Chapter 43: Sacrifice and Sanctities
The moment Auria tried to analyze the creature, a colossal pressure descended. It was a physical weight that seized the cathedral, a force that solidified the air itself. Thought and motion ceased for every mortal present. The dark mist, already coiling through the shattered dome, grew dense with the pressure, devouring the last whispers of sound into a vacuum of silence.
A sharp, stinging pain bloomed behind Auria's eyes. The kids. Her gaze snapped toward them. Their small faces were locked in petrified rictuses, the delicate capillaries in their eyes rupturing under the strain. Twin trails of crimson traced paths from their nostrils through the grime on their faces. Their chests were still. They weren't unconscious; the very life was being pressed out of them. They were dying.
A choked sound escaped her. The world listed violently, the stone floor undulating beneath her boots as if the foundations had turned to liquid. Her sight tunneled, her hearing muffled as if packed with wool.
And yet, the monstrosity looming above made no move. It was a monument to inevitability. More mist poured into the sacred space, a silent, rising flood now swirling around her knees—the very essence that corrupted flesh and soul. They had to survive. They had to. If not for herself, then for the children. For the continuity of Eden, a final, desperate echo of a world already lost. Yet, she was paralyzed, a knight pinned by a divine thumb.
Her desperate gaze found the statue of the Lord of Radiance across the nave. It stood in an apse behind the ruined altar, carved from luminous alabaster that fought a losing war against the encroaching dark. The figure was noble, its features serene, one hand extended in benediction, the other holding a stone sunburst. Now, the dark mist coiled around its base like a venomous serpent, dimming the stone's inherent glow, rising to choke the effigy of the god in its own sanctuary.
The mist reached her lips, cold and scentless. She prayed. She sent a raw, unformed thought to the God of Light, the Lord of Radiance. Let your light blaze. Just once. A single, bright defiance against this blight. I beg you.
She held her breath as the mist swallowed her form, obscuring the other knights. She clung to that splinter of hope, even as the world outside broke in--the relentless, wet thuds against the stained-glass windows, the splintering crack of lead cames and colored glass as rotting, animated corpses clawed their way through the jagged openings. They were a torrent of decay, a flood of grasping limbs and gnashing teeth desecrating the hallowed space.
Her heart hammered against her breastplate like a trapped bird. Her soul poured out a wordless plea. Her mind bent in absolute, desperate reverence, for she knew the doctrine: the Lord of Radiance answered prayers through the sacred, formalized rites of the Sanctification. But in this peril, unholy and sacrilegious as it was, she laid her raw, unworthy need before the god. She prayed for the light. Their only hope.
Then it came. Her answer.
From the eyes of the marble statue, a pinprick of otherworldly luminescence ignited. It swelled for a single heartbeat before detonating into a tapestry of pure, incandescent force. The radiance was a physical blow, a wave of divine power that seared her vision white and forced her eyes shut. It propagated outwards, and the remaining stained-glass windows did not shatter--they sublimated into shimmering, iridescent dust. The undead met the same fate, their forms unraveling into nothingness before they could complete a thought. The mist recoiled, not just dispelled but unmade, its fundamental corruption scoured away by the overwhelming luminescence. It was a divine purgatory, swift and absolute. The unholies were cleansed.
When Auria's vision cleared, the world was remade. Relief, hot and dizzying, flooded her veins. The pressure was gone. The Lord of Radiance had answered. Praise the Holy Radiance, the thought was a fragile ember in her mind.
Her eyes darted to the kids. A healthy flush had returned to their cheeks. Their chests rose and fell in the deep, rhythmic pattern of untroubled sleep. The blood was gone, as if it had never been. They slept, spared. A fragile smile touched her lips, a fleeting crack in her armor. A fierce, desperate elation warmed the cold dread in her gut.
Her gaze found Lysander. His face was a portrait of pure, unadulterated disbelief. Mennyx wore a similar expression, but his was etched with a frantic urgency--a silent scream to move, now! She nodded, the leader's mantle settling back onto her shoulders.
Her eyes swept to Wolfred. His gaze remained distant, haunted, but within those hollow depths, she saw a spark, a single flicker of raw awe at the divine power they had just witnessed.
And then, to Lucien.
Her breath hitched, the air freezing in her lungs.
In a fleeting, horrifying fragment of time, she watched Lucien's elated face, upturned to the vanishing light, contort into a mask of shattered confusion. A colossal, serpentine pillar--a tail of massive, dark vertebrae linked like a spiked chain, tapering to a sharp tip the size of a monolith--slammed down from above.
The impact was utterly silent to her, her world having gone mute once more. She saw, rather than heard, Lucien's body disintegrate into a fine, red mist. He was gone. Erased.
The knowledge of it slammed into her, a physical impact that stole her breath. Her world was soundless. Fear, terror, grief, and a pain so sharp it felt crystalline--a tsunami of negation--crashed over her. A burning pressure built behind her eyes. Her legs lost all substance, threatening to buckle.
Lucien was dead. Lucie…
Then, a brutal, insistent grip on her pauldrons. Someone was shaking her, the vibration jarring her back into her body. She blinked. It was Lysander, his face a mask of fear--for her. He was shouting, his words muffled and distant. Her eyes wavered to Mennyx; he was already sprinting toward the children. So was Wolfred. The reality of their situation crystallized. They had to escape. Now. Or Lucien's fate would be their own.
Her voice was a ragged tear. "He didn't deserve to die that way. He didn't. He was just a kid." The thought was a silent scream. She forced her feet into a stance, heaving a breath that tasted of blood and dust. She armored her fracturing will with a mantra. "Do not falter. Do not falter."
Her senses rushed back in a painful, roaring wave. Lysander's voice sliced through the haze. "Auria! Now! We have to go now!"
She saw the frantic, stumbling movements of Mennyx and Wolfred. She clutched Lysander's vambrace, her grip desperate, and gave a single, sharp nod. Composure was a shield she slammed into place.
She raced for the south exit. Mennyx and Wolfred had the children. She glanced at Mennyx; a deep gash on his arm wept blood freely. He was faltering, his face ashen as he struggled to hold the girl. A silent curse echoed in her mind. She was the leader; her moment of weakness had cost them.
No. Focus. That is the past. The thought was a lash of discipline. The children, at least, were asleep, mercifully spared the horror of Lucien's end. The relief was gutted before it could take root.
A dense wall of growling undead surged through the giant, splintered doors of the south entrance, a tide of rotting flesh and mindless hunger that blocked their path completely.
Or, it should have.
They had seconds before the monstrosity moved again. Hesitation was death. Steel rang as she unsheathed her sword. She met Lysander's gaze. A lifetime of shared battles passed between them in that look. He drew his own heavier blade, his expression settling into a grimace of controlled fury as he advanced.
Both them Clashing against the Hordes of undead..
Auria didn't think; her body moved on the instinct honed in a hundred skirmishes. The first creature, a former city guardsman with a rusted breastplate, lunged with a gurgling snarl. She didn't meet the lunge. She sidestepped, her left hand slapping the flat of its sword aside as her own blade, held in a reverse grip, punched upwards through its exposed armpit, severing tendons and finding the lung. She shoved the corpse back into the two behind it, creating a stumbling pile.
To her right, Lysander fought with terrifying economy. He didn't duel; he demolished. A corpse reeled toward him, arms outstretched. He simply dropped his weight, pivoted, and his heavier blade sheared through both of the creature's legs at the knee. As it collapsed, he reversed his swing in a brutal, short arc, and the pommel of his sword caved in its skull with a wet crack. He used his shoulder like a battering ram, slamming a group of three back, creating the space he needed to kill them one by one with powerful, cleaving blows that shattered bone and split torsos.
Auria flowed through the chaos. A blade whistled past her ear. She caught the wielder's wrist, twisted hard until the bone snapped, and drove her sword point through its open jaw. She yanked the blade free in a spray of black fluid, immediately ducking under a wild swing from another, coming up inside its guard to plant her dagger into its ribs. She used the environment, kicking a loose piece of pew into the path of an onrushing pair, making them stumble into the path of Lysander's devastating swings.
They were a perfect, brutal dance. When a larger, more intact abomination--perhaps a former blacksmith--charged Lysander with a rusted hammer, Auria was there. She feinted high at its face, forcing it to raise an arm in defense. In that split second, Lysander stepped in and drove his sword point-first through its leather apron and into its gut, the force so great the tip erupted from its back. As he held it impaled, Auria finished it, a clean, precise thrust through the eye socket.
It was not a battle of grand techniques, but of efficiency and mutual understanding. They didn't speak; they didn't need to. Auria's graceful, fatal precision created openings that Lysander's raw power exploited, and his overwhelming presence drew the hoard's attention, giving her the space to perform her deadly work. He was the anvil, and she was the scalpel.
In less than a minute, it was over. They stood, chests heaving, surrounded by a ring of the newly and finally dead. The floor was a charnel house of splintered bone, leaking viscera, and congealing black ichor that steamed in the cold air. The two surviving horses stamped and whinnied, their eyes rolling white at the scent of death.
Auria's chest heaved, the acrid stink of blood and voided organs filling her nostrils. The elegant lethality was gone from her posture, replaced by the simple, exhausted stance of a soldier after a hard-won fight. She looked at the carnage they had wrought, a sob of grief and exhaustion trapped in her throat. So this was it. Only two saddles. Only two could flee.
Her eyes lifted to the street beyond the shattered doorway. Another hoard was already shambling into view around a collapsed fountain, a seething, groaning mass that stretched down the boulevard, an endless tide. For two knights to hold that back was not a fight; it was a prelude to a grave.
It was time to meet her comrades in the Blessed Halls of Eternity.
She looked at Wolfred and Mennyx. Mennyx was gravely wounded, swaying on his feet. Wolfred was spiritually broken, his eyes vacant. The only choices were her and Lysander.
Her eyes found his. He cast her a wink, a sad, familiar smile gracing his features. It was a dagger to her heart.
"Sorry, Lady Auria," Wolfred said, his voice a hollow echo. He gently settled the boy onto one of the remaining horses before drawing his blade with a soft shink. "I don't plan on leaving Eden alive." He walked to her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and offered a smile that was a ghost of its former self. "After all, I have nothing to live for. Not anymore." He clutched a pendant at his neck, gazed briefly at the hellish sky, and walked past her, his spirit already gone.
The sight was a physical blow, but she tightened her grip on her sword. Sentiment was a luxury they could not afford.
She looked at Lysander. Someone had to guard Mennyx and the children. But Lysander simply offered that same, heartbreaking smile and turned his broad back to her, facing the approaching doom.
"I'm sorry, Lady Auria. I'll have to disregard your orders on this one." His voice was preternaturally calm. "Knowing you, I'll likely meet my punishment in the Halls of Eternity, won't I?" He tilted his head, a final, intimate gesture.
Lysander. An agony, sharp and absolute, lanced through her. Her companion. Her confidant. The tears she had fought now welled, hot and insistent. She had loved him. She truly had. But a knight's word was a word. She turned her back to him, the most difficult action of her life.
"See you in the halls of eternity, Lysander," she whispered, a vow for herself alone.
"I'll be waiting. After all, I've always loved you. Not that it matters at this point, does it?" Lysander said, already stepping toward the endless dead.
The dam broke. Tears streamed down her face in a silent torrent. She clenched her jaw until it ached. There was no time. No more goodbyes. She forced the lie upon herself.
"I do, too," she breathed, the words lost to the moans of the dead. She closed her eyes, finding a final, cold resolve.
She mounted her horse, pulling the boy securely against her. She swiped the tears away with her gauntlet. She looked at Mennyx; his head was bowed as if bearing the weight of the fallen world. She clasped his shoulder. He looked up, his eyes dark pools of shared loss. She gave a firm, final nod.
A kick to the flanks, and the horses bolted into the ruined streets. She stared rigidly ahead, not out of focus, but from a terror of looking back. She knew a single glance at Lysander's back would shatter her will completely.
It was all for Eden. For Eden,she thought, the words a final, solemn oath.
---
"You know, Wolfred… I'm sorry for your loss. Elara… I'm sorry," Lysander said, the words filled with a sympathy he no longer needed to veil. He stared ahead. The monstrosities were a dozen feet away, a groaning, pallid wall of reaching limbs and vacant eyes--a seemingly infinite tide.
He settled into his final stance, the visor of his helmet closing with a definitive clack. "I'll meet her soon, so…" Wolfred's voice cut off, severed mid-sentence.
"Wolfred?" Lysander muttered, a spike of confused fear piercing his resolve. His eyes darted to where his comrade had stood.
Wolfred was gone.
In his place stood a man. Tall, imposingly so, and possessed of an unnatural, perfect handsomeness. His hair was stark white, his eyes shone with piercing silver light. A calm, detached smile rested on his lips.
Bewilderment stormed Lysander's mind. Who? What is this?
The figure provided the answer in a voice of chilling calm. "It seemed Plan B was a success." He clasped his hands, then unfolded them in a gesture of casual finality. He muttered, "Thank you, Wolfred."