The bells tolled for salvation, but none would come for him.
The crowd watched silently as if witnessing a sacrifice rather than an execution. Chains bit into the convict's wrists, but he held his head high — not for pride, but because it was the only thing they hadn't broken.
Ash fell from the sky like snow, carried on a wind that reeked with rot. Priests murmured prayers they no longer believed, their voices trembling as they approached with fire in hand.
Lucius did not pray.
He had tried, only once. Unfortunately, the Heavens had answered with absolute silence.
'Let them watch,' he thought, 'let them see what their mercy looks like.'
The people around him, the church, the priests, they feared what he had become, but not enough to understand it. Not enough to wonder why Mark had chosen him.
They wanted a heretic. A scapegoat. A cleaning end.
They called him various insults:
'Witch... Devil...'
However, none of them knew the truth.
Lucius remembered the chapel as it was — not the blackened husk it had become. He remembered stained glass that caught the light like fire and a choir that sang with voices like silver.
He remembered believing. Not in gods, but in the good of men.
What a fool he had been.
He'd begged them, once — desperately pleading in a tongue he hadn't spoken since he was a child. They gave him chains instead.
And now, they came with fire, pretending it would cleanse him. But Lucius was already burned — In every way that mattered.
The crowd seemingly parted as the Bishop approached, his crimson robes dragging through the ash like blood across the snow. Gold shimmered at his throat — not from blessing, but wealth.
Rings gleamed on fingers that had never held a blade, never lifted the dying, never once trembled in prayer.
He stopped before Lucius, raising a hand in judgment.
"Lucius of Blackridge," the Bishop intoned, "you stand condemned not only by the laws of Vistaria but by the will of Heaven itself."
The priest behind him held the torch tighter. Even he wouldn't meet Lucius's gaze.
Lucius tilted his head, his expression calm — almost curious.
"Tell me, Your Grace. Do you still hear them?"
The Bishop's eyes narrowed.
"Who?"
Lucius smiled, not kindly.
"The angels."
The Bishop's silence said enough.
Lucius leaned forward as far as his chains would allow.
"They stopped speaking to you too, didn't they?"
The Bishop stepped back, clearing his throat.
"The sentence is passed. Let the fire cleanse what is corrupted."
He gestured. The priest hesitated.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Lucius looked past them — beyond the flames, beyond the stone courtyard, toward the chapel ruins silhouetted against the sun.
"I was like you once," he murmured. "Chained by faith."
The air changed.
Wind coiled around his feet, pulling ash into spirals.
The priest faltered, flame flickering in his hand.
And then Lucius raised his head fully — eyes black as pitch, veins like cracks in stone.
"I begged your angels for mercy."
He smiled.
"They sent me something better."
The wind howled. The Mark beneath his collarbone burned like it was being carved anew.
Lucius's eyes twitched.
Then he roared — an unholy sound that tore through the fear like a blade.
His arms pulled against the chains with an intent... an intent to be freed.
The Bishop stumbled back, mouth agape, robes fluttering in the storm now gathering around Lucius. Priests dropped their torches. No one dared to move.
Lucius growled.
"You chained me thinking it would bind what I carry! But I am not possessed... I am chosen!"
The Bishop stammered a prayer, but the words slurred like wet ash on his tongue.
"You preach of judgment," Lucius hissed, eyes locked to his, "but you've never faced it."
The chains cracked — one link, then another — splitting with the sound of thunder.
The priests tried to hold their ground, but their knees buckled. Some wept. One even ran.
The Bishop stayed, barely.
"This is what your silence bought me," Lucius said, taking a step forward as the final shackle burst apart, steeling clattering to the ground.
"I am no longer yours to burn."
Suddenly, a voice rang out from the crowd — calm, almost tired:
"I knew this would happen..."
All eyes turned as a figure stepped forward from the stands. Dark hair swept back, silver eyes cold as steel. A katana rested at his hip, untouched by ash or time.
Lucius barely had time to register the danger.
In a blur, the stranger closed the distance. The katana unsheathed.
Sever moved to brace — bare arms raised — but it wasn't enough to fully counter.
His arms were cleanly sliced off, with little to no effort.
Both of them hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Lucius's breath caught, staggered back — then the blade sank deep into his stomach. Blood spilled down his torso, but he didn't fall. Not yet.
The two locked eyes.
"You..." Lucius rasped.
"You're too loud," the individual said flatly. "The Mark may have claimed you, but you don't control it. You just wear it."
Lucius coughed, pain twisting his face.
"You don't know what I saw."
"I know enough."
The katana rose once more — and in one clean arc, Sever's head fell from his shoulders.
The individual sheathed the blade, ash swirling gently around his figure.
The crowd was left dumbfounded, so he quickly had to address some information.
"I've come to ensure the death of the one we call Lucius Clockwell."
***
It hadn't started with fire. It started with a border.
A broken treaty.
Vistaria blamed Silas, however, Silas blamed the gods.
'Ah... I remember this. Back when the war started... before I was sent for execution.'
Lucius, young and devout, believed someone had to be right.
He was just a medic then. A field priest with shaking hands and prayers that stuttered in the mud.
He had not yet laid his gaze or contact on the Mark. He had not yet seen what faith looked like when it bled.
That came later — In the winter siege of Blackridge. It lasted 13 nights. On the 14th, the walls of Blackridge fell, right to the ground, where the attackers stood proudly.
Sever had run out of prayers by then. He ran on mere instinct — stitching wounds with torn cloth, breaking bread with dying men, life wasn't good.
They said that the angels had once walked these halls. That Blackridge was a holy ground.
But the blood didn't care, not in the slightest. It pooled in the corners. It soaked in Sever's skin until he couldn't tell where he ended and the war began.
The night the Silan blades breached the chapel, he had nothing left to give.
He stood over a dying boy — a Vistarian scout no older than 15, just 4 years older than him — when the doors burst open and the air filled with screams of terror.
He didn't run. He didn't fight.
Sever looked up at the sky through the broken spire and whispered a single word:
"Please..."
And something heard him.
Not the Angels.
Not God.
Something hungrier.
The shadows stretched toward him. The boy at his feet went still. The coldness wrapped around his spine like a chain — and then it spoke:
"Your so-called gods have abandoned you, Low."