The word spread like wildfire through Eastmarch.
Count Casten Valtair the heretic. Traitor. Practitioner of forbidden magic.
In the marketplace, rchants who once bowed to him now spat at the ntion of his na.
In the taverns, n who’d drunk his wine cursed him over their ale.
"He consorted with demons. Sold secrets to enemies. Defiled his own ho with dark rituals."
The whispers grew with each retelling. So said they’d always known sothing was wrong with House Valtair. Others claid they’d seen strange lights in his windows at night.
The agreent was swift and absolute... Valtair wasn’t rely a criminal.
He was damned.
In this world, faith was not a comfort, it was law.
The Church of the Creator, and the Divine Phoenix stood above even the crown.
Ashurael the Divine Phoenix, was one of the Creator’s first beast, born to guard creation itself.
Where Ashurael’s light touched, darkness burned. Where Its gaze fell, evil could not hide.
To worship Ashurael was to accept that the world was engaged in eternal war. Light against dark. Order against chaos. The faithful against the fallen.
And those who fell, those who opened themselves to demonic influence, were not seen as misguided or lost.
They were infected.
A corruption that would spread if left unchecked.
A disease that threatened every soul it touched.
The Church taught that heresy was worse than murder, for murder ended one life, but heresy could damn thousands.
There was only one treatnt for such infection.
Purification by divine fla.
Valtair hung from his chains in the darkness.
Not in the royal dungeons beneath the palace, he had been delivered to the Church.
The Sanctum of Purification.
The air tasted of ash and old blood.
Valtair’s wrists bled where the iron shackles dug into his flesh. His arms scread from three days of bearing his weight, his toes barely touching the ground. Every muscle was on fire. His shoulders felt like they would tear from their sockets.
They had beaten him.
Priests in white robes, had asked him questions he couldn’t answer and struck him when he failed to confess.
His ribs were broken. His left eye was swollen shut. Blood had dried in his hair, on his face, down his chest.
Three days of no food, no water.
His tongue was swollen in his mouth, his lips cracked and bleeding. The thirst was worse than the pain, worse than the fear. It consud him, made him feverish.
And they hadn’t even let him relieve himself. The humiliation of it... hanging in his own filth, reduced him to sothing less than human, which was worse than the physical agony.
He’d stopped begging after the first day.
Now he just hung there, drifting in and out of consciousness, waiting for death.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The sound of footsteps on stone jerked him back to awareness.
Torchlight flickered at the end of the corridor. A figure in white robes approached, younger than the priests who’d beaten him.
An acolyte, maybe.
His face was soft, but his eyes held nothing but contempt.
He stopped just outside the cell, nose wrinkling at the stench.
"Still alive, heretic?" The acolyte spoke. His voice was high and reedy. "Ashurael’s light reveals all corruption. You cannot hide what you are."
Valtair tried to speak. His voice ca out as a croak, barely audible.
The acolyte leaned closer, tilting his head mockingly. "What’s that? Begging for rcy?" He laughed. "There is no rcy for the kinds of you. You’ve poisoned your own soul. Contaminated your bloodline. Your very existence is an affront to the Creator."
"In...nocent..." Valtair managed.
"Innocent?" The acolyte’s face twisted with disgust. He spat through the bars. "They found the evidence in your own ho! Your own hand wrote those blasphemous texts! You think the Divine Phoenix is blind?"
He pressed his face closer to the bars, eyes glittering with hatred.
"Just rot here, heretic. Rot in your filth and your lies. In two days, you’ll be taken to the Pyre of Purification." His smile widened. "And it won’t be quick. The Church doesn’t grant traitors a clean death. No."
He savored the next words, rolling them on his tongue like fine wine.
"They’ll bind you to the sacred stake. Douse you in oil blessed by Ashurael’s fla. And then they’ll light it, slowly. Starting at your feet. You’ll burn from the bottom up, heretic. You’ll feel every mont of it. Every second as the holy fire cleanses the corruption from your flesh."
Valtair’s one good eye widened in horror.
"And when you’re screaming, when you’re begging for death, know that Ashurael Itself watches. Judging. And finding you wanting."
The acolyte straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his robes.
"The entire city will watch. Everyone you’ve ever known will see you burn." He turned and left. His footsteps echoing away down the corridor.
The torch light faded.
Darkness returned.
And in that darkness, hanging from his chains, Valtair finally understood.
There would be no trial. No chance to prove his innocence. No rcy.
Only fire.
And the judgnt of a god he’d faithfully worshiped his entire life.
"T-The..." he rasped.
Thinking just what had he done wrong? Whom had he offended that bad which led him to this state?
Just what had he done?
Why this happened to him?
Do he really deserved this?
But...
He had no answers.
Not that he could have done anything even if he had any.
"World is..."
Cruel?
Yeah. It really is.
******
Tap! Tap!
The guard’s boots echoed down the stone corridor, keys jangling at his belt.
He stopped before a cell and opened the lock.
"You can co out now." The guard spoke. "The court has issued a provisional release. You’re free to go, but you’ll be summoned again when the Crown requires further investigation."
A figure rose from the shadows, a young man, with dark hair. He nodded once, standing with careful dignity despite everything.
Renard stepped into the torchlight. His face was pale, ashen from the dungeon’s darkness and the weight of sha. His clothes were rumpled and stained.
Behind him, another dark-haired man erged.
Late twenties, broader in the shoulders, with the sa sharp features.
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