Erian didn't know how long he had lain on the salt, barely breathing. He tried to move, but his body hardly responded. Only warm tears slid down his cheeks, mixing with the salt embedded in his skin.
Dry footsteps echoed over the stone, and before he could fully push himself up, he felt himself being lifted roughly.
His body hung between the priestesses' arms like an old rag. They said nothing. They simply dragged him without haste through the stone corridors, Erian's feet leaving a faint trail of blood.
He did not resist, still trembling, and let himself be carried.
As they advanced through the temple's halls, he heard the echo of voices in unison, a solemn murmur growing clearer with every step. The prayers of the Bearers of Judgment.
Erian deduced they were taking him back to the altar.
When they finally arrived, hands moved to his chest. He felt the knots of the tunic still hanging from his body being untied. The linen slid slowly to the floor, leaving his skin naked and cold against the air.
Then, without warning, a jug of icy water was poured down his back. Erian shivered without making a sound. Two priestesses gripped his arms to keep him standing while a third poured another jug over his head with a calmness that ignored his suffering.
"May the Water of Grace wash away the tainted flesh," the priestesses recited in unison.
"Not even the Water of Grace can purify this abomination…" murmured the Bearer of Incense, seated a few steps away, eyes fixed on Erian's bare skin. "That the God of Ruin has set his gaze upon a man is proof of His corruption."
Erian's eyes burned, not from the soap, nor from the ground herbs, but from shame.
The priestesses scrubbed him with a roughness that bordered on punishment. They pressed fists full of bitter leaves into his skin, scraping mercilessly at every corner of his body. Then they threw handfuls of salt that clung to the small wounds opened by the friction. After that, buckets of icy water struck him without mercy, soaking his trembling body and leaving red marks where the salt embedded itself.
They repeated the process without pause.
Leaves, salt, water.
Leaves, salt, water…
Someone laughed. Erian didn't know who.
A voice, closer, murmured that it was "a shame." Another said he looked like "a flower torn before it could bloom."
When it was over, they left him shivering on the wet tiles. The priestesses gathered their instruments, and the Bearers stood and began to leave without a word.
All but one.
The Bearer of the Scales.
Erian heard footsteps approaching. His chest tightened. He didn't know why the man hadn't left with the others.
"How ironic…" the man whispered, voice low. "What I felt… was for a man."
The words froze Erian's blood. A shiver crept from the base of his neck down his spine, raising every hair on his wet skin. He retreated on his knees, naked, soaked, sightless, senses sharpened like those of a cornered animal, feeling in every drop sliding down his skin an invisible warning.
"Please…"
"This is a test…" the man continued. "Yes, a test of Grace. If I do it with my eyes closed, without looking… if I do it quickly, and pray… it won't be a sin."
The Bearer knelt beside Erian. He took his face in his hands. Erian tried to pull away, jerking his head as if that single motion could break the contact. His trembling, wet hands searched for some grip on the slippery floor, trying to drag himself backward, away from that alien heat burning his skin.
"No, please…" Erian's voice shook. "Don't touch me…"
Then, the Bearer kissed him. Hard. Angry. It was not tenderness. It was punishment.
Erian struggled, but his body failed him. He slid back, the floor slick beneath him, and fell to his side, striking his hip. The Bearer lunged over him, gripping his arms.
"It's for devotion! The Goddess will understand!"
"Please! Someone help me!"
***
The air inside the temple was dense, saturated with dust, moss, and forgotten memories. Seirion stood motionless among the ruins, his amber eyes barely open. Eternity had become a continuous whisper of solitude, a prison of stone and time where each heartbeat seemed to fade away with the centuries.
Then, a subtle vibration broke the monotony. A warm current seeping through the crack in the silence, a spark of life in the midst of ruin.
The voice of that human once again echoed in the temple ruins, the same voice that had dared to plead with him without fear and without ritual. Seirion recognized it instantly.
He could not make out the words clearly, nor fully understand the precise shape of the danger, but he felt the fear, the anguish, the muffled cry for help.
Seirion forced himself to move. The temple seemed to tremble under his will, and the runes began to glow with a faint, pale red light, like embers awakening after a long slumber.
He could not intervene directly. His power in the mortal world was limited, trapped in that body cursed by misguided faith and lost time. But he could still weave invisible threads.
He extended a hand and released a fragment of his will into the outer world. That force was nothing more than a sigh, a primordial murmur that traveled through the shadows, seeking to wrap and protect the young man calling out from the depths of pain.
***
As the Bearer of the Scales pressed violently against Erian, he felt an invisible pressure begin to fill the chamber.
A cold, viscous shadow descended from above. It slipped into the Bearer's body, paralyzing his muscles in the moment he tried to inflict more harm.
A chill ran down the Bearer's back, his grip loosened, his face went pale, and for an instant he lost control of himself. He didn't understand what was happening, but terror and uncertainty consumed him.
"What is this?!" the Bearer shrieked, trying to shake off the oppression that seemed to sink into his veins. "Cursed shadow! Release me!"
With effort, he staggered toward the altar's exit, struggling to tear the presence out of his body.
Erian was left alone, trembling on the wet floor, his body marked red, his heart shattered, hot tears mixing with the water on the tiles.
He cried aloud.
And between sobs, he whispered:
"Thank you… thank you…"
He thanked the God of Ruin, that protective shadow that had wrapped around him in his darkest moment. A faint yet true ray of hope, whispering to him amid agony and uncertainty that he was not alone. That perhaps, just perhaps, there was still an ancient, forgotten force willing to watch over him in the midst of destruction.