The silence was the worst part. For days, the rhythm of dread had been set by the arrival of new refugees—their cries, their stories, their desperate energy. Then, the flow slowed to a trickle: a lone family one day, a pair of wounded soldiers the next. Then, nothing. The great gates remained open, but the mountain path below lay empty and still.
The void where hope should have been grew louder than any alarm bell. The atmosphere in the temple curdled. The initial shock of survival gave way to the slow poison of idleness and fear. Squabbles broke out over sleeping space, over food portions that were now cut thinner than ever.
A deep, restless anxiety hummed through the halls, a tension that my Spectator sight could almost see coiling around people's throats. The guards' grips on their weapons were permanent now, their faces set in grim, unyielding lines. They weren't just watching for external threats anymore; they were watching us.
Saint Theron became a ghost of reassurance, moving through the crowds with his calming aura, laying a hand on a shoulder here, mediating a dispute there. His words were still of hope and dawn, but they began to ring hollow against the palpable, thickening despair.
He looked more drained each day, the light around him seeming to fight a little harder to push back a darkness that was no longer just metaphorical. I counted the days. The eleventh since I'd awoken here. The vision had shown the temple's fall happening rapidly after the arrivals stopped. My every nerve was stretched taut. I'd given up on sleep, spending my nights watching the gates, the Spectator ability burning in my mind, analysing every shift in the wind, every strange sound. And then, he came.
There was no fanfare, no warning, not even the sound of footsteps on the polished stone. I was watching the gate when I saw a figure crest the hill, wrapped in a black shawl that seemed to be impossibly deep. His face was covered by a hood that cast shadows over his eyes, like some sort of Assassin's Creed cosplayer. I would have laughed at that thought, but now I was in no mood.
The shadowed man. He was exactly as he'd appeared in the vision, yet the reality of him was a physical blow to my senses. The shadows around him weren't cast; but seemed alive. And that's not just hyperbole, I swear I saw them wiggle and shift a bit as he approached. He seemed to drink the fading evening light, making the air around him several degrees colder.
My Spectator sight, which could read the subtlest twitch of a muscle, slid off him uselessly, unable to find purchase in the inky black. He stood perfectly still, his posture not of a weary traveller or someone ignorantly fleeing disaster, but of an observer who had reached his destination. He was composed, steady, a rock in the frantic river of our fear. A guard finally noticed him, casting a suspicious gaze.
This guard was an Awakened, and I guess his senses were stronger than me, because he gripped his spear and his face dropped. "Halt! Identify yourself!" he barked, his voice cracking with a tension that was near breaking. The man didn't respond. He simply tilted his head, as if studying the architecture of the gate, the same way he had in the vision.
The gesture was calm, analytical, and utterly terrifying. Chaos erupted. More guards converged, shouts echoing through the courtyard. Refugees shrank back, pressing themselves against the walls as if trying to disappear. The air, already thick with tension, now crackled with imminent violence. And through it all, the shadowed man just stood. Waiting. My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The catalyst. The event that preceded the flood. The last checkpoint before the final boss.
As the two parties stared at each other in silence-one side tense, the other lazily calm-Theron moved through the crowd. His eyes lit up in recognition, but his face hardened and jaw tensed. He waved down the concerned guards and ordered the crowd to make way.
Once they had done so, the man walked through the temple gates, nodding politely at the guards as he passed. He and Theron spoke not a word as they walked side-by-side until they were out of sight. Beside me, another priest let out a sigh of relief. Turning to him, I asked, "Do you recognise that man?" "No," he shook his head. "However, since Bishop Theron walks beside him, he cannot be a foe. I trust the Bishop."
Letting out a hum of acknowledgement and dallied for several minutes longer before discretely sneaking towards Theron's quarters. The room wasn't soundproof, so upon arriving I was able to make out their conversation. The thought of being discovered obviously crossed my mind, but I had an excuse prepared and Theron wasn't the kind to punish me harshly. Putting my ear against the door, I strained my improved senses to their limit.
"You shouldn't be here, Karion" Theron spoke in a less friendly tone than usual, though not to the point of being impolite. "I should not be anywhere," the man replied, "For my soul has already been claimed by Shadow. Yet I persist in the land of the living for I still bear a mission."
"Your presence will bring misfortune to these people. Leave at once, and let us spend the rest of our days in peace."
"Peace? You think being devoured alive, torn apart limb from limb, is a peaceful end? It would be a more graceful death to slip hemlock into everyone's drink-"
"Karion!" I flinched as I heard Theron shout for the first time.