Chapter 97: His Clock Strikes

The messenger arrived at noon.

Thaddeus read it in front of the main door of the St. Sophia Sanatorium, with Celestine six feet away and her arms crossed over her chest.

Exarch Tertius’s seal was red and big, the size of a palm.

“Twenty-four hours,” Thaddeus said without looking up from the paper. “Novice Raziel Celeste must be handed over to the Inquisition’s custody before dawn tomorrow, or the Dawn Inquisitors will take the facilities by force.”

Celestine didn’t blink.

“This sanatorium operates under the direct jurisdiction of the Council of Exarchs, Exarch Tertius has no authority over my patients.”

“He is not your patient anymore, he is a suspect of active heresy.”

“Then let his Exarch come personally.” Celestine turned and went inside. “Good morning, Inquisitor.”

The door closed.

Thaddeus folded the paper carefully and put it in his robe.

He looked at the building for a long moment.

Then he went back to the north wing where he had his makeshift desk and started writing.

The news reached Level 1 in the form of an echo.

Celestine’s footsteps resonated differently when she was furious.

Heavier.

Faster.

Three of the oldest prisoners had learned it by force of years.

Lucian knew it because Ser Roderic knew it.

“Time’s up,” said the ex-paladin without moving from the wall he was leaning against. “Tonight they do the purge.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve been here for four years, kid, and I know that pace by heart.”

Lucian looked at the hallway.

Twelve prisoners distributed among four adjacent cells, all awake, all looking towards the grate where he was standing.

Men and women with tangled hair and sunken eyes.

White sanatorium robes that had once been other colors.

No one spoke.

Roderic looked at him waiting.

Lucian knew he wasn’t Raziel.

He didn’t have the map of the future nor the ability to calculate three moves ahead nor the steel stomach needed to lie to an Inquisitor’s face.

Raziel would have known exactly what to say.

But Raziel was three floors down doing things to himself with a dagger and oracle blood.

So he had to improvise.

Lucian opened the gate of the nearest cell.

He went in and stood in the center of the small group, with the hallway torch lighting him from the side.

“My friend, the one down there, told me once that the Church calls us ’flock’.” Lucian looked at the twelve. “Because the flock gets sheared, gets sacrificed.”

No one answered, an older woman kept looking at the floor.

Lucian unsheathed his short dagger.

“But I don’t see sheep here.” His voice didn’t tremble, that surprised him. “I see people who had everything stolen from them and are still standing, they stole your magic, your name, and your life.”

A man with a bandaged hand raised his head.

“Tonight we are going to collect the debt.” Lucian looked at them one by one. “Not for Zhalyr, nor for the Kingdom, for us.”

Roderic smiled like someone who has been waiting a long time for someone to open the cage. “What is the order, kid?”

Lucian looked towards the stairs going up to Level 2. “Burn everything.”

LEVEL 3. 11:47 PM.

Raziel heard the footsteps forty seconds before they reached the third step of the descent.

Four pairs.

With thick-soled boots, not the sandals of normal Sisters.

The Elite ones used boots because sometimes doors had to be kicked down.

“Do you hear that?” whispered Mirael from the chains. “They are coming.”

“I know they are coming.”

Raziel didn’t look up from the circle he was tracing on the cell floor.

Coal dust he had scraped from the wall with his fingers during the last twenty minutes, mixed with a bit of water from the bowl the Sisters left every morning and that he had saved in the mouth of his shoe.

The parasite in his chest pulsed.

[ALERT: HOSTILE PRESENCES DETECTED. ETA: 3 MINUTES.]

Three minutes.

The circle needed four more connections and the central symbol was still incomplete.

Raziel sped up the tracing and his fingers were black up to the wrist.

“Raziel.”

“I’m working.”

“Raziel, the ritual requires clear intention and if you complete it in a rush…”

“I know.”

“…the result can be unpredictable for the parasite carrier, your spiritual core is already compromised, if the blood reacts with the internal darkness…”

“Mirael.” Raziel looked up for a second. “I already know it can go wrong, everything in my life goes wrong, I just need you to shut up and give me your hand.”

The oracle looked at him with an expression that wasn’t fear but pity.

The footsteps reached the second level of the descent.

[ETA: 90 SECONDS.]

Raziel pressed the dagger against Mirael’s palm firmly, not roughly, and looked her in the eyes.

“Ready?”

“I’ve been chained for four years feeding a cult.” Mirael closed her fingers around the dagger. “I’m ready.”

The cut was clean.

The blood gushed out golden, literally golden, as if someone had melted coins and put them to circulate under the skin.

It fell on the symbol on the floor and the coal absorbed it in silence.

The circle lit up.

[PURIFICATION RITUAL: INITIATING…]

[COST: SANITY FRAGMENT – 8%]

[WARNING: PARASITIC REACTION DETECTED]

The parasite in Raziel’s chest woke up completely.

It was the instinct of a thing that had been contained for days and suddenly smelled real food.

Raziel gritted his teeth.

“Let them come,” he said in a low voice. “By the time they get in, I won’t be the prey anymore.”

LEVEL 2. 11:51 PM.

The door to Lara’s room opened without anyone knocking.

Lara was sitting on the bed with her back straight and her hands on her knees.

She hadn’t slept all night.

She couldn’t handle the weight of forty-seven people suffering under the floor, seeping through the cracks of the building, accumulating in her chest.

Sister Elena entered with a candle. “Can’t you sleep, dear?”

She sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress sank slightly.

Elena had her hands on her lap and in her right hand, partially hidden under the sleeve, there was a small dagger with the edge shining very faint green.

Contact poison.

Lara recognized it from the Alchemy class Sister Petra had given at St. Celeste two months ago.

“Your friends are playing with fire.” Elena tilted her head with a motherly expression. “And you are going to get burned.”

Lara looked at her.

Inside was chaos.

It was too much.

It had been too much for hours.

“Sister Elena.”

The woman raised the dagger slowly.

“I’m not afraid.”

Elena smiled more. “No?”

Lara didn’t take her eyes off her.

“No, because I have no room left.”

Lara let it all go.

It wasn’t a conscious decision.

The Wave hit Elena like a physical wall.

THUD.

What came out of Elena’s mouth didn’t have the shape of a normal scream, it was the sound of someone who suddenly sees everything she did to every person she touched, feeling every one of those experiences back and all at once.

The blood vessels in her eyes burst.

Elena fell off the bed.

THUMP.

She convulsed on the floor with the dagger still in her hand, fingers opening and closing without control, heels hitting the wooden floor.

Lara stood up.

Her hands were trembling but she looked at them and decided that was acceptable.

She stepped over her mentor’s body.

She opened the door.

The Level 2 hallway was empty and far away, from below, she heard the first scream of a prisoner who wasn’t willing to stay quiet anymore.

Lara took a step towards the stairs. “We start now.”

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