The days that followed should have been ordinary.
The sisters took the child in with the same quiet routine they had shown for every orphan left at their steps. They fed him with care, wrapped him in clean cloth, and whispered prayers over his cradle. Sister Miriam recorded his arrival in the ledger with precise strokes of ink, labeling him simply as foundling, male, no name given.
Yet nothing felt ordinary.
From the moment the infant entered the church, the silence itself seemed to change.
Candles burned longer than they should have, their wax dripping in strange spirals that traced symbols none could read. The air hung thick with a hush that felt not empty but expectant, as though the walls were listening. Even the broken bells in the tower groaned faintly at night, their iron frames shifting with sounds too deliberate to be dismissed as mere settling.
The sisters whispered of it in the refectory, their words hushed over bowls of broth.
"It is as though he carries a weight," murmured one.
"Or a blessing," said another.
"Or a curse," Sister Miriam finished grimly, crossing herself.
Elara said nothing. She only watched the child with eyes that had grown too restless for peace.
At night, she dreamed.
The first dream came two nights after his arrival. She saw herself standing in the church, though its walls were split with cracks that oozed fire. Shadows twisted in the pews like figures half-born, whispering in voices that were both human and not. At the altar stood the child, no longer an infant but a boy, his eyes alight with silver fire.
When she reached for him, the fire flared, consuming the cross, walls, sky and her.
She woke up gasping, the taste of ash in her throat.
The second dream came soon after. She stood in the courtyard, moonlight falling cold across the stone. The child lay in his cradle, but the shadows stretched long and sharp, bending toward him like claws. She tried to cry out, to run to him, but her body would not move. Only when the ring at his chest flared with light did the shadows recoil, hissing like beasts struck with iron.
She woke up trembling, sweat freezing on her skin.
The third dream was no dream at all.
She had risen from her bed in the dark of night, restless, her heart thundering from a dream she could not remember. Drawn by some instinct, she drifted to the chapel. There, in the dim glow of guttering candles, she saw the child stirring in his cradle. His small hand was wrapped around the chain of the ring.
And as she watched, the silver pulsed, once, twice.
The air shifted. The shadows lengthened. A whisper curled through the rafters, too faint to bear words, yet heavy enough to send her to her knees.
She clutched her rosary, whispering prayers, but even as the words left her lips, she knew the voice she had heard was not the voice of her God.
When she lifted her eyes, the infant was looking at her.
His gaze was steady, unblinking, too deep for a newborn. For a moment, she felt as though something vast stared out from behind those eyes, something that understood her better than she understood herself.
Then his lids fluttered, and he sank back into sleep.
The church grew silent again.
But Elara could not.
By the end of the first week, all the sisters had felt it in some way.
One claimed she heard footsteps in the nave when no one walked there. Another swore the stained glass shifted colors of its own accord. Sister Miriam, practical to the end, insisted it was nonsense but her hand trembled whenever she passed the cradle.
Elara kept her silence. But inside, her certainty grew.
This was no ordinary child. No lost orphan. No gift of chance.
He was the fulcrum of something vast.
Something holy.
Something terrible.
And though her faith had been tested many times, for the first time in her life, Sister Elara feared that her prayers would not be enough.