The rain in Sideris did not wash away the sins; it only made them heavier.
It was a thick, oily downpour that tasted of ash and ancient metal. It hissed against the cobblestones of the Citadel, drumming a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like a death march. High above, the sky was not black, but a bruised, suffocating grey, split open by the jagged wound known as The Tear. That cold, blue rupture in the heavens bled a freezing light down onto the city, illuminating the gargoyles perched on the cathedral roofs. Their stone eyes seemed to hunger, soaking up the terror of the citizens below like dry sponges.
Valerius walked through the downpour, and the rain turned to steam the moment it touched his shoulders.
He was a mountain of a man, encased in armor that seemed less like metal and more like a shadow given solid form. The Void Armor. It was matte black, drinking in the meager light of the alchemy lamps, making him look like a hole in the fabric of reality. He did not clang when he walked; he moved with the terrifying, muffled weight of a landslide.
Inside the armor, Valerius was burning.
It was a constant agony that lived in his marrow. The red runes etched into his flesh, the marks of the Silent Lords, pulsed with a feverish rhythm, demanding to be fed. They wanted magic. They wanted life. And tonight, he had been promised a feast.
He passed a group of city guards huddled near a brazier. As Valerius approached, the conversation died instantly. The guards stiffened, their eyes fixing on the wet ground. They did not salute him. You do not salute a monster; you just pray it walks past you.
"The Wraith," one of them whispered when they thought he was out of earshot.
Valerius didn't react. Inside the helmet, the world was blessedly deadened. The Void Armor swallowed the noise, turning the roaring storm into a distant, muffled hum. That was why he wore it. To shut out the chaos. But even the Void couldn't block the hunger. While his ears heard silence, the runes on his skin tasted the guards' terror, a sharp, metallic spice that leaked through the black steel.
He reached the heavy iron gates of the Deep Dungeon. The gatekeeper, a man with a face scarred by pox, scrambled to unlock the mechanism. The gears groaned, a sound of rusted agony, and the door swung open, breathing out a gust of stale, rot-scented air.
"Lord Valerius," the gatekeeper stammered, avoiding the red glow of the runes on Valerius's neck. "We... we weren't expecting you until the bell tolled."
Valerius did not speak. He rarely did. But when he finally answered, his voice was not the grinding of stones that the guard expected. "Then the bell is late."
It was deep, resonant, and terrifyingly calm. A rich baritone that seemed to vibrate through the armor, commanding the very air in the corridor. It was the voice of a fallen king, not a beast. He simply stepped past the man, descending into the throat of the earth.
The stairs wound down into the darkness, far below the reach of the Pale Eye, the great crystal sphere that mimicked the sun atop the Spire. Down here, there was only the damp drip of condensation and the scuttling of things that had too many legs.
Valerius's hand drifted to the hilt of his greatsword, Atheos. The weapon hummed against his palm, a hungry vibration that traveled up his arm. The sword was forged from the heart of a fallen star, a relic of the Forgotten Era, and it shared his addiction. It needed to drink.
Kill the flaw, Lysander had ordered.
The High Priest's voice still echoed in Valerius's mind, cold and precise. Lysander had stood in the Crystal Sanctum, staring down at the city through a floor of ancient, warped glass, his golden robes pristine. "A mistake has occurred in the Alchemy Halls, Valerius. A flaw in the bloodline. A corruption of the design. It is dangerous. It endangers the sanctity of the Hymn. Go to Cell Zero. Erase it."
Valerius had nodded. He was not paid to ask questions. He was paid in numbing elixirs and the promise that, one day, the Church would cure him. That they would finally peel the cursed iron from his skin, extinguish the fire in his blood, and make him whole again.
He reached the bottom level. This was where they kept the things that the Church didn't want the public to see. The failed experiments. The twisted flesh-crafted horrors of Doctor Thorne. The air here smelled of copper and strong acids.
Two guards stood before a heavy steel door marked with a single symbol painted in white: Ø.
The Mark of the Void.
"Open it," Valerius commanded.
His voice was a deep, resonant low note that vibrated through the narrow corridor, authoritative and terrifyingly calm.
The guards exchanged a look of sheer relief. They wanted to be away from this door. They wanted to be away from whatever was inside. One of them fumbled with a heavy ring of keys, his hands shaking.
"Be careful, my Lord," the guard warned, his voice trembling. "It... it doesn't make any sound. It's unnatural."
Valerius almost laughed, but the impulse died in his throat. Unnatural? He looked down at his own hand, encased in black gauntlets, seeing the red light of the runes bleeding through the joints. He was the most unnatural thing in this city.
The lock clicked. The heavy bolts slid back with a thud that echoed in the corridor.
Valerius drew Atheos. The blade slid from the sheath without a ringing sound. It was silent, absorbing the light in the hallway. He kicked the door open and stepped into the darkness, ready for a beast. Ready for a scream. Ready for a fight.
He found none of those things.
The cell was small, damp, and lit only by the weak, greenish pulse of a dying alchemy orb. There were no chains on the walls. There was no blood.
In the center of the room, curled up on a thin, miserable mattress, a girl was sleeping.
Valerius stopped. The momentum of his violence hit a wall. He had expected a monster. He had expected one of Thorne's Stitchers, a creature of sewn-together limbs and gnashing teeth.
But this was... small.
He stepped closer, his heavy boots crushing the straw on the floor. It should have been loud, the dry stalks snapping under his massive weight, but the Void Armor drank the sound instantly. He moved in absolute, terrifying silence.
She was wearing a simple, white linen shift, the kind patients wore in the Sanitarium, but it was torn and stained with dirt. Her hair was the first thing that caught his eye. It was white. Not the grey-white of the elderly, but a shocking, pure platinum that seemed to hold its own light. It spilled over her shoulders and face like a veil of silk.
Valerius tightened his grip on the sword. Do it, his instincts screamed. Strike before it wakes up. It's a trick. Magic can look like anything.
He raised the massive blade. The tip hovered over her chest. One thrust. That was all it would take. Atheos would drink her soul, the runes would stop burning for a few hours, and he could go back to his quarters and sit in the dark.
He looked down at her neck. There, branded into the pale, translucent skin of her throat, was the mark: Ø. The skin around it was angry and red.
Then, she opened her eyes.
Valerius froze. He had looked into the eyes of demons, murderers, and madmen. He had seen fear in every shade, but he had never seen eyes like this.
They were violet. A deep, crystalline purple that seemed to refract the dim light of the cell.
She didn't scream. She didn't scramble away in terror at the sight of the giant, armored executioner standing over her with a sword. She simply blinked, looking up at him with a childlike curiosity.
"Are you the end?" she asked.
Her voice was soft, like dry leaves skittering on stone, but what shocked Valerius was not the question. It was the silence.
Usually, when people spoke to him, Valerius could hear the dissonance in their souls, the buzzing static of their fear, their lies, their hidden agendas. It was a constant noise that gave him a migraine.
But this girl... she had no static. She was a void. A perfect, quiet note in a symphony of screeching noise.
"Stand up," Valerius commanded, lowering the sword slightly.
She sat up slowly, clutching the thin blanket to her chest. She looked frail, as if a strong winter wind could shatter her bones.
"They told me I was sick," she said, her violet eyes scanning his armor, lingering on the glowing red runes. "They said the burning inside me was a sin."
"I am not a doctor," Valerius grunted. "And there is no cure."
"You look like pain," she whispered.
Valerius flinched behind his helmet. The words struck harder than a hammer.
"Get up," he rumbled, forcing the steel back into his voice. "Turn around. Kneel."
She obeyed. She stood up, her bare feet pressing against the cold, filthy stone. She was small, the top of her head barely reaching his armored shoulder.
It was the perfect execution stance. She accepted it. She didn't cry. She didn't beg for her mother or pray to the Old Gods. She just waited.
Valerius lifted Atheos high. The muscles in his arms bunched. The runes on his neck flared hot, anticipating the kill. Strike. Feed. Sleep.
He looked at her neck. He saw the delicate curve of her spine beneath the skin.
It is broken, Lysander had said. A glitch.
Valerius's hands trembled. For the first time in years, the blade felt heavy. Not physically heavy, he could lift a horse with one hand, but spiritually heavy.
Suddenly, a wave of agony washed over him. His armor, sensing his hesitation, tightened. The runes spiked in temperature, searing his skin like branding irons. He grunted, stumbling forward, dropping to one knee. The sword clattered against the stone floor.
He gasped, clutching his chest. It felt like his heart was being squeezed by a fist of molten lead. This was the withdrawal. If he didn't kill, the magic would consume him.
"You are hurting," the voice said.
Valerius looked up through the slits of his helmet. The girl had turned around. She wasn't looking at the sword. She was looking at him.
"Stay back," he wheezed, his voice distorted by pain. "Do not... touch me."
She didn't listen. She crawled forward on her knees.
Valerius tried to raise his hand to backhand her away, to crush her skull, anything to stop the threat, but he couldn't move. The armor, sensing the strange void approaching, had locked its joints rigid. He was a prisoner in his own metal skin.
The girl reached out. Her hand was pale, small, and trembling slightly.
"Don't," he warned, a guttural growl.
She placed her hand directly onto his chest plate, right over the rune that was burning the hottest.
Valerius squeezed his eyes shut, expecting an explosion. He expected her hand to melt. He expected her to scream as the Void magic tore her apart.
Instead... there was silence.
It wasn't just a lack of sound. It was a physical sensation. Where her fingers touched the black metal, the heat vanished. Instantly. It was as if she had poured glacial water over a bonfire.
Valerius gasped, his eyes snapping open.
The red glow of the runes on his chest flickered and died, turning a dull, dormant grey. The agonizing roar in his head cut out, leaving a blissful, impossible quiet.
For the first time in ten years, Valerius was not in pain.
He stared at her, paralyzed by the shock of relief. The girl didn't pull away. She kept her hand on his chest, her violet eyes wide with surprise, as if she were feeling the echo of his pain dissipating into her palm.
"It stopped," she whispered, sounding as confused as he was. "Why did it stop?"
Valerius slowly reached up, his armored hand hovering over hers. He could crush her hand in an instant. He should crush her hand. She was a witch. She was a heretic. She had done something impossible. Magic couldn't just be erased; it had to be fed.
But she hadn't fed on it. She had nullified it.
Valerius looked at Atheos lying on the floor. The sword, usually hungry and vibrating, was silent too. As if it were afraid of her.
He looked back at the girl. She wasn't a monster. She wasn't a criminal.
She was an antidote.
And for a man dying of a poison he couldn't escape, an antidote was more valuable than a god.
Valerius slowly stood up. The Void Armor defied physics, rising in terrifying silence despite its massive weight. The girl pulled her hand back, clutching it to her chest. Steam rose faintly from her fingertips, as if she had touched a burning coal.
"Do you have a name?" Valerius asked. His voice was different now. The rust was still there, but the growl was gone.
"Elara," she said.
Valerius sheathed his sword. It slid home with a heavy, final thud that died instantly in the damp air. No echo.
"Get up, Elara," he said, turning toward the door.
"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked, rising to her feet.
Valerius looked at the open door, then back at the girl who had silenced his hell. He reached out and grabbed a rough, woolen cloak that lay on the guard's stool outside the cell, throwing it at her.
"Put this on," he ordered. "Cover your hair. Cover the mark."
"Where are we going?"
Valerius stepped into the hallway, the runes on his back dim and cold. He felt light. He felt dangerous in a way he hadn't felt since before the betrayal.
"Away from here," Valerius said, his voice low. "Before the silence breaks."