Erika staggered into the village as the last sliver of sun vanished below the horizon.
The church's golden light blazed in the valley below—a false, arrogant star trying to banish the night.
Beneath his tunic, the Auric Mark was no longer just a cold, heavy shape. It pulsed with a sharp, searing heat directly over his heart. It thrummed with a deep rhythm that perfectly, terrifyingly synced with his own rapid heartbeat.
Tucked tightly against his ribs was his only leverage: a cleanly sliced piece of Leaf's blood-soaked tunic, specifically the part embroidered with the cheap gold thread. He had a dangerous game to play. He would present the bloody cloth to feed Balthasar's paranoia, convincing the priest that an unimaginable swarm had annihilated the squad. If Balthasar believed a massive ancient threat was waking, he would beg the Sanctum for more heavily armored Guards, not waste time purging the villagers.
But the sight in the main square stopped his breath.
The altar, merely a skeletal frame that morning, was complete. Its pale stone and gold filigree glowed harshly in the deepening dusk. Around its base, villagers knelt in the dirt, their hands raw and bleeding from forced, frantic labor.
Erika's arrival drew immediate attention. His clothes were torn, his body coated in the dust of the treacherous limestone cliffs.
Dozens of eyes turned to him—but only one gaze from the altar-top pinned him. Balthasar's.
"A stray returns," Balthasar's voice washed over the crowd, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the empty road behind Erika. "Yet I do not see the Golden Father's vanguard. Where is the boy, Leaf? Where are my Guards, shepherd?"
Every alarm in Erika's mind screamed. He reached for the bloody cloth in his tunic, ready to shout his prepared lie about the ravine.
But two Guardsmen were already beside him, clamping onto his arms and dragging him toward the altar's blinding radiance.
"My child," Balthasar looked down at him, his face a mask of pity. "You are covered in the dust of the road and reek of fear. Have you faced the claws of the 'Old Shadows' out there?"
All eyes fixed on Erika. He had become the ceremony's unexpected focal point.
Just as Erika opened his mouth to deliver his prepared lie, Balthasar cut him off.
"Be not afraid. Let the talisman upon your breast speak the truth—here, in the altar's radiance."
The moment the words were spoken, the badge on Erika's chest erupted in a searing, unbearable heat. A living, willful torrent of energy violently forced its way into his body.
He tried to scream. No sound came.
He tried to struggle. Invisible chains held him fast. The altar's golden light seemed to turn to liquid gold, threatening to drown him. His consciousness was being crushed. An alien presence pried at his mind—seeking the truth of the ravine, the Old Pedant's plan, Leaf's betrayal.
Erika bit through his lip. He poured every shred of will into building a wall around his own memories—the empty hut smelling of stale ink, his vantage point on the cliff, his cold satisfaction at Leaf's death. The psychic pressure felt like nails driven behind his eyes.
He held the wall until his vision blurred. Finally—at the very brink of his collapse—Balthasar slowly raised his hand.
The invading energy receded like a tide, leaving behind a leash—something that could be tightened at any moment. Erika slumped forward, his vision spinning into blackness as Balthasar's voice rang out as if from the heavens.
"See! The lost one undergoes the Light's interrogation!" Balthasar turned to the mesmerized, terrified crowd. "Though his mind was touched by shadow, the Light has acknowledged his struggle! From this day, he shall serve as the altar's night-watchman! Here, beside the Light, he will complete his final purification!"
Time lost its anchor in the windowless cell. The walls pulsed with etched Auric runes, emitting a low, skull-vibrating hum and the cloying stench of heavy incense.
There was no day or night, only the blinding bursts of golden light when the iron door scraped open.
For what felt like days, Balthasar weaponized the light. He would rouse Erika with blinding flashes, searing his retinas, demanding rote answers to doctrinal questions. Erika's physical resistance was ground down to nothing. But it was the psychological scalpel that finally broke him.
During one late-night session, Balthasar dismissed the guards. He sat opposite Erika, looking at the exhausted, trembling shepherd.
"You thought you were so clever, sneaking out before dawn," Balthasar said softly. "You thought you were protecting the village. Just like the Old Pedant thought he was protecting his secrets."
Erika's dull eyes twitched.
He remembered the Pedant's empty hut. The smell of stale ink and dry rot. The chilling fact that there had been no struggle, no blood.
"You wonder why his hut was so clean?" Balthasar leaned in, his smile gentle and entirely merciless. "You thought we dragged him away kicking and screaming? No, Erika."
Balthasar sighed, as if disappointed.
"When the Clerical Division walked into his home, he didn't fight. He committed no glorious act of blasphemy. He simply packed his inks, handed over the maps of the ancient paths, and begged for a quiet retirement in the Sanctum to save his own skin."
The words landed in Erika's mind like a drop of poison in clear water.
"He sold you all out without spilling a single drop of blood," Balthasar whispered. "Your resistance is built on the cowardice of old men. There is nothing left to fight for."
The news was the final, fatal blow.
The belief that had sustained Erika—that the Pedant had vanished because he was out there organizing a rebellion—crumbled into dead ash. If the wisest among them had simply surrendered without a struggle... what was the point of his own agony?
A vast, suffocating sense of futility consumed him. The last defiant light in his eyes went out.
In the days that followed, Erika became the perfect, numb vessel.
He recited long passages of doctrine without prompting. He stopped fighting the parasitic badge on his chest. Its constant pulse felt like a part of him now. A foreign, cold heartbeat that had entirely replaced his own.
On a morning when the golden light seemed particularly harsh, Balthasar delivered his ultimate pronouncement.
"Your purification is complete," Balthasar intoned, his voice trembling with near-fanatic gravity. "Your soul is a clean vessel."
Erika looked up dully, his eyes unfocused.
"You will be sent to the Holy Sanctum as the 'First-Born Vessel.' There, you will welcome the descent of the 'Angel.'"
Angel's descent.
Erika heard the words, but they meant nothing. No fear. No joy. Only dead stillness.
As the blinding aura of the runes swelled to fill his vision, his mind surrendered entirely to the gold.