Rain fell like needles, striking the nameless black tombstones scattered across the Resting Place of the Gods.
Cain pushed a creaking iron-wheeled cart through the storm. On it lay the half-eaten body of a vagrant, torn apart by stray dogs.
He trudged through the mire, boots sinking deep in the mud. Cold rain slipped beneath his ragged cloak and collar, sending shivers through his body.
The air was heavy with the scent of wet earth and old incense ash, a mixture of rot and silence. It was the smell of death, and the only one Cain had known for the past ten years.
Above him hung a string of bone bells made from the skull fragments of executed prisoners. They rattled softly in the wind, the dry clatter serving as the graveyard's substitute for church bells, to soothe the dead and warn the living.
He wheeled the cart to a freshly dug grave at the far edge of the cemetery and rolled the corpse into the pit with practiced ease.
He had done this too many times to feel anything.
But tonight his movements were slow, as if every shovelful of wet soil buried a part of him.
He had grown used to this silent land, and to the fearful, disgusted stares of the townsfolk.
To them, a grave keeper was no different from a plague.
When he pressed the final layer of mud in place, a faint tremor rippled beneath his feet.
At first, he thought it an illusion. Then it came again, clearer this time.
It wasn't the sharp jolt of an earthquake, nor the twitch of a corpse, but a slow, rhythmic pulse.
Something vast and ancient was stirring beneath the earth, a heart that had slept for centuries beginning to beat once more.
Cain's face tightened. He crouched, pulled off his soaked gloves, and pressed his fingers to the ground.
A chill raced up his spine, cold as iron.
He could hear it now, not with his ears but in his bones. The pulse came from far below, carrying a primal rhythm that made something deep within him tremble.
He rose abruptly and hurried toward the small stone hut near the gate.
Inside, beneath the flicker of an oil lamp, his mentor, Old Iden, was wiping a small black tablet covered in runes with a coarse rag.
The relic was said to have been carved from the finger bone of an Old God.
Iden's obsession with such forbidden relics had long since turned into madness.
"They're not dead," the old man rasped without looking up. His voice echoed in the cramped stone room. "They're only sleeping. And we, Cain, we're not burying the dead. We're the dogs guarding the gate."
Cain said nothing. Rain dripped from his cloak to the floor. He knew the old man was lost in his ravings again.
In the doctrine of the Church of Light, even speaking of the Old Gods was an unforgivable sin.
"Did you feel it? The heartbeat..." Iden's voice rose suddenly, his clouded eyes burning with feverish light. "The time is coming."
Before Cain could answer, the sound of hooves cut through the rain.
Dozens of riders burst through the downpour, their torches blazing in the dark.
They wore white cloaks trimmed with silver, radiating a sanctity colder than the storm itself.
At their head rode a man with a sculpted face and eyes like glass, Deacon Lothar Corvin of the Church.
He dismounted in silence. His holy knights spread out, surrounding the graveyard.
Without looking at the two grave keepers, Lothar unrolled a parchment and read in a steady, detached voice:
"By order of His Eminence the Cardinal:
Due to repeated manifestations of abnormal spiritual activity within the Resting Place of the Gods, the Tribunal has declared this site corrupted.
Effective immediately, it shall fall under direct Church authority for purification.
All grave keepers are to be dismissed, or purified on the spot."
"Absurd," Old Iden shouted, trembling with rage. "This is sacred ground. You zealots know nothing. You cannot desecrate this place."
Lothar looked at him with calm indifference, as if studying an insect.
He raised his right hand. A short staff engraved with the sigil of the Holy Flame appeared in his grip.
"Blasphemers shall be cleansed by fire."
White fire flared from the staff. It gave off no heat, only judgment.
The flames engulfed Iden. His scream lasted barely three seconds before silence returned.
His blackened corpse collapsed beside the altar, skeletal hands still clutching the fragment said to have been born of an Old God's bone.
Cain dropped to his knees in the mud. His throat closed as though gripped by invisible fingers, and no sound escaped.
He wanted to run, but his body refused to move.
Fear, cold and suffocating, consumed him.
Lothar stepped closer, his shadow falling across Cain. His eyes were sharp and merciless.
"You're young," he said quietly. "Too young to share in this corruption."
He raised the staff again. The white flame brightened in his hand.
Just as it was about to fall upon Cain, a piercing cry burst inside his skull.
It was not sound but a thought, tearing through his mind and shaking his soul.
The world twisted. Color drained away, leaving only a suffocating crimson haze.
Through it, Cain saw Iden's charred corpse. Above it floated a sphere of blood-red light, pulsing with despair and defiance.
In his own chest, a dark violet vortex churned, the shape of his terror.
Then a voice spoke within him, cold and ancient, in no tongue he knew.
[Wailing Veil: Activated]
A will not his own seized him, forcing his body to move.
His right hand lifted, fingers reaching toward the red light above Iden's corpse.
He grasped.
Threads of invisible despair unraveled from the glow and streamed toward his palm. They wove together, condensed, and formed a single strand of black silk, thin as hair.
It slipped from his hand like a living serpent, gliding through the mud until it coiled around Lothar Corvin's polished boot.
Lothar tensed.
But a man who had survived a hundred purges did not ignore such things.
His brow furrowed. The holy flame flickered.
He hesitated, then looked down.