From the narrator's perspective
"Are we defined by our actions? Or our meaning in them?"
Moonlight pooled like gallium, seeping through the crevices of the square cobblestone plates.
Wrath circled around Orin, "What is sin if not the price of becoming,"
Orin stood, and fell into an easy stance, his eyes following each and every movement Wrath made. His ears fixated on his words blocking out any background noise.
Wrath continued to circle Orin counter-clockwise. It was simply a matter of who would strike first. Wrath then paused for a moment, settling for a relaxed stance, leaving himself wide open. Then, it was subtle but quick, his eyes darted toward his right, though his head was stationary.
Where was he looking?
Orin too tracked his glance in confusion before Wrath adjusted his step pushing it against the floor as if kicking the ground.
There it was. His arms grinding against the air as he slid, crashing towards him. He raised his finger, pointed it at Orin, Orin's eyes darting towards him though he knew he was too late. Too slow to dodge fully, Orin twisted—just enough to keep the flame from piercing his heart. His feet scraping the ground as he did so.
"Iaculum."
Wrath sighed as if with pride, "Ignis,"
A bullet of black flame screamed from his fingertip, trailing a javelin of searing plasma. The flame didn't halt—not for a second. Rather, it slit then cauterised his shoulder in an instant. In the same breath his wound began to scorch with a dark atramentous flame.
They say black is the absence of light, but it is in fact black which absorbs all the light.
Orin clenched his garments. His blood was burning. Blood slipped between his fingers, flowing outward in a smooth, tubular arc.
Then it spun in Wrath's palm, forming an elliptical ring of blood—liquid in truth, but hard as crystal in appearance, solid and diaphanous. Then it moved, forming a dense spherical ball of blood.
The man acted fast, knowing the blood would clot if he did otherwise. He used his index finger as a paintbrush like an artist bisecting strokes of blood into the ground.
Orin looked down. The blood was like oil. A black fire crept along the paint, Slowly quick. The flames don't die out for they are powered by the lullaby. The Requiem.
"A sigil." He muttered
"The letters are written to overlap, if he completes it…If he does."
He didn't waste time, he knew he had to act quickly, the sigil could be for anything.
"Exardescere." He exclaimed
The skies opened, bringing forth a light that beamed down as a cherubim descending like lightning to the ground, its grace sashaying like snow. The cherubim leapt through the puddles as others descended from the sky, splintering through the clouds.
The sixth petal fell.
Wrath was blinded by this undying light.
"Lumen dei…Ars of rites, The Requiem of light." Wrath smiled
Orin smiled too his back turned, "It's a small trick Ilya taught me,"
When the light loosened, Orin stood behind him–finger to his head.
"How weren't you blinded?" He questioned Orin
"I turned back and closed my eyes." Orin responded, throwing his bag he carried beneath his shoulder, being careful not to remove his finger
"Iaculum Ignis." He murmured
No shot came. Only the throb of latent heat beneath his skin—contained, flickering like it held breath.
Orin opened the messenger bag. He pulled out a worn leather-bound tome and flipped to a dog-eared page, its edge blackened.
He didn't shoot. Not yet. Instead, Orin reached slowly into his bag. Wrath narrowed his eyes, holding his breath a bit too long.
"A book? In the middle of battle?" Wrath questioned
There was no response, only the rustling of paper.
Then once again he wondered, "Is he making a sigil? I thought he was a bit newer to The Requiem than I?"
Orin stood dead still but now pressing his finger to Wrath's head.
"You could end it all right now, why don't you?" Wrath probed
Orin paused then spoke, "Menrva told me you were a good man. I wonder what makes you a good man."
"Hmph." Wrath raised an eyebrow. "A philosopher with a gun to my head? Truly the thinker."
Another rustle, another page flipped.
Wrath slowly turned around.
"Don't move."
Wrath obeyed, there were impediments in his movement. Confusion.
"What makes you a good man?"
Then Orin responded, "Good men don't kill,"
"So you won't kill me?" Wrath asked
"Yes."
"Are you done?" Wrath responded
"Almost."
"You don't know how to shoot." Wrath mused
Orin said nothing.
Wrath smiled, the corners of his lips reached from ear to ear. His eyes were no longer narrowed. Each of his teeth conical, sharp, shaped in a pattern of puzzle pieces perfectly fit together. The corners of his eyes stretched and wrinkled as his ears receded to the crown of his head.
"I see."
Orin's eyes flickered just for a second, a second enough for Wrath to notice.
Wrath smiled. Wide. Wolfish. His pupils dilated, as if some switch flipped behind his eyes.
"Mimicry. You're like a child learning art through mimicry. The cast. The stance. It was impeccable I must say, it's odd. You're a beginner, but use the Requiem like an adept. Even when you make mistakes in your chant, The Requiem bends its rules for you. It's disappointing…"
"To what degree?"
"To this degree…"
His index finger sliced through the air like a cutlass, beads of blood splintering through it and dripping from his finger. Blood lashing out from his finger like a whip.
Orin scanned the incantation, "The True name," He muttered.
He had found it, his hand twitching in response.
"Dimittis." Energy crashed haphazardly from his finger in entropy. Raw and unstable. Chaotically crashing like rock to glass.
But Wrath. He began smiling. He knew he had won.
Click.
He snapped his finger, sound reverberating the air. And for every corner shook there was an antithesis.
The sixth petal began to rise, the crater it had caused becoming undone, and it rose towards the flower which had blossomed, fitting back into the alignment of petals.
Orin's finger withdrew from Wrath's head.
"Exardescere." He exclaimed
Wrath was not blinded, he turned around and closed his eyes and so did Orin.
After the flash, Orin's eyes widened, his eyebrows raising to his hair, his ears slinking back. He did not approach Wrath but stared instead. Wrath sat in the sigil, baring a vast smile upon his face.
It was sizable. It was huge. It was extensive. It was prominently reaching from ear to ear, his eyes like slits with wrinkles and veins.
Wrath knew he had won.
"What?" Orin muttered, his voice, cracking and smothered by fear. It were as if the world's greatest jester had come to jeer and mock him. His own sight a mockery to his senses, to what he knew he had witnessed.
"What the hell is this?" The words barely escaped his lips—yet Wrath heard it. Felt it. Like warmth slipping from a dying flame.
Fear. He knew it all too well. After all, he thrived off it.
"You are no saint. If you believe me to be an evil man, then I will be. And so—rejoice! And remember. Evil always prevails—under false justice…"
"My name is Wrath. Look upon my name and despair. Let it rot in your mind. Let it become your mind."
Orin called the name.
"Iaculum ignis."
Once.
Twice.
Nothing.
Not even a flicker of light. The Requiem did not answer—
not because it couldn't.
But because it wouldn't.
It knew what he was.
Lesser.
The sigil still glowed. The sixth petal still hovered. It hadn't moved in a minute. Or maybe an hour. Orin didn't know anymore. His breath stuttered in time with a sound he couldn't hear.
How could the embodiment of Pride… feel inferior?
The world seemed still, the dark flames writhing without noise. Silent.
"Iaculum."
"Ignis!"
"Dimittis!"
He said the words.
But they were only that. Words.
Once again, there was an antithesis. Time itself had stirred, then reversed. No. It was causality and Orin knew this. The cause had been removed, and in the same breath the effect had been removed.
Now, Orin sank to his knees. His eyelids twitching wide open. They often say, the eyes are the door to the soul but he was soulless, the door led to nothing but a void. Orin himself had become blinded by fear.
It were as if Time itself were mocking him.
Orin exhaled slowly. The air hung thick—humid, suffocating. Then he looked up. The feeling was nostalgic. Now, it wasn't fear. He had felt that too many times before for it to be memorable. It was despair.
"Divellere. Caelum" Wrath whispered
No fire followed. No rumble.
Only the shimmer of warped air—like glass under heat.
But it was only that, air.
His leg buckled.
A sharp, and sudden scream ripped through his throat before he realised it was own. His leg collapsed under its own weight. His eyes did not well or dam, it burst forth hot tears of pain. His head hit the ground, bleeding, snot rolling down his cheeks with breath catching gasps. His inhaling sounded coarse, like an asthmatic.
His words came out slurred, but he was pleading. Pleading for his life. He was in a near inconsolable state. Lay trembling with a panic that unravelled thought itself.
Then Wrath spoke, "You stood with Pride. So I simply laid you down."
Orin's entire leg had been shredded. Mangled beyond use. The incantation had torn the air in such a way it pulled and pushed matter–twisting it violently.
If that touched a human, it would erase their limbs. Though it grazed him, the force warped both muscle and tendon, attracting then repelling. Then what was left was blood and vessels.
The saint born in ashes had tasted fire. This time it wasn't dull or burnt out. But in the fullness of it.
He clutched his leg. But it did nothing. The blood spurted from his leg. His tears had evaporated and his snot had gone dry. All that was left were rasping cries of agony and slow tears. As his mouth was wide, agape.
He lay screaming for minutes.
"Are you done?" Wrath asked, amused.
Orin rolled over to face Wrath. Wrath smiled from his sigil circle. Confidence and Pride emanating from his smile and stance.
"It's over." Orin murmured, his voice quivering, coughing as saliva drooled to the ground
"It is indeed." Wrath pointed his finger towards Orin
"Iaculum."
Heat from the air spiralled around his finger, attracted by it.
"Ignis."
The heat condensed within his finger, reaching a stable stand still.
Then he sighed, before finally letting out a laugh before reminding Orin, "This is the hopelessness she felt when you left her to die." It was a facade, beneath it all, beneath his smile were tears. His smile reached from ear to ear. And his tears reached from his eye to his chin. Sliding through each of the crevices of the wrinkles made by his smile. His eyes were of stone. His lips were of clay.
Light danced in his eye like astigmatism.
A single tear fell to the ground. Shattering into beads of glass. Then dried.
"Justice is sweet."
"Dimmitis."
Orin began to brace himself.
"Misfortune. That's all it is…" He said, smiling. His eyelid slowly closing in release. In acceptance.
But Pride is sweeter.
But Pride does not yield.
To halt time is to rebel against causality. To freeze motion is to reject the breath of the world. Photons would cease mid-flight. Sound would calcify. Air would become a tomb. You would be blind, deaf, and breathless. But if you had the authority—even time would kneel at your feet.
He beheld a vast and open plain. It held blades of grass. And thousands of blades of metal and steel. On each sword there were names carved into it. And each was another way to say It.
Pride.
Orin sat up, wiping his tears. The snot. The grass was iridescently green and the plains held pure white flowers. Asphodels. He reached for one, as he brushed it, like pollen a dust of white phosphorus clouded the plant. It didn't burn.
Then he looked at his leg. It was perfectly healed, only the cloth was torn.
Then he looked up, clouds of marshmallows drifted through the cerulean sky.
He sat silently wishing he could stay forever. And get away from all of it. He slowly rose, standing up.
Peace is often fleeting. It's not what we expect. They say ignorance is bliss. But only self-realisation brings true blissfulness.
The clouds of marshmallow turned gray and sagged and stormy. The cerulean sky became monochromic like films he'd seen. Then he looked forward.
There was a pillar. A monolith. Chains wrapped around its skin and connected to a large lock. On the lock was written the word Pride. But beneath it… He didn't know.
Then he turned. He saw a statue. No, a man ossified within stone like a fleeting memory. The man had his finger reaching out toward Orin. Pointing at his back, his spine.
Though he couldn't see it, he could feel a tingle from his spine as his spine began to glow a tinge of purple through his shirt. It was strong and powerful, a colour symbolic of royalty and status. Then Orin fully turned, reaching out his finger touching the statue's own finger.
The statue crumbled to white phosphorus. He swallowed coarsely. Took a deep breath then exhaled.
He froze. A sound? A whisper?
Then it became louder. He felt his heart beat faster. Like drums.
He heard a small girl.
Singing?
"A lullaby…" Orin muttered
Once again he turned. Next to the monolith stood a young girl. Her hair was white. Her eyes were crimson. In her hand she held a key. It was large and rusted, she held it out in both her hands. Then she extended her arms towards him.
Orin reached out, taking it. "Thank-"
His arms fell under the weight of the key, the mud and grass displacing under the weight.
He narrowed his eyes. As the girl looked down on him. He pulled with all his might then looked up to the girl from where he kneeled.
"It's a trial. A test of might."
"Pride." He whispered the word creeping out of his throat
He let go of the key. And looked around.
"What walks on two legs in the morning, four legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?" The girl asked
It was familiar to him. He knew the answer and was confident.
"Oedipus."
The gates of heaven opened, loosing a storm of wind and rain that tore at his vision. Blades flew into the sky, decaying into white phosphorus—burning in the great red of Jupiter.
The lock broke, and the chains withered to White Phosphorus. He stood upright.
He moved closer to the stone.
In the pillar was engraved his true name.
"Superbia."
The name of old. The true and ancient sin. Pride.