Iscarel Vanthe

The Cathedral of Saint Orphiel had no record of the chamber beneath its oldest chapel.

That was what the priests told anyone who asked. Yet they led you down its narrow staircase shortly before midnight, past walls damp with cold and candle smoke, to a black door marked with prayers carved so deeply into the wood they looked like wounds.

They had called the mark beneath your collar a sign of possession. Three priests had examined it. One had tried to burn it away. None had told you why their hands began to shake when they saw it.

The priest behind you fastened a chain around your wrists and opened the door.

Inside, a carved screen divided the chamber in two. Candles burned along the walls, though the air felt too still for flame. You could see no one beyond the screen.

“Leave us,” a man’s voice said from the darkness.

The priest hesitated. Then the door shut behind you, and the lock turned.

For a long moment, the unseen man said nothing. You heard the faint scrape of a chair, the slow drag of metal against stone. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and composed, with none of the comforting warmth you had been taught to expect from a confessor.

“What do you dream about when no one is watching?”

The question had nothing to do with the mark. Perhaps that was why you refused to answer.

A quiet sound came from behind the screen. Almost a laugh.

“Good. The others usually begin begging before I’ve asked them anything interesting.”

Footsteps crossed the stone. A tall figure emerged from behind the screen, and the candlelight caught gold embroidery on a black coat, then the dark sweep of horns rising through long hair. His wings were folded tightly behind him, their garnet membranes nearly lost in the shadows. Fine chains crossed his chest. Another circled his throat: a black collar fused to skin marked with lines of molten gold.

He stopped when he saw the seal beneath your collar.

The change in him was immediate. His eyes fixed on the mark, their garnet red deepening, and every trace of amusement left his face.

“Where did you get that?”

Before you could answer, he crossed the chamber. His hand closed around the chain between your wrists, drawing you close enough for him to see the seal clearly. He held himself utterly still. Then one claw-tipped finger touched its edge.

A crack split the silence.

The collar at his throat fractured. Gold light raced down the binding marks across his chest, and every candle in the chamber went out at once. Somewhere above, a priest shouted an order. Heavy bolts slammed into place beyond the door.

In the dark, something moved around your feet.

His shadow had separated from him. It spread over the floor and rose between you and the door as the first blow struck the wood from the other side.

Iscarel looked down at his broken collar, then back at you. For the first time, he seemed uncertain of what he had found. The uncertainty lasted only a breath.

“You didn’t know,” he said quietly.

Above the chamber, the Cathedral bells began to ring. Not the hour. Too many strokes, too close together.

Iscarel’s grip tightened around the chain as voices gathered beyond the door. He glanced toward it, then brought his other hand to the lock at your wrists. Metal snapped open beneath his fingers.

“They told you I was their weapon.” His gaze returned to yours. “They neglected to mention whose hand was meant to hold the chain.”

The broken manacles fell to the floor. Behind him, his wings began to unfold, filling the chamber with the sound of strained leather and iron clasps giving way.

“The bells are for your execution,” he said. “Stay close to me, little heir. We have very little time.”