. The manacles bit into his wrists, and the iron cuffs on his ankles left no room to shift. But none of that hurt as much as the silence.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that fills a room right after your fate has been sealed.
The world outside passed unseen trees, fields, rivers all of it slipping away behind wooden walls and holy symbols. He'd spent his whole life in a village no one cared about… and now he was being taken to the center of the kingdom. To be judged by people who had never known his name until now.
Strange.
You'd think when you're called a heretic, it would mean you did something grand. Something terrible.
But all I did was read a book.
He closed his eyes.
I didn't even mean to find it.
He remembered the day. He'd been looking for salves. The shelf had shifted. A book had fallen. No markings. No warnings. Just… words and symbols. Elegant and strange.
He read them.
And they changed everything.
He didn't know it.
And yet, he did.
Like it had always been there, resting somewhere in the deepest cracks of his mind, waiting for the right key.
The first word he read felt like a chime in his bones.
The second like something whispered just behind his ear.
By the third, the room had grown impossibly quiet.
Outside, the rain stopped mid-pour. The candle flame froze. And Cero's heart began to beat... differently.
He should have stopped.
But something pressed him forward not compulsion, not curiosity. But invitation.
The deeper he read, the harder it became to stop. His nose bled once. Just a trickle. He ignored it.
Time passed strangely.
The second candle burned out. The room smelled of salt and copper and something vaguely metallic.
He looked up at some point and realized he had no idea how long he'd been reading.
And yet he remembered everything.
The symbols. The sigils. The words that unlocked thought like keys in hidden locks.
He closed the book.
And only then realized the rain had resumed.
Everything had returned to normal.
Except him.
He never told the doctor. But from that night on, something changed. He felt it. Like the world around him was a little more fragile. Like the shadows watched just a little too long. And worst of all, like the words were still alive inside his head.
Magic wasn't supposed to be real. The Church had said it was myth an old pagan lies swept away by the Radiant Father's light. And yet Malrek had drawn those symbols in the air like they were part of his bones. And the words those ancient, delicate syllables they had pulled the truth from Cero's lips like a hook through flesh.
The language.
So the Church does use it.
Just not for healing. Nor for kindness.
Only for control.
Cero opened his eyes again. The iron bars above the door cast faint shadows as the sunlight flickered past.
They fear me because I saw something I shouldn't have.
Not because I'm dangerous.
Not yet.
But the more he thought about it… the more he wanted to be dangerous. Not for revenge. Not for violence. But because power ,real one , power was the only thing they seemed to understand.
And he had none.
Not yet.
He turned his head slowly, letting it rest against the wooden wall of the carriage. His throat still ached. His voice still gone. But the words the ones he had read?
He still remembered them.
---
The day remained hot, the sun hanging over the road like a dying flame. The dirt path carved through a thinning forest, trees stripped of leaves long before their time. The convoy moved slowly, its five riders uneasy.
In the iron-bound cage behind them sat Cero. His wrists were chained, his head lowered, but his eyes… they wandered. Pale, glassy, detached the eyes of someone who had stopped expecting answers from the world.
Leading the procession was Inquisitor Malrek, his armor a moving sermon of gold and ivory. Four guards followed behind, sworn to the Church.
No one spoke. The horses seemed to sense it: something was wrong.
And then it happened.
The sky cracked.
That was how Cero would remember it. One blink, and the world had no light. As if some divine hand had peeled away the sun and replaced it with nothing. No wind. No warmth. Just black. Thick and full of pressure.
He gasped.
"What?"
His breath hitched in his throat.
"Did the sun die? Is this… is this death?"
The cage rattled as the horses panicked. One of the guards nearly fell off his saddle.
"Sir! The sky…!"
Malrek yanked his horse to a stop, his face already grim. The sudden darkness wasn't natural. It wasn't even magical in the ordinary sense.
It was sacred. Divine, or worse.
He turned his eyes skyward. No clouds. Just a dome of black, deeper than night, stretching far across the treetops.
His voice was sharp. "A Beta-Class Artifact... at minimum. Possibly Alpha."
Even the birds had stopped singing.
Malrek didn't hesitate. He turned, eyes flicking toward the dark sky above. His gauntlet went to his side and unlatched a thick book, bound in black steel and gold runes etched into its cover shimmered in protest of the darkness.
Cero froze.
He had never seen an artifact before. They were legends myth-stories told to scare kids away from stealing church bread.
But the moment Malrek opened the book, he felt it in his chest, in his bones, in the core of his breath:
This is real. This is not a story.
Malrek raised the book high, pages fluttering as if wind passed only through them. His voice dropped into a cadence that sounded older than language rhythmic, layered, like it was being spoken by more than one voice:
"Book of Lumens, Chapter Nine, Verse of the Pillar's Flame, Judgment to the Shadows, Law to the Night."
"In the name of Radiance Ever-Burning, In the voice of the First Light that named the stars, In the tongue of truth that lies cannot stain"
"I speak the Words that unmake Veils: Let the false night break. Let the righteous eye see. Let shadow's dominion be shattered By the Light that is not of this world, Not of fire, nor flame, nor sun"
"But of Law. Of Oath. Of Order.
Let...there… be… Light."
The last word struck like a thunderclap.
From the book surged a column of divine brilliance, a lance of scripture and flame that pierced the sky. Words made of light spiraled into the heavens, burning away the false dome of darkness with crackling golden fire.
The night screamed.
Cero clutched the bars of the cage, blinking furiously, shielding his eyes with shaking hands.
This isn't normal. This isn't real. What did I get caught in?
Who are these people? What kind of monster reads a book and tears the sky in half?
The light receded slowly, like a divine breath exhaled back into the void. Wisps of golden scripture still hovered in the air, flickering faintly before vanishing like burned paper.
Malrek swayed.
Just slightly.
His breath was strained not enough for the guards to notice, but Cero caught it from the cage. The inquisitor's hand trembled for the briefest second before he steadied it on the pommel of his sword.
Even he isn't invincible…
Whatever that was… it took something from him.
Malrek's gauntlet tightened into a fist. His eyes glowed faintly with Light Essence as he spoke, the air vibrating with unnatural weight.
"Voice of Command."
The words struck like a whip across the minds of the four guards.
Their eyes snapped forward. Breaths sharpened. One who had dropped his blade scrambled to grab it, eyes wide with sudden clarity.
"Form a protective ring!" Malrek ordered, his voice reverberating like iron on stone. "Protect the cage! Weapons drawn. No hesitation."
The guards obeyed without question, boots scraping as they circled the wagon, blades and artifacts ready.
Cero's heartbeat thudded like a war drum.
Then...
From the woods ahead… a sound.
Not a roar.
Not a whisper.
Something between.
The darkness ahead rippled, like a curtain being pulled aside and from the haze, a man in black stepped forward, cloak long and hood drawn low over his face. His robes fluttered slightly, though no wind blew.
No weapons. No visible sigil.
But the ground beneath him trembled subtly with every step.
He stopped just outside the ring of light still lingering from the artifact's use.
Then he spoke smooth, amused, and undeniably confident.
"I didn't expect you, Malrek…
And certainly not with a relic that ancient still functioning."
His head tilted.
"Tell me how many times can you still open the Book before it burns you inside out?"
Malrek didn't reply.
He studied the figure. Eyes sharp. Mind already racing.
A rogue Ascender… no doubt. Possibly a complete stage 5 Ascendant. But how does he know me?
Cero's eyes darted between the two.
Who is this man? Why does the air feel… wrong around him?
A strange pressure built in the air again thicker now. The horses began to whine and tug at their reins.
The hooded man took one more step forward and whispered:
"I am only here for the boy."