Light reflected off bottles traced shadows on Marek's face. Words prepared as explanation formed and froze along with the chill that refused to leave his bones. He paced in front of the counter, like a criminal's last minute before Silma led him to the gallows.
And there she came, out from Garrick's office, her lips curved like a knife. "Get in. The rug's expensive, so try not to stain it."
Marek's hand began to tighten around the hilt of his sword. Fingers never actually wrapped it. They hung over it, rationality overwhelming instinct.
The rug wasn't Silma being playful. It was a catchphrase he had heard dozens of times with a single meaning: Garrick's displeasure. What he would tell him...
He wrenched his belt by the sheath and slammed it on the counter. Then, he crouched beneath the flap. With a shuddering breath that belied his steady steps, he entered the office. Silma closed the door behind him, leaning against it.
But his eyes were on Garrick and Garrick alone.
The uncrowned lord of the slums spoke first. He interlocked his fingers beneath his chin, leaning on his leather chair. His smile didn't reach the two scars cutting his golden eyes. "My dear experimental facility manager. To what do I owe this impromptu visit this early? Surely excellent news about your success in stabilising my weapon with the three cores it needs."
A drop of sweat traced Marek's temple, sliding silently on the immaculate rug. The truth. That was all he could answer with if he didn't want his own blood to follow the sweat. "I faced unforeseen... complications."
Garrick leaned on his oak table, scattering a pile of gold crowns across its surface. His voice grew heavier than the clangs, deep and cold. "The type of complications that'll set us years back, or something you can fix."
"S-Something I can fix. Just not alone. I went to turn test subjects number one and three into anchor-ghasts with a dozen men. They were gone."
Marek's throat tightened at the slight twitch of Garrick's fingers. "Number three left a message written in blood on the wall: the Sump Dogs killed them. I don't know about number one, but three left a trail leading to the Sump Dog's headquarters. The blood in their room wasn't enough for two. I know he's there. I tracked him. Give the command, and I'll get his core before nightfall."
His words didn't hang for more than a second before Garrick slammed his palm on his desk.
"The dogs I allow to scavenge my trash dare to bite the hand that feeds them?" His voice didn't rise, but his eyes narrowed like golden needles. "Silma, surround their place with the lads. Bring me what they owe me. Refill the cells of the facility with fresh blood if they can't."
"Got a report twenty minutes ago. Two of our men were slaughtered in an alley. The dogs again, or the ragged crown?" Silma opened the door, but waited in the frame.
"Joss Ren's taking too much space lately. We don't need fake rivals anymore."
"On it." Silma left with a nod.
For three heartbeats, the oil lamp's flicker devoured the room. In the imposed silence, Marek's mouth opened, then closed as he swallowed his question.
Then Garrick offered him a king's wave of his palm. The motion ended as he picked up his quill with one hand, while he opened a ledger with the other. "Your value's decreasing more these days. You may leave, Marek."
Marek understood the word leave as live, and let out a long, deflating sigh. Without wasting time that could make Garrick reconsider, he scrambled out. But he almost stumbled as the true meaning bit his heart.
He still had value. What when he didn't? Would he join the Sump Dogs in the cells of the facility he had managed for twenty years?
An idea, even worse, slithered into his mind. Two missing cores because of him. He might very well turn into the last anchor-ghast Garrick needed...
The protection he should have felt when he picked up his sword turned into irony. Nothing could save him but his competence. As long as he became irreplaceable, he'd be safe. But who was truly irreplaceable to Garrick?
****
The great cogs loomed behind the central district, their shadow swallowing the street where Samuel ran. His sacred gown, absurd in this place of grease and iron, flapped against his calves. He didn't slow. Couldn't. Not with what he'd seen in the facility.
Beneath the grinding cogs, a dozen enforcers pointed spears and blades behind steel grids the moment he arrived. Yet, their harsh warning never came. Instead, their eyes locked onto the red sun embroidered on his gown and his face.
Armor plates clinked as they stood on guard, and the oldest barked with the certainty of someone who knew a priest would leave. "Let the Kythra's priest through!"
Another enforcer spun the crank, his gaze trembling beneath his helmet.
Once the grid vanished into the ground, Samuel pulled out a golden ring adorned with a temple-cut ruby as proof. "May the eternal blessing of Kythra burn away your pain. I must go. Now."
"May she burn our doubts and suffering, for she is the only truth we need. Get the priest to Veston."
Samuel nodded as he passed two dozen more enforcers tending to a row of ballistas and entered a metallic cylinder. Two of them followed him in, while two others pressed a button simultaneously.
At the hiss of steam, it began to rise between beams and old bridges. The slums shrank beneath them until the bright ray of the sun caressed his face.
He took a moment to breathe in the pure air, his eyes on the white building arranged in neat rows and the arched roof of the temple in the distance. That was where he belonged—in the light of his goddess's blessing.
An enforcer's voice tore through his comfort. "Do you need assistance with anything?"
"A carriage to the temple is enough." At his demand, the enforcer led him through cells lining the corridor. Faces pressed against bars, but his gaze stayed fixed on the exit ahead.
He strolled beneath the broad, open door of Veston's secondary prison.
A wooden carriage scraped to a halt in front of him. He sat on the soft cushion inside.
The wheels rattled on the pavement as the driver lashed the two brown horses. Houses, and people—good people, far from the scum from the slums—blurred past the window until he alighted on the temple road of peach and apple trees.
The saints, immortalised by the temple doors, showered him with their benevolent carvings as the priest in the doorway waved at him.
"Brother Samuel! Where have you been? It's been a week!"
Samuel wanted to chuckle, yet his voice came out with the weight of the news he carried. "Darkness threatens our goddess' dominion, brother Taren. The heretics are onto something sinful. Sinful and dark. Convey a call to every high priest, and our temple's bishop in the name of High Priest Aurel!"
Taren tensed in his white gown, his welcoming smile twisting. "His Holiness the bishop, lectures the new followers of the only truth. I'll get the others to the holy judgment grounds in twenty minutes. No, in ten."
"May the goddess bless you, brother." With a nod, Samuel entered the temple.
Townsmen prayed on wooden benches in the sanctuary. Few entered the chapel to burn away their sins. Even though his chest warmed, he glanced at them for a second, then left through the back door.
He strolled right into the long corridor, took a whiff of the sweet yet burning scent of the inner garden, and entered the judgment grounds. No followers here, just elevated seats forming a perfect circle around a statue.
Of gold was her sun-shaped crown, and of bronze was her long, flowing dress. She held a silver staff in each hand, her ruby eyes watching him.
He dropped to his knees, avoiding her gaze, avoiding her carved face. Instead, he fixed her hair that spread like the painted sun behind her. From his gown, tucked against his chest, he pulled out a palm-sized holy book and opened it.
"O Kythra, Eternal Flame, mother of Passion, forge of Zeal. You who kindle creation and reduce falsehood to ash…"
In the silence, he recited holy verses until silence was no more.
From the platform, Aurel and four other high priests claimed the seats, leaving the central one empty. They glared at Samuel, their coughs interrupting his prayer.
The bishop wouldn't come. Fine.
Samuel pressed the bible back against his chest—close to his heart, close to his truth—and rose. Without waiting, he spread his arms zealously. "Dear follower of the truth of holy flame, I gathered you not to waste your time. Under High Priest Aurel's foresight, I infiltrated the slums' filth and uncovered dark truths."
"The heretics multiply beneath us." A high priest muttered.
Another leaned forward. "How many heretics did you purify?"
Aurel simply raised his palm, and silence returned.
"None," Samuel answered. "I found dozens chained in an underground facility. They're nothing. I saw an abomination in a glass tube. Eight legs, weapons for arms, taller than three men. There is more. An anchor-ghast formed in this very facility."
The high priests clenched their armrests. None's lips parted in their somber faces.
"The anchor-ghast should have been dealt with by now. Garrick has bearers and binders of licenced truths."
"Impossible!" the high priests clamored in unison.
"How many?" Aurel spoke louder.
"Dozens." Samuel pulled out the box storing the Hands of the Unburied. "Relic 89 didn't react to them. Not once."
"That's... troublesome." Aurel pinched the bridge of his nose. "Garrick's breaching every precept of every church. We can't let it happen. The abomination you saw. A weaponised bearer, yes?"
"A binder or..." A shiver licked Samuel's spine as he shook his head. "An Aribiter."
"Nonsense!"
"We must raid the slums without delay!"
"The crown won't let us."
The high priests burst into a heated debate about the most appropriate answer to the growing threat. Samuel listened.
After ten minutes of back and forth, Aurel clapped. "Garrick supplies the crown with oil lamps, carriage parts, siege engines, coal, and ore. We can't attack him without tangible proof. But we will prepare. Inform Morvana's and Kraghor's temples. Recall our missionaries. And if the believers of the barbaric Theda dare to crawl out of their pit, we'll burn them along with it."
The other high priests nodded. But Aurel wasn't done. "Samuel, help me understand what flickers in this darkness."
"Relic 89? Garrick must have hidden his facility with his own relic and an amplification formation. The anchor-ghast likely destabilised it, which led relic 89 to detect the heretics."
"Mhh." Aurel sank into his chair, his fingers finding his chin. "Maybe. What about the heretic it picked on during the festival? If it didn't detect him for a week, did he hide inside or close to the facility? And if he did, could he have hampered Garrick's formation?
"Many ifs, brother." Another high priest shook his head.
"But he's the only trail we have. Maybe he knows more than we do." A third rubbed his beard.
Samuel covered his mouth, eyes narrowed into slits. Aurel's deductions were... too plausible to ignore. Hunting the heretic had been his mission anyway, so he pocketed the box containing artefact 89 and bowed. "I'll return to apprehend him. He'll either join or burn in the light of Kythra."
Aurel's lips curled. "Depart at first light, three days hence with two brothers."
However, Samuel already walked to the exit. "Too many eyes on too many priests. I won't allow darkness to fester longer than needed."
"Then go with Kythra's blessing." Aurel waved his hand, and the four high priests echoed his words as Samuel left.
It was with a steely glint in his eyes that he returned to Veston's secondary prison and descended into the slums once more. This time, the heretic wouldn't escape him.