The bells had not rung in years.
Once, they had been the voice of the church, calling the faithful to prayer, tolling at births, at marriages, at deaths. But the tower had grown old, its gears rusted, its ropes frayed. When the last rope snapped, the bells fell silent.
And so the church stood in quiet dignity at the city's edge, a relic of stone and stained glass, its doors open to all but its bells mute as though the heavens themselves had turned their ears away.
Yet that night, as Sister Elara opened the heavy doors to the courtyard, lantern light spilling into the dark, she swore she heard them.
Just a whisper of sound, not a full toll, not even a peal, but a single low note vibrating in her bones.
A warning. Or perhaps a welcome.
Then she saw him.
The infant. Small, wrapped in a cloth stained with crimson, a faint shimmer clinging to his form as though moonlight had chosen him and him alone. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Oh, child…" she whispered, her hands trembling as she stooped to lift him.
The moment her fingers touched the cloth, the shimmer vanished, and weight settled in her arms, a weight far greater than any infant should carry. She drew him close, rocking instinctively, murmuring soft words of comfort.
Behind her, another sister's voice called, "Elara? What is it?"
"An abandoned one," Elara answered, her voice hushed, reverent. "A gift… or a trial."
She did not add the words pressing at her heart: or both.
She had found abandoned infants before. The world outside these walls was harsh, and not all mothers could carry the weight of it. Yet something about this child was different. It was not only the strange chain around its neck, nor the faint glow she swore she had seen, brief as a candle flicker. It was the weight she felt in her chest the moment her hands closed around the child, as though the infant carried with it a silence too heavy for its small frame.
Inside, the church was hushed. Rows of pews stretched toward the altar, where candles flickered in red glass, their flames bending oddly as though stirred by an unseen breath. The sisters gathered, their eyes widening as they saw the bundle in Elara's arms.
"Left at the steps?" asked Sister Miriam, the oldest among them, her face carved with the lines of both kindness and severity.
Elara nodded. "He was crying. I could not leave him there."
Miriam peered at the child, her lips pursed. "Another mouth to feed. The city throws away its own too easily."
But when she reached to adjust the cloth, her hand brushed against the ring lying against the infant's chest. At once, her eyes widened, and she drew back as though burned.
"Metal?" she asked, but her voice shook. "A trinket left with him?"
Elara touched it lightly. The ring was cold, yet it pulsed faintly beneath her finger, as though alive. The instant her skin met it, her vision blurred for a heartbeat, and the church around her dissolved into storm and fire, shadows writhing like serpents in the sky.
A voice thundered in her skull: Protect him.
She gasped and snatched her hand back, heart racing. The vision vanished. The church stood whole, the sisters staring at her with unease.
"Elara?" Miriam's voice was sharp now. "What did you see?"
Elara swallowed hard. Her faith urged her to speak the truth, but something deeper whispered: Not yet. Not here.
"Nothing," she said softly, though her voice wavered. "Only the weight of his fate."
That night, when the sisters dispersed to their quarters, Elara remained. She placed the child in a small cradle near the altar, close enough for candlelight to kiss his face. She lingered, watching his chest rise and fall, her hand hovering as though afraid to lose him should she turn away.
The silence of the church pressed heavily.
Her gaze drifted up to the great cross above the altar, its shadow stretching long across the floor. "Lord," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You send us many tests. But this one… this one feels different."
The candles flickered violently, though no wind stirred.
The bells, long broken, gave a single shiver in their tower above, the iron groaning as though struggling to remember their voice.
And in the cradle, the child stirred, his tiny fingers curling around the chain of the ring. The silver glowed faintly, pulsing once, twice, in rhythm with the beating of his heart.
Elara's breath caught. A shiver ran down her spine. She sank to her knees, her voice breaking.
"Mother of God… what have You placed in my care?"
The church did not answer. But the silence itself seemed to deepen, as though listening.
And in that silence, Elara knew one thing with dreadful certainty:
This child was no ordinary foundling.
This was the beginning of something vast. Something dangerous. Something holy.