The four vessels moved south like a slow storm gathering strength.
They avoided the main roads, traveling by night through the lesser valleys and forgotten game trails. Behemoth led the way—his massive frame breaking trail through underbrush, his footsteps silent despite their weight. Elara scouted ahead, summoning thin veils of mist from dew-soaked grass to hide their passage. Liora walked at the rear, shadows trailing her like obedient hounds; whenever a patrol lantern flickered in the distance, she whispered and the light bent away, as though the watchers had simply decided to look elsewhere.
Elias stayed in the middle, the quiet center of their uneasy constellation. Abaddon spoke rarely now—content, it seemed, to watch his pieces move into place. But the silence felt heavier than any taunt.
On the fifth night they came upon the first sign of what the Church had done.
A small hamlet nestled in a bowl of hills—roofs of thatch and slate, a single stone chapel at its heart. Smoke still rose from the ruins. Not cooking smoke. Funeral pyres.
They approached from the treeline. The air smelled of charred wood and something sweeter, sicker—burned flesh.
Behemoth stopped at the edge of the fields. His fists clenched. Stone-like cracks glowed briefly along his forearms.
"Recent," he said. "Two days, maybe three."
Elara's face went hard. "They burned the whole place."
Liora tilted her head, listening to whispers only she could hear.
"Not the whole place," she murmured. "They took some. The ones who ran. The ones who looked… different."
Elias felt the sigil warm against his chest.
"We go in," he said. "We look."
They slipped through the fields like ghosts. The hamlet was eerily quiet—no dogs barking, no children crying. Only wind moving through blackened beams.
The chapel stood half-intact, its doors torn from their hinges. Inside, pews had been overturned. The altar cloth was scorched. On the floor lay scattered parchments—Church records, ledgers, manifest lists.
Elias knelt and picked up the nearest sheaf. The parchment was singed at the edges but still legible.
Pagans Captured – Hamlet of Thornvale
Date: Seventh Day of Harvest Moon
Subjects: 17 identified vessels (minor manifestations confirmed via inquisitorial rite).
Status: 9 executed by fire (souls commended to Light).
8 transported to Sanctum for deeper examination and containment.
Note: Two exhibited primordial resonance. Priority transport under seal. Prelate Aldric's directive: preserve for study. Potential link to ancient seals.
Elias's hand shook. The name Aldric—Father Aldric—stared up at him like an accusation from the grave.
Elara took the page from him, read it, then passed it to Liora without a word.
Liora scanned it quickly. Her storm-cloud eyes narrowed.
"They're not just killing us," she said softly. "They're collecting us. Like specimens. Like they're trying to understand what we are… or how to use us."
Behemoth rumbled deep in his chest. "They fear what they cannot control. So they cage it. Or break it."
Elias stood. He looked around the chapel—at the bloodstains on the stone, at the child-sized shoe left behind in the ashes, at the crucifix above the altar that had somehow survived untouched.
"They've been doing this for years," he whispered. "The Church. The Holy See. All those sermons about cleansing the unclean… they weren't protecting the kingdom. They were hunting us. Harvesting us."
Elara's voice was flat. "To keep their God safe. To keep their lie alive."
Liora folded the parchment carefully and slipped it inside her robe.
"We take this," she said. "We show it to every village we pass. Every hidden pagan. Every doubter. Let them see what their prayers have paid for."
Behemoth nodded once.
Elias stared at the ruined altar.
Abaddon spoke then—quiet, almost gentle.
Now you see, the demon murmured. Not monsters. Not heretics. Just people who carried what the light could not tolerate.
And the light burned them for it.
Elias clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened.
"I thought… maybe if I learned control… maybe I could prove them wrong. Show them we aren't evil."
Liora placed a small, cold hand on his arm.
"You still can," she said. "Just not their way."
Elara looked toward the open doorway, where moonlight spilled across the scorched threshold.
"We keep moving," she said. "We find the others they took. We free them. And when we're done… we go back to Sanctum. We show them the truth they've been hiding behind their golden walls."
Behemoth lifted his club and rested it on one shoulder.
"They will burn no more villages," he said. "Not while stone walks."
Elias nodded slowly.
The four of them stepped out of the chapel together—into the night, into the ashes, into the beginning of something that could no longer be called running.
Behind them, the hamlet smoldered.
Ahead, the kingdom waited—still believing its God was light, still believing its enemies wore horns and shadow.
But the truth had found legs now.
Four pairs of them.
And they were walking straight toward the heart of the lie.
End of Chapter 11