We passed the place where he'd stood.
Nothing there. No scorch on the floor, no mark on the wall. Just heat.
We moved through it like smoke — sluggish, half-limping.
The floor angled downward.
No command was given, but we turned when the priest did. Acolytes ahead, censer swinging. The incense was thicker now. The deeper we went, the more it smelled like burning teeth.
Jacob's foot dragged.
Nicco started muttering again.
Leo looked like he'd cry, but didn't.
I only remember putting one foot in front of the other. And then again.
And again.
And again.
I don't know how long we walked. The pistons gave way to new machinery — belts that wheezed, great gear-pumps spinning on rusted chains. At one point we passed a rust-stained crucifix nailed into a wall of pipe, with no explanation.
Then we stopped.
The priest raised his cane, and we froze.
A door stood ahead — black iron, rimmed with oil-streaked scripture. Two guards waited beside it. Real soldiers, not acolytes. Rifles slung over their shoulders, gas masks slung to their hips.
"Here," the priest said.
That was all.
One of the guards pulled a lever. The door hissed open.
Inside, cold air.
Corrugated walls.
Bolted bunks.
A narrow room lined with iron hooks and no windows.
A voice inside me whispered: Rest.
But my knees were shaking so hard, I couldn't tell if I was standing or not.
Then my head dipped.
I don't remember meaning to close my eyes.
Just heat.
Then weightlessness.
Then the sound of my cheek striking the floor.
Shouts.
Boots.
Hands grabbing my collar.
The lights stung when they raised me. I could barely stand — my legs had gone to sleep. My mouth tasted like rust. I didn't even understand what I'd done until I saw the priest's eyes on me.
"You were told not to sleep."
I didn't answer.
My head swam. Someone — Farid, maybe — reached for me, but the guards shoved him back.
Acolytes said nothing. The bell did not ring.
Only the priest's voice, soft but final:
"Saint Lazarus of the Narrow Tomb."
He turned.
I was taken out of line.
They told me later — or maybe I overheard it whispered — that we had stood in that first chamber for nearly two days.
No clocks.
No natural light.
Just pistons and scripture and silence.
Two days without rest.
Two days without food.
But none of us knew.
Time had slipped sideways.
And in the corner of my vision, somewhere near the pipes as I was dragged through the hall
White robes.
Still and waiting.
They didn't take me far.
Down a hall of rusted arches, past a prayer wheel that spun without wind. Every footstep echoed. The guards didn't speak. One held my arm, the other walked ahead, tapping the wall with the butt of his rifle until he found the right door.
Then came the sound a low mechanical groan — not metal, not quite like something old turning in its sleep.
The door opened.
They pushed me inside.
A chamber no larger than a grave.
Iron walls. No light but a single candle in a niche, warped from heat. The floor was stone, but slick — not with water. Oil? Blood? I couldn't tell.
A chain hung from the ceiling.
The priest was already there.
I didn't see him enter.
He was kneeling, his back to me, head bowed as if in prayer. The acolytes were gone. No censer. No bell. Just him. And me.
When he turned, his face was blank.
Not cruel.
Not angry.
Just tired of flesh.
"You were warned," he said.
I didn't answer.
He rose slowly. Took the chain. Raised it.
Then he bound my wrists.
Cold metal, too tight. My arms went numb almost instantly.
"You will keep vigil," he said. "Three hours. Waking. Upright."
I nodded.
"I did not give you permission to nod."
He struck me.
Back of the hand.
No fury in it. Just correction. Like snapping a branch to shape it straighter.
I said nothing.
"Recite."
"…what?"
"Psalm 88. In full."
I tried.
My mouth moved. But the verses blurred. My tongue was too thick. My throat cracked on every word. I remembered only fragments — enough to offend Heaven.
"Let my prayer come before Thee… I am counted with them that go down into the pit…"
He stood there while I struggled. Never helping. Never correcting.
At some point, he turned the candle toward my face and said, "Do you know why this flame does not move?"
I didn't answer.
"Because there is no breath in this room," he whispered. "Not yours. Not God's."
He left me chained.
The door shut.
I don't know how long I stayed like that.
I tried counting psalms. Then pulses. Then the flickers of the candle. None held.
Pain became a kind of rhythm. My arms throbbed in time with my heartbeat. My legs buckled but never gave. I tasted bile. Saw stars that weren't real. Thought I heard Jacob's voice, Leo's laugh, Nicco whispering about saints beneath the floorboards.
Then I saw the man in white again.
He was kneeling beside me.
Not bound. Not weeping.
Just watching.
White robes, untouched by oil or soot. A shadow without a source.
I whispered, "How many times must I fall before He forgives me?"
He didn't answer.
Just lifted a finger.
Pointed to the candle.
Then to the chain.
Then vanished.
At some point, the door opened again.
The priest returned. No words. Just stepped behind me, unhooked the chain, and let me drop.
I didn't cry out.
"You will rejoin your unit," he said. "If you fall again — you do not rise."
He left.
I stood.
Somehow.
I walked out.
The corridor was the same as before — only now it was morning. Or something like morning. A grey glow pushed through a slit high in the ceiling. It made the oil glisten.
I walked back toward the dormitory.
The door was open.
Inside — the others.
Farid sat against the wall, staring straight ahead. Jacob was sharpening something that wasn't a blade. Nicco whispered his own name over and over, like a prayer. Tomas was asleep with his eyes open.
Only Leo looked up when I came in.
He didn't smile.
Just moved over, made space.
I sat beside him. My arms were still shaking. My tongue wouldn't work right.
No one asked what happened.
We sat like that for a long time.
Not speaking. Not moving.
Just breathing — shallow, cracked, the way you breathe when every part of your body wants to stop being yours.
The oil on the floor had dried to a film. Our boots left no prints anymore.
Somewhere above us, a bell rang. But it was distant. Muffled. As if it were tolling in another world.
No one moved.
Not even Jacob.
But then the door opened again.
A priest stood there. Not the one who punished me. Not the one from the wheel. This one wore no mask. His eyes were red-rimmed, tired.
He looked at us like a man made to carry water through fire.
"Phase Two," he said.
And left.
Just that.
Just "Phase Two."
Leo rose first. Slowly. Like his bones didn't fit right anymore. Then Farid, still staring. Then Tomas, blinking. Then the rest.
I didn't want to stand. I did anyway.
We filed out again.
Same corridor. Same wet stone. But this time, we passed others — older recruits. Or maybe not older. Just more broken. They didn't speak. Didn't look at us. Some limped. Some were bandaged. One still wore his shackles.
The walls changed. We were led down again — deeper. The light turned golden, then orange, then black again.
And then we were outside.
Or something like it.
A courtyard. Ringed in walls so high the sun barely reached the stone. The sky above was sickled and grey. Rain hung in the air, but never fell. Just hovered. Waiting.
At the center: a stone circle. And a line of crosses. Real ones. Heavy, wooden, iron-bolted. Each one carved with scripture. Each one leaning slightly, like the wind pushed from only one direction.
"Strip," said the priest.
We obeyed.
No explanation.
No delay.
The wind hit like knives. We were given nothing.
Only rope.
Only the crosses.
Only the command. Carry.
The wind was sharp, but it was the silence that cut deeper.
No barking of orders. No chanting. No priests urging us forward.
Just the rope, the weight, and the walk.
We weren't given instruction. We weren't told how far or how long. Just shown the crosses. Seven, laid flat like bodies. One for each of us. Carved with scripture so worn down you could only feel it if you bled on it.
I think that was the point.
Mine read.
He who sets hand to plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom.
We tied the ropes ourselves — around shoulders, chest, back. No harness. No leather. Just coarse, fraying fiber that bit the skin raw within minutes.
Farid spat blood before the first turn.
Leo cried without sound.
Tomas muttered prayers beneath his breath. They weren't in English. I didn't recognize the tongue.
Nicco asked once, "Where are we going?"
No one answered.
The first hill was steep, made of gravel and broken mortar. The crosses dragged behind us like anchors. Every time they caught on a stone lip, the jolt sent shivers through my ribs.
Jacob was the only one who didn't stumble. But his steps slowed. Even he had a limit.
We passed no other people. Just walls. Just wind. Just the high fortress battlements, and in them, sometimes — rarely — a watching figure in white.
They never spoke.
They never moved.
Just watched.
Like statues waiting for cracks to form.
Time began to bend. Minutes bloomed into hours, then collapsed again. Our shadows didn't change. The light stayed the same: dim, sulfur-colored, pressing down like fog.
The gravel turned to brick. The brick to old mud.
We passed the body of a dog — or maybe a man. Hard to tell. Half-buried in ash.
Tomas vomited.
No one stopped.
The march wasn't linear. It looped. Spiral paths through the internal terraces of the Gate — down into lower wards, then up again into courtyards we thought we'd already passed. It was a maze without walls. The map was pain.
By the third hour, my back had split in two places.
By the fourth, I stopped feeling my feet.
Leo collapsed. Just dropped. His rope tightened — the cross didn't stop with him.
Jacob got to him first. Lifted the wood from Leo's back and slung it over his own, dragging two now.
No one thanked him.
There wasn't breath for it.
I started hallucinating near what I think was the sixth hour.
The rain hadn't fallen yet, but it tasted like metal. The air buzzed — like lightning crawling through marrow.
And then I saw him.
Not the priest.Not the drill-master.
Him.
The figure in white.
Standing between two pillars at the top of the next incline. His robe didn't ripple. His face was as featureless as ever, but I felt his gaze. I felt it the way fire feels when you're too weak to pull away.
I wanted to stop. To ask him why. Why the pain. Why the silence. Why unity mattered more than mercy.
But the rope didn't let me stop.
And when I blinked — he was gone.
We walked.
The last turn came with no warning. No signal. Just a narrowing path of scorched earth. No more stone. Just black dirt, loose and oily. The cross barely slid. It ground like teeth.
And then the horns blew.
Not from above.
From below.
Three tones, staggered. Like a funeral call played in reverse.
We were made to stop.
Not rest. Stop.
We dropped to our knees, crosses behind us, ropes wrapped like thorns around our torsos.
The priests emerged then.
Seven of them. Each from a different door in the fortress wall. They moved in unison. Robes dragging behind like burial cloths. One by one, they approached us and placed a cold iron coin on our tongues.
We didn't swallow.
We just held them there.
Until the priest said:
"You may rise. The Crucible phase is ended. You have been seen."
We limped back in silence.
Nicco whispered that the coin burned, but no one else said anything. When we returned to the dormitory, there were blankets. Water. Oil. Bread.
The priests didn't stay to watch us eat.
That night, I didn't dream.
Not of home. Not of fire. Not even of him.
Because when sleep finally came, it came all at once.
We collapsed where they told us.
No barracks — just a stone chapel gutted for use, floor stripped of icons, walls dark with smoke. They'd laid down pallets in crooked rows, rough wool and broken straw stuffed into cloth too thin to keep shape. No blankets. No lamps. Just a single crucifix carved into the far wall, half-covered in soot.
We slept under it like bodies in a crypt.
And we did sleep.
Not from comfort. From collapse.
No turning. No words. No dreams.
Only black.
When I woke, my mouth tasted of metal.
My arms ached like they'd been nailed above my head.
Across the chapel, the others stirred one by one — stiff, slow, silent.
Tomas blinked at the ceiling. Nicco rubbed his wrists. Leo sat hunched with his hands folded like he was still waiting for a blessing.
No one spoke. Not yet. Not until the bell.
It rang from somewhere beyond the chapel walls — not like the chapel bell back home, not bright and wide, but dull, choked, heavy.
A bell that didn't call for worship. Only movement.
We rose.
Because we knew now what happened if you didn't.