Chapter 51: His death flag

Marius’s private study stank.

Not of dirt, but of rancid incense trying to cover something rotten, like fresh flowers on an open grave.

Marius dragged his feet over the Persian carpet, a luxury that now felt like quicksand.

His fingers, white from tension, clung to the edge of his mahogany desk until splinters threatened to dig into his skin.

He wasn’t alone.

If only he was.

In the deepest corner, where candlelight refused to reach, the darkness had weight.

A mass of shadows shaped like a human was there, static, devouring the little oxygen in the room.

“The boy…” Marius tried to speak, but his throat was dry, scratchy like sandpaper. He coughed, looking for courage at the bottom of an empty wine glass. “Raziel is a problem.”

The answer didn’t arrive through the air. It vibrated directly in Marius’s molars, a low-frequency hum that gave him an instant migraine stab.

“A problem?” The voice sounded like wood creaking underwater. “Explain yourself.”

Marius let go of the desk and started walking in circles, unable to stay still.

His boots hit the floor with a frantic rhythm.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He needed noise. The silence of that thing

was deafening.

“The Inquisitors…” He wiped a hand over his neck, feeling cold sweat soaking his clerical collar. “They are watching him. Prince Aerion, Paladin Odessa… their eyes are on him. It’s like that damn novice has a lighthouse on his forehead!”

He stopped in front of the shelf of forbidden books, turning his back to the shadow, trembling.

“Our agreement required discretion! Shadows! But Raziel’s mere existence is pulling all the plot threads toward him!” He shouted, turning sharply, eyes injected with panic. “He’s going to make everything collapse!”

The candle flames flickered in unison, turning a sickly greenish color for a second.

The temperature dropped like a stone.

Marius’s breath turned to vapor.

“The gears are already turning, Father Marius.” The entity didn’t move, but the shadow at its feet stretched like an oil stain toward the priest. “The pact is sealed, there are no refunds in this narrative, there will be… edits.”

Edits.

Marius ran to a side table and poured himself wine with shaking hands.

The crimson liquid spilled on his sleeve, looking like an open wound, but he didn’t care.

He drank it in one go.

“He’s just a novice,” he begged, lips stained red. “An extra. A pawn. Is it worth burning our whole operation for him?”

The figure’s hood rose slowly.

There was no face.

Only a void that sucked in the light, an abyss that had seen the birth and death of a thousand stories.

“He is more than a pawn. He is a glitch, a continuity error that attracts the reader’s gaze… and the gods’.” The entity took a step forward.

The wood floor cracked. “His elimination would be crude. No, The sacrifice required of us is greater.”

Marius backed away until he hit the obsidian mirror decorating the wall.

The cold glass froze his back through the tunic.

“Sa-sacrifice?” he stuttered.

“Control? Politics?” The entity let out a dry laugh, like dead leaves dragged by the wind. “You think small, Marius. We are not playing politics, we are rewriting reality and for a new truth to be born… an old one must die.”

The black surface of the obsidian mirror behind Marius rippled like a lake disturbed by a stone.

Marius jumped away, horrified.

From the glass emerged a sharp, bright image, obscenely full of life: Lucian Valerius Nyxian.

The young noble was laughing in the reflection, with that golden arrogance of someone who believes the world is his personal stage.

“Our alliance requires a conduit,” whispered the voice, now so close Marius could smell the scent of ozone and old blood. “A soul of pure lineage. A catalyst with enough ’narrative weight’ to break the rules.”

A shadow-gloved finger pointed at the mirror.

“Young Lucian… is the perfect fuel.”

CRACK!

The sound was dry, definitive.

Marius looked down.

In his right hand, the silver crucifix he had been squeezing had snapped in two.

The jagged edge of the metal had slashed his palm.

Blood.

Hot and real.

Dripping onto the expensive Persian carpet.

Plic. Plic. Plic.

“Lucian…” Marius felt his knees failing. He leaned on the desk, staining the documents red. “The Duke’s son… The Duke of Nyxian would skin us alive, burn the Church to the ground just to find the ashes.”

“The Duke is a secondary character with inflated stats,” the entity dismissed with boredom. “Predictable. And we operate outside the script, Father.”

The shadow wrapped around Marius, an intimate darkness, seductive and terrifying.

“This is inevitable. Some characters only exist to develop the plot and die. They are stepping stones and you, Father Marius, have the privilege of pushing him down the stairs.”

Marius looked at his reflection in the mirror, right next to Lucian’s smiling face.

He saw his own eyes: sunken, feverish, desperate.

He saw a man who had crossed too many lines to go back.

The fear was still there, yes.

But underneath the fear, something darker bloomed.

Ambition.

If he did this, if he survived this… the power he would get would be divine.

He closed his wounded fist.

The sharp pain cleared his mind.

The blood mixed with the broken silver.

’It’s already done, I did it the moment I opened the door to this thing.’

Marius straightened up.

He was no longer the cornered animal; he was the butcher accepting the knife.

He wiped the blood from his hand on his own tunic, leaving a brutal trail on the sacred fabric.

“We will sacrifice him,” he said. His voice didn’t tremble anymore. It sounded hollow, dead, but firm.

He turned to the entity, with a grimace trying to be a smile.

“And we will make sure the blood splashes directly… on that heretic novice, Raziel.”

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