― Jean-Paul Sartre
Chapter 5: Waning Moon
There was no blood, no tearing of flesh. Just an extraordinary, painless impact - then a blinding light. It flickered around me, like a halo: In the moment before the radiance blotted out the world, I could see flashes of my bones through my skin, like sporadic X-rays.
And I felt it. The power, surging through me, as the first arcs of lightning leapt and cracked across my form. Transfixed, I heard the boom and rush of breaking thunder, my body locked in place by the force that held me in its unbreakable grip.
The Mark blazed, brighter than ever before. A bright, actinic blue, like an arc-welder’s torch. Like a sun going supernova.
It pulsed with a rhythm that matched my racing heartbeat, and I felt the beginning of a burning, etching heat. Spreading outwards, tracing paths across my skin like rivers of fire.
Nothing, nothing had prepared me for this. There was no hope of passing out: I was conscious. More than conscious.
I was more awake than I had ever been.
As Minerva flowed through me, as Her will coursed through every fibre of my being - I remained aware. Absolutely, utterly aware of what was being done to me, each moment crawling past with insect slowness.
It was like being dismantled and put back together. Like light, sifted and split into its component colours by a subtle lens. I felt myself fragmenting, flensed down atom by atom - Dissected, under Her unyielding glare.
Everything laid bare, pinned and minutely sectioned to learn what made me tick.
I couldn’t move. I could do nothing - Nothing but endure, as She saw right to the core of me. Every flaw, every sin, with merciless clarity.
But then I felt it. The shift, the flicker of hesitation in the divine current that held me. A ripple in the storm of power, a moment of pause that sent a chill through the searing heat.
The Mark is broken.
There is a void, where wholeness should be.
Her voice sliced through the maelstrom of light and sound - surprise, sharp and cold, vibrating in my bones.
This limits what I may bestow, My Chosen.
The Mark cannot channel the full spectrum of My blessing.
Only the arcane can flow through its fractured form.
And in that instant, I knew. I could feel it: the equation being solved, the calculus clicking into place. The cost weighed. The benefit measured.
A mind vast and inhuman, turning like the gears of a god-machine.
No hesitation. No mercy.
To grant even this much may damage you.
But necessity demands it, and so I shall proceed.
So cold. So mechanical.
To Her, I wasn’t a person. Just a vessel. A tool.
And if I broke under pressure? Irrelevant. In Minerva’s perfect order, there was no room for sentiment.
In that moment, I hated Her.
Does that shock you? It shouldn’t.
She didn’t care about me. Or Justin. Or Claire. I was a broken variable, a flawed tool that might break in the forging. She only cared that I served my function.
Even if it destroyed me.
Wait, I tried to say. Wait, I don’t-
The all-consuming radiance grew brighter still. I saw nothing, could see nothing but the light that ate my world. The air hummed with the high, rising thrum of pent-up power, with an intensity that felt like it would tear me apart.
Your rebirth shall not be kind.
I felt certain that the skin of my face was blistering, about to smoke and peel away. I tried to scream, but I could no longer find my mouth or even my breath.
For this, if nothing else, I am sorry.
Suspended in the crucible of Her will, my body was no longer my own. Just a conduit for Her magic, a canvas for Her great work.
Threads of incandescence coiled around me, like ropes in water. I felt their flashing heat, in the heartbeat before they tightened around my limbs. Flaring, hissing as they made contact-
Now the agony began.
Pain has ever been the price of revelation.
In suffering, there is Truth.
Blue-blinding light, against my skin. Piercing deep. Fanning out, carving grooves and channels into my flesh. Circles and lines and symbols, a constellation of them.
A spiral galaxy, lines shimmering with blue light.
[Arcane Attunement]
Bright, like blazing stars in a midnight sky.
I could hear Mom’s voice, echoing through distant vaults and chambers. She was singing a lullaby, except she was trying not to cry.
Hearing her ached.
Know that I shall watch you always, My champion.
When all is darkness, look to the skies for succor.
My body was rigid, trembling, as I felt a sharp jabbing like a dozen needles. Then a brutal stabbing, relentless. Around my forearms, the moon in its myriad phases took form - new, waxing, full, waning - linked by faint, glowing arcs.
[Lunar Siphon]
I could feel the needles against my back, now. Pressing so hard I could barely breathe, so hard it felt like they were piercing through me, all the way into my soul.
I felt Justin’s wasted hand in mine.
Held it tight, tight as I could, until he squeezed it back.
This must be.
Years passed, in a thermite blaze.
Runes bit into my skin, right between my shoulder-blades - Concentric circles, radiant mandalas emanating from a central star.
I closed my eyes, straining to hold on, but I was weak, so weak…
[Aegis of Clarity]
Like tendrils of celestial ink, the glowing lines spread across my chest. Down my arms, over my shoulders, intricate as a labyrinth. Lungs burning, I gasped for air, the sound lost in the storm of light - Tiny blue flames swirling from my open mouth, a rising pressure against the back of my eyes.
The weight of it. The deep ache in my core as the magic took root.
The broken Mark pulsed, flickering with erratic light. It was straining, as if it might shatter entirely, each addition pulling at the edges of the fracture. Searing pain jagged through my chest, agony jolting through me as the first scream tore free.
“S, stop-”
Through the blood battering at my skull - so hard it felt like it might pop my eyes out - I heard my voice. Slurred, blubbering, desperate.
“I, I’ve changed my mind! I’ve changed my mind!”
Begging for mercy, or at least an end.
“M-make it stop-”
I thrashed and twisted and screamed, but there was no way free.
It was already too late.
Everything was running together, like paint in the water: there was no reprieve, no escape. Just the fire raging inside, a hungry cold that burned without end.
It was unravelling me, fibre by fibre. I felt tears of blood running down my cheeks, flashing to steam. My fingers curled into claws, my bones glowing with stark, molten light beneath my skin.
The pain had become too much. It was inside me, now - Wearing me down, wearing me out.
My vision returned. For a bare instant, I saw Minerva, face-to-face. Her lips pursed, like a tedious, distasteful chore had fallen to Her and unfortunately had to be done.
Please, I thought, hating myself even then.
Please, no more-
“You’re so close now,” Claire whispered, just behind my ear. “Be brave, Gabriel.”
No, I thought. Not you.
You can’t be here.
For a moment, one awful moment, I could smell her distinct perfume. Sweet, crisp - a kind of flower, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember it anymore.
You were the brave one, I thought, as the corners of my vision blurred. You took a chance on me.
I should never have brought you down to my level.
“What’s done is done,” she said. Not forgiving, just telling me. “No-one can ever change the past.”
I’m so sorry. I loved you so much, and I killed you anyway.
I must be a monster.
“No, Gabriel,” Claire said. Patiently, like she had all the time in the world. “You’re not.”
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Then softly, so soft I had to strain to hear: “Not yet.”
[Hierophant]
I felt the solid flame inside me thinning, till only the glow itself remained. The burning sensation was fading into a dull, throbbing ache, the stabbing agony of the needles subsiding.
As the thunder quieted to a distant rumble, I collapsed, gasping. The Mark pulsed in time with my ragged breaths, my body still trembling in the aftershock - I could feel the strain in my chest, a lingering pain that told me I still lived.
Cold blue light welled from my sweat-soaked skin. Everything felt raw, like I’d been chewed up and spat out. My stomach heaved and twisted, the gleaming floor spinning underfoot: I could feel the grey eyes of the goddess boring into me, Her expression unchanging.
Rise, Gabriel.
Her lips never moved, but I heard Her voice all the same.
Above, the stars had gone out. It was getting darker, now - the light of Her spear dimmed to nothing, Her radiance shuttered, turned inward. Dimly, I sensed something about the nature of this place: That it was Her, or at least part of Her.
You are My champion, for good or for ill.
Far off, and only a thought away, was the crushing dark. Held back moment-by-moment, like waves halted on the shore’s edge.
But now, the tide was beginning to come in.
Prove your worth.
Save Endoria, or perish in the attempt.
The spiralling runes on my flesh glowed, faintly. As I forced myself to my feet - legs trembling, the effort like a knife in my side - I found my voice.
“I will,” I said, just above a croak. “-no matter what.”
The gate, blue-glowing, opened before me. Lightning writhed and fluoresced around its mouth, as the wind rose.
In that moment, I meant it. But I had said many things before, made many promises, and I’d meant them too.
Then take the path.
It is straight and true, and the only one you need.
And so I did.
Behind me, the idea and the image of Minerva’s hall folded out of being, and the howling dark rushed in to claim the place it left.
A dream of falling.
A final plunge - violent, endless - into the dark. A roar in my ears, like oceans collapsing…
I drifted, weightless. Pulled through deep waters by currents I couldn’t fight. Past memories I couldn’t name, shapes I couldn’t see.
Everything I was, or might have been, swept away on a rising wave.
No feeling. No form. No words.
Just the tug of something vast and unknowable, dragging me onward.
And somewhere, flickering-
A light. Faint, but not yet gone.
Is this death?
The thought echoed. Detached. Hollow.
The Broadcast, the fight, the goddess - Had it all been illusion? Just dying neurons, firing their final shot?
Gabriel.
A word. My name, spoken by some soundless voice thundering in the endless night.
Gabriel.
The pull was stronger now, drawing me through the black. Faster, then faster still - Accelerating with each moment, toward some summit, some heart, some place within the rushing darkness.
Something was waiting for me there. Some truth, some answer. An end, amid the surging tumult: I could sense the shape of it, like a light in the black.
I reached towards it, more instinct than thought. Willing myself to be, straining for some sense of identity.
Gabriel, I told myself, echoing the thunder.
My name is Gabriel.
My hand took form, a vague shape shuddering amid all the echoing emptiness. Only the Mark was real, glowing before me: Blue plasma burned along the channels it cut into my skin, and with a soundless gasp I closed my fist-
Light flared, and warmth filled me like a breath.
Weight. I had weight again.
I was almost there, now. The light was rushing in, spilling around me like clear water, drawing me out of the void and into-
Something struck me, hard. It hit me in the side like a charging bull, punched the air out of my lungs. Suddenly, I was tumbling, spiralling out of control, in and down into the cold darkness-
Darkness and a profound, echoing quiet.
I opened my eyes.
Flamelight, blurry. Cold, paved stone.
I sprawled, painfully - Gasping for air, heart pounding. My head ached like it’d been split, a hard line of pain pressing down my skull. My mouth had lolled open while I was unconscious, and my tongue, my throat, were dry as sandpaper.
Beneath me: Bright metal, icy-cold. White vapour curled over me in threads of freezing mist, frost crackling as I stirred. I tasted ozone, the after-burn of some tremendous effort-
A murmur of voices.
“...tend to the Saintess…”
“-disruptions in the aether-”
“...no closer! Not until we can be certain!”
I blinked, vision swimming as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I lay on a circular dais of polished black stone, its surface etched with intricate sigils. They pulsed, faintly, with a soft blue glow - the air thick with the sense of incense, mingling with the metallic tang of magic.
I could smell copal and myrrh, hanging in the air like a haze. My body felt heavy, punishingly so. As if gravity had doubled, pinning me in place.
Around me, the ritual chamber loomed, its high, vaulted ceiling lost in shadow. Great pillars held it aloft, carved with crescent moons and celestial patterns. Their arcane, abstruse symbols gleamed in the flickering orange light of the torches that lined the walls, but the true illumination came from the platform beneath me, still humming with residual energy.
I wasn’t alone.
There were figures moving beyond the settling shadows, clad in blue and white. Converging on me, like some exotic, dangerous beast they’d run to ground. Through blurred vision, I glimpsed the hard gleam of a dozen spears, razor-points levelled in my direction.
As mad as it sounded, I knew them. The faceless helms they wore, veils of fine chain where the mouth-guards should be: They were-
The Laminae Silentii, something within me whispered. Like key turning, the information slotting neatly into my mind. Elite wardens of the Temple of Minerva.
There, behind them. Magnificent in their azure tabards, bearing the sun-and-moon sigil - the Knights of the Eclipse.
Sworn to serve Her will in all things, to…
I shivered, struck by a sudden chill. I knew nothing about this place, but I could recognize every design, every emblem that adorned their gleaming armor.
Where had the knowledge come from?
Their swords were drawn. Magnificent brass-chased longswords, all aimed at me in double-handed grips. Any one of the knights could extinguish my life with a flick of their wrists, if they chose to do so.
But they didn’t. Not yet.
Their visors were raised, revealing faces - hard-featured but handsome - etched with exhaustion and awe. Sweat beaded on their brows, despite the chamber’s chill.
At their head stood their commander: Shorter, slighter than the others, I knew her by the solar crest that adorned her helm, her sharp, unyielding grey eyes framed by bangs of platinum-blonde hair.
I felt a faint shock, a frisson of disbelief, as her gaze met mine. There was hope in them - Hope, but also a careful scrutiny, as if measuring my worth against the cost of the ritual.
Beside her, as if sheltering behind her ornate armor, the Saintess of the Eclipse knelt in prayer.
I had the fleeting impression of white robes shimmering with threads of silver, pale hands collapsed around a great staff - fully as long as a man was tall - topped with a crescent crystal that pulsed in time with the dais…
Her full lips moved, without sound. Her pale, lovely features were drawn, dark circles under the wide amber eyes. At a glance, I could see the toll the ceremony had taken on her, the utter exhaustion under that mask of fervent devotion.
In that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.
Beyond the serried ranks of the knights, three dozen acolytes clad in grey robes formed a wider circle - hands raised, fingers tracing the air as they chanted softly, in a language I could almost but never quite understand.
There was something haunting, in the melody of their voices. The hymn reverberated from the stone, made it reverberate in time to their chanting. Like the entire chamber was a single exquisite instrument, set to resonate as one.
Many of them swayed on their feet, some leaning on each other for support. I saw pale, drawn faces, gaunt from the exertion of the ritual.
All of them were looking at me.
Directly.
And - Jesus - I knew why. I could feel the weight of their expectation, their hopes, their fears.
It was the knight-commander who spoke first.
“-Are you the one?” she said, her words carrying across the narrow distance. Clear, clipped - Sharp, like the matchless sword she held. “Are you Her Champion?”
I tried to answer. Really, I did - But all that came out was a dry, rasping croak.
Those exquisite features furrowed, grey eyes going hard. It wasn’t the answer she wanted: I could see the coiled tension in the hard-set faces of the guards, their glittering spears poised to spit me if I made a single wrong move.
My throat tightened. Fear and thirst made it hard to speak, but I forced the words out, my voice a cracked whisper.
“Yes,” I said. “I…I am. Here-”
With a supreme effort, I lifted my hands. The Mark, thank God, flared to life: It burned with cold light, a pellucid blue flame that sent shivers knifing through my limbs.
Gasps rippled through the chamber, cutting into the acolytes’ chants. Awe, yes - but laced with unease.
They wanted to believe. I could feel it: They were teetering on the edge between wonder and doubt, and it was anyone’s guess which side they would come down on.
And honestly? I couldn’t blame them.
Right then, I don’t think I looked like anyone’s idea of a hero.
“Lower your weapons.”
The saintess’s voice was soft - too soft. Silk, threaded with steel. Her hand, pale and unshaking, settled on the silver-haired knight’s vambrace, calming and commanding at once.
“Lady Seraphine-”
“Peace, Lyssa.” Her gaze didn’t even flicker. “Bring forth the Regalia.”
Seraphine rose. Slowly, deliberately, her stainless robes fluttering around her like mist.
She couldn’t have been more than a year older than me, but she moved like someone born to be obeyed.
She didn’t ask. She didn’t hope.
She knew.
As the votaries hurried out, her eyes never left mine.
“-The Truth shall be made clear, soon enough.”
A great coffer was brought forth, one so large it took six retainers - three on each side - to carry. Forged from some dark metal, marked with runes, there was a weight to it, a heft that could only come from significance.
It was, I realized, with a sharp pang of discomfort, approximately the same size and shape as a coffin.
As they bore it towards me - sweating, straining under their burden - across the mosaic flooring, I could hear the murmuring voices in the long hall of fluted columns. Looking up, I saw a myriad of faces peering down from the gallery above.
There must have been half a hundred of them up there, here to witness the summoning. Men of worth, of significance, clad in ceremonial finery whose significance I could only dimly grasp. But I could feel the weight of the emotion behind those sweaty, expectant faces, as they trembled in silent anticipation.
Doubt. Excitement. Terror.
But most of all: Hope.
The weight of it all made my mouth go dry, my fingers itching. My heart, thumping fast.
They set the casket down on the waiting trestle, with a hollow thud that echoed deep in my chest.
“Wait,” I said, as the bearers backed away. “What do I-”
None of them met my gaze. It was just me, and the great casket - The light playing over its many dark surfaces, and the great seal that held it fast. I felt my eyes drawn to the winding, looping sigils that spidered across the metal, tracing them to the complex, many-faceted symbol at the very heart of the thing.
Steeling myself, I reached out with both hands-
There was a clatter. A sound like grinding gears, or meshing pins.
The seal broke. The box opened.
More gasps, from the audience above.
Inside, resting on a bed of dust-dry velvet, lay three things. No more, and no less.
The first was an amulet, of sorts. A torc made from strands of some mercurial metal, all twisted about each other like the stems of old vines. Polished and undecorated, there was a curious captivation about the thing, one that defied any attempt to place.
The second was a book. A great tome, large enough to be a shield, thicker than the breadth of a human head. The pages were sheets of brass, hammered thin enough to fold like parchment and encased in a sleeve of tempered steel. Closed with a clasp, its cover bore no title, only a deep sigil etched so precisely it seemed grown, not engraved.
When my hand brushed against it, the metal was warm. Too warm.
It pulsed, faintly, like a heartbeat muffled behind walls. No writing marked the tome’s outer shell, but the air around it felt heavy, as if every word inside was already known and already waiting.
The third-
The third was a staff.
Fully as long as a man was tall, it was a magnificent thing. Inlaid with an impossibly intricate lattice of platinum wire, its wine-colored wood felt dense as stone. A cap-piece of electrum crowned the stave, in the form of a sun-flare corona: At the very centre, suspended in place by a silver mounting, stood a jewel.
A perfect half-moon of sapphire, its face was uncut by diamond facets or inelegant designs. Smooth and unblemished, it had about it the look of an organic creation, like a gem grown, planted and fostered to glorious life in some secret crystal garden.
As my fingers ran across its scrolled surface, I felt a sudden thrum of movement beneath my skin.
It felt charged. Electric, even at rest.
I lifted the stave free, turning it in my grip. Seized by some instinct I couldn’t name, I planted its tapered base against the floor, grasping the cool wood as I drew myself to my full height-
And just above my heart, the symbol for [Arcane Attunement] throbbed.
It throbbed, and revelation flowed through me like blood.
For one perfect moment, I saw everything.
I saw what the staff had been, what it was, all it was.
I saw the great oak it had been carved from, the long decades of its making, the purpose for which it had been consecrated. Saw it raised to the skies, bathed in the cold moonlight from which it took its name:
But most of all, I knew what it could do.
That was the blessing Minerva had bestowed upon me. That was the reason for all I’d suffered at Her hands, the blinding pain that had nearly broken me.
All of it, for this moment.
I drew a deep, shaky breath. Focused, trying to summon the limpid, passionless calm that I needed, my palms tingling with energy.
Nothing happened.
The lesson - dimly-intuited, only now rising to the forefront of my mind - that [Hierophant] had taught me was that all magic needed a source of power. One could have access to it, if it had access to you.
I was less than a novice at this. I’d been in this world for less than an hour, and all of this was utterly alien, utterly outside my experience. But through [Lunar Siphon], I felt a connection to a distant font of power, one far, far beyond the unyielding stone walls of the ritual chamber.
A font vast and cold and solitary, as it hung in Endoria’s midnight sky.
I closed my eyes. Reached for it, ignoring the volley of restless whispers floating down from the gallery. To them, I was merely standing there, stock-still, sweating bullets as I held the great staff in my trembling hands.
“This serves no purpose,” came a testy growl, from close-by. “Let me put an end to this farce-”
“Hold, Marius.” Lyssa, this time. “Measure twice. Cut once.”
No pressure.
Come on, I thought, tasting copper in my mouth. Feeling for the trigger point with my mind, for that twist of will, of intention, that I needed-
A querulous, creaking voice, like a fading whisper. One of the priests, I think.
“Lady Seraphine, perhaps we should…”
Less effort. Just an intention. A feel.
“-this…vagrant…cannot be the one we were expecting-”
There. There. I had it.
A surge, inside my left arm. Like a tide of hot oil, pulsing from my spine to my fingertips. Through the Mark, through the channels carved into my flesh, through [Hierophant] and [Arcane Attunement] and all the rest.
And I said: “[Aegis of Clarity!]”
There was a flash.
As if light had suddenly become solid. As if the air had become hard.
Translucent, flickering blue-white energy raced down the Staff of the Waning Moon. The great sapphire burned - Blazed with a radiance that went deeper than sight, a brilliance that didn’t pass through the eyes but into you, as if it remembered who you were and burned away everything else.
Calm descended. And with it, silence.
For one transcendent moment, I felt absolute, utter surety. The stave’s light bathed me in such peace, in such confidence and assurance, that the shivering of my limbs ceased. That the aches and pains and I’d been nursing smoothed away, and I felt the fear that’d gripped me crumble into nothing.
And I wasn’t the only one. I could feel the circle of calmness spreading out, expanding away from me in a rippling wave of serenity. It was like a beacon, a tiny shaft of light in an endless wasteland.
A sliver of perfect Order, puncturing the doubts and uncertainties and secret terrors that clawed at every restless heart.
In that perfect silence, the saintess lifted her head, her eyes meeting mine. I saw it, then - the relief, the gratitude, the fragile hope held too long behind storm-colored eyes. A tear slipped free, unashamed.
“Minerva’s light has guided you true,” she said softly, her voice trembling with emotion. “The Wrack stirs. Endoria bleeds. You are our hope…Gabriel.”
And that was the first pebble of the avalanche. From far above, there was a sound - Hard to make out at first, but then coming more clearly. Soft, repetitive, but growing louder with each moment.
“Gabriel! Gabriel! Gabriel!”
Their name. They were chanting my name, over and over again. Unmistakeable, from a multitude of throats. Like a great valve had been released, and all that pent-up tension had unwound.
With a clatter of articulating armor, Knight-Commander Lyssa knelt. The others followed, in the same smooth motion - Swords lowered to the stone, heads bowed in homage.
I should’ve told them to rise. Told them they were wrong, that I didn’t deserve this.
But the moment had already swallowed us whole.
Already, the first cheers were coming from the high galleries, loud as a thunderstorm. Prayer-papers, cast into the air, spiraled down like confetti - For a moment, I stood amid a falling storm of silver-edged leaves, each one bearing the hopes, blessings, pleas of a multitude.
And I stood there, in the heart of the storm. The weight of a world settling on my shoulders.
Bathed in the light of the Aegis, I felt - for the first time in a long, long time - that everything was going to be all right.
Just for a moment.
But something tugged at my gaze. In my peripheral vision, I glimpsed something - A fold in the air. A distortion, blurred like a heat-mirage. At first, I couldn’t make it out, except to perceive it as a shifting, twisting almost-shape, right on the edge of physicality.
I knew what this was. I knew what this was.
My breath caught, as I opened my mouth to shout.
But I was too late, had always been too late.
There was a crackle of ozone, a leap of green-edge lightning, as a gust like a foul, charnel wind raced down the long, tall nave. Before I could move, I felt the abrupt ice-chill of imminent disaster-
A noxious smoke, the vile stink of aeons, furled out around the summoning circle. There was a sickening taste, a sense of numbing dislocation, a sound like the frantic buzzing of a billion flies.
Seraphine sensed it, too. Her head came up, her lips parting to cry out-
Reality shrieked, as it tore.
Clattering with broken hoarfrost, the horror shuddered into being, erupting from the summoning circle like some ocean-bound leviathan breaching the surface. Vile yellow light frothed up in its monstrous compound eyes as they resolved: Its rank, filthy shape unfurling in a horror of pustular flesh and sinew.
In a single horrific motion, the Wrackspawn reared up, black-tipped transparent teeth - like giant quills - interlaced and chattering with mindless hunger. Abruptly, the air was thick with flies and the stench of grave-mould, the writhing weight of insects clinging to its swollen, suppurating mass like armor.
It screamed. It screamed just like a baby, high and piercing and urgent, the jointed bone of its many claws gouging furrows in the stony ground. Monstrous mandibles clattering, it squirmed from the altar, writhing limbs reaching out to rip and tear-
All hell broke loose.
TO BE CONTINUED