The rain came down dull and cold. With every drop it struck the ruins like tears upon a grave.
Elias looked at the destroyed Sanctum of Aelora with disbelief — a place that had been the most sacred in the western region but was now nothing more than a heap of ashes and silence. The smoke of charred incense and the scent of long-lost prayers mingled in the air.
He had brought himself here to find answers. What he found was only the ghosts of the faith that once had been.
The gates were lying ajar, a burnt-out look on them. After them, the emblem of the sun — the sign of the Holy Flame — had been broken into two. He went in, his boots making loud noises on the empty hall.
The benches were scattered. The hymns on the scrolls that covered the ground were as plentiful as the fallen leaves in autumn. The altar was broken into two by a crack and the figure that used to be the Archon Seraphiel was now without a head.
Elias stood there looking at it. For a moment, memory came back — the voices of the acolytes, the light of the candles, the promise of salvation.
He had trusted back then.
He had faith that the light was from God. That if you obeyed, you were safe. That God — or whatever the Faith called it — saw the good and kept them safe.
Now the only light is the faint red glow of the mark under his skin.
On his knees beside the altar and with a broken voice he said, "If You are still watching this world, if Your gaze ever fell upon this place — then tell me why."
There was no reply. Only the sound of thunder rolling in the distance.
With his hand he punched the stone floor. "You damned them all. Every child. Every priest. Every soul that prayed while You were turning away."
The mark brightened, and a little of the quietness parted for a moment.
"You call to something that never listened".
Elias gritted his teeth. "Be silent."
"Even now you kneel. Habit, not faith".
"I said—"
"You look for cause where there is none. That is the harshness of your gods. They taught you to demand from the void the very thing you seek".
He was standing now, his anger was like heated metal in a furnace. "So, what are you then? The answer? The shadow they feared?"
The voice was like smoke coiling round his brain. "I am the one left when faith is gone. The truth under the devotion. The flame under their light".
He walked away. "In that case, you are not truth. Only hunger."
Hunger is truth. The sun burns to live.
The mark got very bright and for a brief moment he saw the following images — memories, the remnants of a dream.
A committee of angels looking down on fiery clouds.
A metropolis of gold fracturing due to the fire.
An Archon throwing down a lesser flame, marking it as impure.
After that, there was nothing.
Elias stumbled back , gasping. "What was that?"
"A memory. Yours now".
He put his palm flat on the wall, trying to steady himself. The rock seemed warm and almost alive. There were very faint words right beneath the soot and dust and these words were written on the wall under Elias's hand.
He removed the dirt from it.
"The Flame will never be without those it is bound to. We were the ones who abandoning it."
The message bore the mark of the First Archon.
Elias was unable to stop looking at it. "It was really like that. They lied."
It came to him like a heavy blow instead of a blade – the truth. All the sermons, oaths, and blood that have been sacrificed for Heaven – were all based on silence and deceit.
He pivoted and with a gesture of his arm across the altar. The relics were destroyed. "You lied to us!" he shouted vehemently. "You promised us the light and gave us the fire!"
Through the hole in the roof, a bolt of lightning illuminated the devastation. For one moment of time, the mark was seen to be more brilliant than the storm.
After that, there was something moving behind him.
The person coming out of the dark was wearing a cloak and was silent.
Elias drew his sword with an intention to attack. "Show yourself."
When the person halted in the light, it was a woman with her face partially covered by the hood of the robe. The silver chain around her neck had the symbol of the Faith. However, her eyes — her eyes were not of Heaven. They glowed slightly blue, similar to a cold fire.
"You survived." She uttered that in a low voice. "I had been thinking about it."
Their fingers interlaced. "Who are you?"
"I used to be Sister Miren of the Order of the Flame." At this, she removed her hood. Her face was white as a sheet and had faint lines of ash. "At present, I'm the only one who knows what they did."
Elias relaxed his posture with a slight movement of his arm. "You were part of them?"
"Before the Purge, I was the one who looked after this temple. I even saw the Archons giving the order to set it on fire. They claimed the fire was necessary to cleanse the corruption."
Her eyes wandered over the rubble. "But the only corruption was that of the very faith."
Elias looked her over. "You blaspheme."
She didn't shy from his stare. "Then it's blasphemy if you want. Just call it truth."
He was uncertain. "What's your reason of being here?"
"To see if the fire of the past still has some spark left. And maybe… to locate the one called the Marked."
Upon hearing that, Elias covered his arm with his hand. "If that's the case, then you've found him."
Her smile was nothing more than a trace. "So the stories were not mere fabrications. You were not the one to be consumed by the brand."
"It was my intent."
"Who is the voice behind it?"
He averted his eyes. "It is a being that is even older than the Faith. One that refers to itself as truth."
Her step was gradual and her eyes were wary but inquisitive. "So it's not impossible that the flame made the right choice."
Elias was displeased. "Are you saying it is of God?"
"I think that heaven and hell are two sides of a single coin. The Faith taught us to see one as light and the other as shadow. But in reality, both are fires."
He didn't move from the spot but rather gave her a long stare. "What reason did you have to tell me this?"
"It's because the Faith is after you. What you have is what they want to take from you. But I am of the opinion that what you have might be the very last of the world's chances."
He gave a bitter laugh. "You talk just like a fire priestess would. "
"That's what I was."
They were quite for some time. Only the sound of the rain could be heard in the silence that followed.
Miren resumed speaking only after a long pause. "The Archons haven't got much time left. They're in despair. The skies are getting quiet, no more prayers, no more answers. They are convinced that your mark is the key that can either save the connection or utterly destroy it."
Elias moved closer to her. "So what is it that you think?"
Looking straight into his eyes, she said: "I think that Heaven threw us away a long time ago. Anything that talks to you now might be the only god still willing to give an answer."
That idea, to him, was more chilling than the storm.
He took a look at the broken temple. "What is left if Heaven is not there?"
"Faith without gods," she said. "People who still kneel. Angels who pretend to hear. And those like you, in the middle."
He looked at her. "You're not scared of me, right?"
"I was, once. Until I found out that fear is what they feed upon," she replied.
"So why you helping me, then?"
"It is, she said in a low voice, "the reason that someone has to start the fire again."
That night they remained at the temple. The rain, now a mist, drifted through the shattered windows as if it were the breath of a departed.
Elias was at the altar which was destroyed, he was sharpening his blade. Miren brought light to the place with a small lamp, its blue flame calm and unchanging.
"What will you do?" she inquired.
"To the east," he answered. "I hear the stories of an Inquisition fortress far beyond the mountains. If I get there, maybe I can find it — the records, the names, the orders, the proof of what they did."
She slowly gave a sign of agreement with her head. "In that case, I will be going with you."
"You don't need to."
"Truth, is everything I owe."
Elias once again looked at her. "Are you sure? The Faith will persecute you as heretic."
"They've done it already."
He glanced at the fire between them. "Then we'll be walking this road together, to hell."
Her smile was just a little. "Hell could use some company."
They left the ruins before the sun came up. The world outside was still but cold; you could smell the ashes of the burnt wood from the air that had been rained upon.
They decided to go along the river eastward and hid in the woods. Miren was telling pieces of her knowledge — the divisions in the Faith, the secret wars in the cathedrals high up the clouds, the dying light of the Archons who had the power of fire but were now afraid of it.
Elias was quiet and he only listened. The whole thing sounded to him like one more brick taken away from the base of the house of his old beliefs.
Miren at one point asked, "Do you ever miss it? The faith?"
Elias took a long time to think before he gave his answer. "No. But I miss the man I was when I believed."
She kept silent.
The event of that night, when they were sleeping under the branches of an old willow, the mark began to light up again. Elias left the fire place, holding his arm tightly.
The voice came again, this time it was a little darker and nearer. "You draw near to what they hide".
"So if you know what it is, then tell me."
"A wound in the heavens. They sealed it with blood. Yours will open it again".
"What does that mean?"
"You were made for sacrifice. The flame within you was meant to burn the sky clean. But they feared it. They called it sin. They made it mine".
Elias felt his breath cling to his throat. "You were thrown away."
"No. I was set free".
He looked at the river, its black surface shining red. "Then why me?"
"Because you are still on fire".
The voice went away. The mark was not so bright anymore.
When he came back to camp, Miren was sitting up and looking at him.
"You talked to it again," she said, barely audible.
He agreed with her head movement.
"What did it tell you?"
"That I was the one who would end the sky."
She stayed calm. "Then maybe it's time someone did."
Elias was standing at the riverbank as the sun was coming up. The sky was glowing red, and the water was also red as it was reflecting the sky.
He remembered the temple's ruins, Daren's ashes, and the ghosts in the valley. And then he thought of Heaven being completely silent.
After that, he only spoke to the air: "If gods won't answer, then I will be the fire that answers."
Behind him, Miren's voice was very quiet. "In that case, our pilgrimage is starting."
Elias looked at her. It was the first time he had something like resolve in his eyes — not faith, not hope, but a mixture of both wrecked by the ruins and made of purpose.
The storm clouds moving away a little and the faint light of morning was coming to them. It was not godly. It was only dawn.
But that was enough for Elias.