Chapter 98: His Dawn Rebellion

Lara stepped out into the Level 2 hallway.

Sister Elena’s body lay in the room behind her, convulsing in silence, trapped in her own nightmare.

But the silence wasn’t enough.

Lara walked over to the railing overlooking the central stairwell, from there, she could feel the whole building.

The Sisters sleeping in their rooms.

The bored guards at the entrance.

The broken prisoners on Level 1.

She closed her eyes.

’No more fear,’ she thought. ’Not today.’

Lara took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the stale air of the sanatorium, and then… she pushed.

VMMMM!

She projected a single emotion amplified by her own desperation: PANIC.

The wave went through the stone walls like they were paper.

Upstairs, in the staff dorms, three Sisters woke up screaming, convinced the roof was falling on them.

At the entrance, the guards drew their swords against shadows that didn’t exist.

And down on Level 1, the magic seals on the cells, which reacted to environmental stability, flickered.

The blue lights of the locks blinked.

That was the signal.

***

LEVEL 1

Lucian saw the lights flicker.

“Now,” he said.

He ran to Sir Roderic’s cell with the bunch of keys Lara had stolen hours ago.

His hands were shaking from pure adrenaline.

CLACK!

The iron gate opened.

Roderic stepped out. He stretched, and his joints popped like gunshots.

“I said I was going to collect the debt,” the old Paladin grunted.

He ripped a loose iron bar from his own cot with a sharp pull.

CRUNCH!

“Open the rest, kid. I’ll handle the welcome.”

Lucian ran down the hallway, opening cell after cell.

“Get out! Move! If you can walk, run!”

Twelve shadows came out of the darkness.

Ghosts in dirty white robes.

But seeing the open doors, something in their dead eyes lit up.

At the end of the hall, the stairwell door slammed open.

Two Night Guard Sisters walked in, holding suppression batons in their hands.

“Containment alert! Patients out of-”

They didn’t finish the sentence.

Roderic moved with a speed that belied his age and his lack of magic.

He lunged forward, dodged a paralyzing energy beam, and smashed the iron bar right into the first Sister’s face.

BAM!

The woman dropped like a sack.

The second one tried to raise her baton, but three prisoners jumped on her. They didn’t have magic, but they had nails, teeth, and years of bottled-up hate.

Lucian looked away when the screaming started.

“To the drain!” Lucian yelled, pointing at a large grate on the floor at the back. “Those who can’t fight, go through there! It leads to the river!”

Most of them ran to the grate.

But a little girl stood still in the middle of the hallway.

Iris with just ten years old, and burnt skin on her arms.

She stared at her shaking hands while more guards came down the stairs. This time there were four, and they were wearing light armor.

“I can’t” Iris whispered, stepping back. “They took almost everything… they left me empty.”

Roderic, with his iron bar dripping blood, kneeled next to her in the middle of the chaos.

The guards’ boots echoed against the stone, getting closer.

“How much you got left, kid?” Roderic asked in a calm voice.

Iris was crying. “A spark. Just a tiny spark.”

Roderic smiled with a fierce, old wolf smile.

“A spark is enough to start a wildfire, Iris.”

He pointed at the narrow hallway, full of old dry wood. “Burn them.”

Iris stopped crying. She looked at the guards coming to lock her up again.

She closed her eyes and her hands glowed in a deep, furious orange. “FIRE!”

FWOOOOSH!

It was an expanding heatwave that turned the hallway’s air into an instant oven.

The wood caught fire as well as the guards’ robes caught it, the corridor burst into flames.

The guards screamed, backing away from the wall of fire that now separated the prisoners from their captors.

Lucian stared at the fire, his face lit up by the flames.

“Well done,” he muttered. “Now, Raziel… it’s up to you.”

***

LEVEL 3

The ceiling shook and dust fell over the ritual circle.

Raziel didn’t look up because his hands were stained with Mirael’s golden blood, and the parasite in his chest was howling.

Not in pain, but in pleasure instead.

It was feeding on the Oracle’s blood, and in return, it was loosening its grip on Raziel’s core.

“Faster!” Mirael panted from the chains. Her skin was gray, drained. “They’re breaking the seals upstairs!”

“Almost… I almost got it,” Raziel grunted.

He could feel the black corruption retreating, pushed back by the gold of the Oracle’s blood. It was like throwing up poison.

He traced the last rune on the floor.

The circle glowed with a blinding light.

Raziel felt a sudden lightness and the weight on his chest vanished, he opened his mouth to take a gulp of clean air for the first time in weeks.

And then, the cell door blew to pieces.

BOOOOM!

The explosion of pure magic threw Raziel against the opposite wall.

His head bounced against the stone and the ritual circle broke.

Sadly, the light went out.

Raziel coughed, trying to focus his eyes through the smoke and dust.

“Almost,” a soft, terribly calm voice said.

Celestine walked into the cell.

She didn’t bring her Sisters. She didn’t need them.

Her gray robe was spotless, despite the chaos reigning on the upper floors.

She stepped over the broken lines of the ritual circle, undoing Raziel’s work with her steps.

She stopped in front of Mirael, who was hanging unconscious from the chains.

Then, she turned her head toward Raziel, who was trying to get up.

“I knew it,” Celestine said.”I knew you would come here. Everyone comes for the girl. They think the Oracle is salvation.”

Raziel leaned against the wall, wiping the blood from his mouth.

The parasite was asleep, stunned by the half-finished ritual, but not dead.

“It’s over, Celestine,” Raziel said, panting. “The sanatorium is burning and your prisoners are free.”

Celestine smiled.

She pulled something from the folds of her robe.

Raziel felt his blood run cold.

It was the Chalice of Oblivion.

But it was fixed. The cracks had been filled with liquid gold, and the object was bigger, more grotesque.

It pulsed with a violet light, fueled by the energy of dozens of recently stolen Gifts.

“Fire goes out, Raziel. Prisoners get caught again,” she said, caressing the rim of the Chalice. “But you… you are a piece that doesn’t fit.”

She raised the Chalice. The violet light illuminated the cell, casting long, twisted shadows.

“You tried to purge yourself,” Celestine whispered. “But no one leaves Saint Sofia clean.”

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