Three days passed in Valensford.
Albrecht spent them learning. Not the town—he knew its streets now, its rhythms, its shadows. He learned his own new rhythms.
With each life taken, his senses stretched further. After Finn and the guard, he could stand in his rented room and hear conversations three streets over if he focused. He could see the individual threads in a carpet across the room. He could smell illness on a man before the man coughed.
He also learned the limits.
The power was not endless. He carried the lives inside him like a full tank, but using his enhanced strength, his speed, his senses—it burned that fuel. Slowly, but it burned. The hunger was a meter, and it was ticking downward.
He needed to feed again.
But he was not reckless. He was a scholar of this new condition. He observed.
The town was buzzing about the "empty men." Orval had been found in his warehouse, breathing but blank, his eyes like glass. Finn and his guard were discovered on the river path, same condition. The priests called it a "spiritual wasting," a curse from unclean spirits. The guards whispered about dark magic. The common people locked their doors early.
Draven was pleased. "Clean work," he'd said when Albrecht returned after the Finn job. "No blood, no bodies. Just... empty shells. It sends a message."
Albrecht didn't care about messages. He cared about efficiency. Taking a whole life was filling, but it left evidence—a breathing husk that invited questions. There had to be a better way.
On the fourth morning, he decided to experiment.
He walked to the poorer district near the north wall, where the sick and the old often begged. He found his subject in a damp alley—a man wrapped in a thin blanket, shaking with a deep, wet cough. Consumption. The man's life flame was low, guttering in the wind of his own broken lungs.
Albrecht crouched before him. "You're dying."
The man looked up, eyes fever-bright. "Aye. Got a copper for a dying man?"
"Better than a copper." Albrecht reached out, placed a hand on the man's chest. He did not *take*. Not fully. He *siphoned*.
He imagined a valve, opened just a crack. Let the man's life—what little was left—flow into him. Not all. Just a trickle.
The man shuddered. His coughing fit stopped abruptly. Color actually returned to his cheeks for a moment. He blinked, confused. "I... I feel better."
"You'll feel worse again soon," Albrecht said, standing. He felt a small, warm influx. A snack. Not a meal. The man would live a few more hours, maybe a day, but his end was still certain. And Albrecht had taken no one's notice. No empty shell. Just a dying man who had a moment of false peace.
Efficient.
He dropped a silver coin in the man's lap—a fortune to a beggar. A payment. Then he walked away.
He did this three more times that day. A street sweeper with a bad heart. A tavern girl with a wasting fever. An old soldier whose old wounds wept and stank. From each, he took a sip. Not enough to empty them. Just enough to quiet his own hunger for a few hours, and to give them a fleeting, cruel moment of relief.
It was sustainable. It was subtle. It was *ethical*, in a twisted way—he was not killing, just accelerating the inevitable while recycling the energy.
By evening, he felt balanced. The hunger was a low whisper, not a roar. He had fed without leaving a trail of empty men. He was learning.
Draven summoned him as dusk fell.
This time, the back room of the Rusty Nail held a third man—tall, dressed in fine but travel-stained clothes, with a sword that looked both expensive and well-used. He had the look of a professional. A mercenary, or a knight errant.
"Albrecht, this is Ser Corvin," Draven said. "He has a problem."
Ser Corvin's eyes were pale grey, assessing. He didn't offer a hand. "Draven says you're discreet and effective."
"I am."
"I need something stolen. Not coin. An object. From the Cathedral's lower vaults."
Albrecht felt the first real flicker of interest since he'd arrived in this world. The Cathedral. The heart of the Goddess's power here. "What object?"
"A box. Small, iron, locked. It was taken from my family years ago, sealed away by the clergy as 'unclean.' I want it back."
"Why now?"
"That's my concern. The job pays one hundred gold crowns."
A staggering sum. Enough to live like a lord for a year. Albrecht kept his face still. "The Cathedral is guarded. By men, and by blessings."
"I know. That's why I need someone... unusual." Corvin's gaze was sharp. "The empty men. That's your work, isn't it?"
Albrecht didn't answer.
"You can drain life. Leave men as husks. The Cathedral's inner guards are Blessed Knights. Their lives are touched by the Goddess. Can you drain them too?"
"I don't know," Albrecht said, and it was the truth. The thought sent a thrill through him. A new experiment. "What's in the box?"
"Family heirlooms. Nothing that concerns you."
"It concerns me if it's cursed or will bring the entire Church down on my head."
Corvin smiled thinly. "It's not cursed. Just... personal. Will you do it?"
Albrecht thought. The risk was enormous. The reward was greater. And the opportunity... to test his power against the Goddess's touch. To step into her stronghold and take something from under her nose.
"When?"
"Tomorrow night. The High Bishop is away in the capital. The guard will be lighter. I have a map of the lower vaults." Corvin placed a rolled parchment on the table. "I need the box by dawn."
Albrecht looked at Draven. "And you?"
"This is between you and Ser Corvin. I'm just the introduction. For a fee."
Corvin nodded. "Ten percent to Draven. The rest to you. Do we have an agreement?"
Albrecht reached out, took the map. "We do."
The Cathedral by day was a place of light and song. By night, it was a tomb of stone and shadows.
Albrecht watched it from the roof of a nearby granary, the map memorized then burned. The lower vaults were accessed through a side door used by the groundskeeper, then down a spiral stair behind a tapestry in the sacristy. According to Corvin's map, three doors stood between the stair and the vault room. Each would be locked. Each might be guarded.
He had spent the day preparing. He bought dark, close-fitting clothes. A good knife, not for fighting but for cutting. A small lantern with a shuttered hood. And he fed.
He visited the poor quarter again, finding five more of the sick and the dying. From each, he took a careful, measured sip of life. Not enough to cure them, not enough to kill them. Just enough to top his own reserves to overflowing. He felt like a vessel filled to the brim, thrumming with stolen vitality. His senses were so sharp the world felt like a too-bright painting.
At midnight, he moved.
The side door was locked with a heavy iron padlock. He placed his hands on it, not to break it, but to *persuade* the metal. He thought of fatigue in metal, of crystalline structures weary of holding shape. He let a trickle of his stored life flow into the command.
The lock rusted in seconds, flaking away like dried blood. It fell apart with a soft *crunch*.
He stepped inside.
The groundskeeper's room smelled of dirt and linseed oil. He crossed it, found the door to the main hall. It was unlocked. The great nave of the Cathedral lay beyond, vast and dark, lit only by the eternal flame on the high altar—a single point of light in an ocean of black.
He felt it then—a pressure. A gentle, insistent warmth that pushed against his skin. The Goddess's grace, soaked into the stones over centuries. It felt like walking into a low, humming field. It didn't hurt. It *resisted*.
His own power, the stolen life inside him, stirred in response. A low, angry growl in his gut.
He pushed through, heading for the sacristy.
The tapestry was there, a heavy thing depicting the Goddess giving the first blessing to mankind. He slipped behind it, found the narrow door. It was not locked. He opened it, saw steps descending into deeper black.
He lit his lantern, shuttered it tight, and descended.
The air grew colder, drier. The pressure of grace lessened, replaced by something older. The weight of stone and earth.
At the bottom, a corridor. Three doors, as the map promised.
The first door was wooden, banded with iron. A simple lock. He placed his hand on it, repeated the rust command. The mechanism inside crumbled. He pushed the door open.
A small room. Shelves with old vestments, dusty candles. No guard.
The second door was newer, with a more complex lock. He started the same process, but a sound stopped him—footsteps, echoing softly from around the corner ahead. Not from behind him. From *beyond* the third door.
A guard was inside the vault room itself.
Albrecht extinguished his lantern, melted into the shadows of the first room. He waited.
The footsteps grew closer. A man in the armor of a Blessed Knight stepped into view, holding a torch. He was young, his face smooth and serious under his helmet. He checked the second door, found it still locked, nodded to himself, and turned back.
He had not seen Albrecht.
Albrecht let him pass, then followed.
The third door was at the end of the corridor, slightly ajar. The guard pushed it fully open and entered. Albrecht caught the door before it closed, peered inside.
The vault room was small, circular, lined with iron boxes set into the stone walls. A single brazier burned in the center. The guard placed his torch in a sconce and began to walk a slow patrol around the room.
Corvin's box was number seventeen, according to the map. Albrecht saw it—a small, unadorned iron cube on a middle shelf.
He needed to get the guard out, or disable him.
He remembered Corvin's question. *Can you drain them too?*
He would find out.
He focused on the guard. The man's life flame burned differently than any he'd seen before. It was not just warm; it had a *color* in his mind's eye—a pale, steady gold. Clean. Ordered. Touched by something external.
Albrecht reached out with his will, not to drain, but to *pull*.
He imagined a hook in that golden flame, and he tugged.
The guard froze mid-step. He gasped, clutched his chest. He turned, his eyes wide, scanning the darkness beyond the door. "Who's there?"
Albrecht stayed still. He pulled again, harder.
The guard stumbled, his armor clattering. The golden flame flickered. But it did not gutter. It *resisted*. It had a strength, a coherence, that ordinary lives did not.
"Show yourself!" the guard cried, drawing his sword. His voice shook.
Albrecht stepped into the light.
The guard stared. "Who are you? How did you get in?"
"No one," Albrecht said. "And easily."
He moved. Fast. The guard swung his sword, but Albrecht was already inside his guard. He placed his hand on the knight's armored chest, over the heart.
*Take.*
It was like trying to drink from a sealed vessel. The Goddess's blessing was a barrier, a sanctity that fought his hunger. But Albrecht pushed. He fed power from his own reserves into the effort, burning through the stolen lives he'd collected.
The barrier cracked.
Golden light—actual, visible light—flared from under his palm. The guard screamed, a short, choked sound. The light fought him, a righteous, burning fire that seared Albrecht's own mind.
But Albrecht's hunger was older than blessings. It was the first law: consume, or be consumed.
The golden light shattered.
Life—rich, potent, *holy* life—flooded into him.
It was unlike anything he'd ever tasted. It was clean, powerful, and it carried with it echoes—fragments of prayer, moments of genuine devotion, a sense of peace and purpose so alien it was almost sickening.
The guard collapsed, his sword clattering. He did not go empty like the others. His eyes closed. He breathed peacefully, as if in deep prayer. But his flame was gone. Transferred.
Albrecht staggered back, gasping. The new power roared inside him, a sunburst in his veins. He felt... purified and corrupted all at once. His senses didn't just sharpen; they *transcended*. For a moment, he could see the weave of the world—the threads of stone, the flow of time in the brazier's flame, the silent song of the iron boxes.
It passed, leaving him trembling and more powerful than he had ever been.
He went to box seventeen. The lock was simple. He broke it with a thought. Inside the box was another, smaller box of dark wood. He took it, tucked it into his tunic.
He looked at the sleeping knight. A flicker of something—not guilt, but recognition—passed through him. This man had been true. He had believed. And Albrecht had eaten that belief.
He turned and left, retracing his steps through the silent Cathedral. The pressure of grace now felt thin, insubstantial. It parted before him like mist.
He emerged into the night just as the first hint of grey touched the eastern sky.
Ser Corvin was waiting at the agreed spot—a cemetery behind a minor chapel.
"You have it?"
Albrecht handed him the wooden box. Corvin opened it. Inside, resting on velvet, was not jewelry or gold. It was a finger bone, yellowed with age, resting on a scrap of faded silk. A relic.
Corvin's face relaxed. He closed the box. "Thank you." He handed Albrecht a heavy purse. "One hundred gold crowns."
"Whose bone is that?" Albrecht asked.
"A saint's," Corvin said. "Or so my family claimed. The Church called it a fraud and took it. My father died trying to get it back." He looked at Albrecht. "You succeeded where he failed. You have a remarkable talent."
"It's not a talent," Albrecht said. "It's an appetite."
Corvin studied him. "What you took from the knight... you can feel it, can't you? The blessing."
"Yes."
"It will change you. Consuming holy power always does. Be careful it doesn't make you... concerned with morality." Corvin almost smiled. "That would be a tragedy for a man like you."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the fading dark.
Albrecht stood alone among the tombstones, the purse of gold in his hand, a knight's sanctity burning in his soul.
The sky lightened. Somewhere, a bell began to toll for morning prayers.
He looked toward the Cathedral spire, now black against a grey-blue sky.
He had broken into her house. Stolen from her. Eaten one of her own.
And he felt no wrath from the heavens. Only the steady, indifferent turning of the world.
He smiled.
Tomorrow, he would leave Valensford. He had gold. He had power. And he had a new question to answer.
If he could eat a blessing... could he eat a miracle?
He walked back to his room, his steps silent on the dawn streets, a god-eater in a world of faithful sheep.