I was assigned to the southern corridor rotation shortly after my advancement to full cleric. His chamber fell within my watch, just three doors past the southeast cloister. In that time, I saw each of the others rise. The siblings, Godspawn, grew swiftly, some into soldiers, others into specialists. They walked the halls like omens fulfilled.
But the sixth remained still.
The runt, some said.
The Gentle Faith That Echoes.
There were no lessons requested on his behalf. No tutors scheduled, no ceremonial observations. He neither entered the chapel nor spoke in the gardens. He simply remained in his room. Meals were taken in silence. Waste collected. Scrolls delivered. He never acknowledged us beyond a glance.
And then, there was Rinvara.
Her visits began irregularly. We noted them, as clerics were trained to observe patterns. Soon, they became routine. She brought supplies: wrapped packages, scrolls, food rations outside of schedule. Sometimes, she stayed for hours. No cleric was assigned to listen. Still, word travels.
We assumed she pitied him.
That perhaps she was drawn to weakness out of a healer’s instinct.
It was near the end of the third year. Word came down from the Grand Vicar’s office, Rinvara was being dispatched to the southwestern border again. A healer was needed. But this time, the trench lines near the Outer Ember had seen recent conflict, and her particular resonance made her a fitting candidate for field deployment.
She did not object and left quietly without ceremony.
I was not present at her departure, but I read the report. She volunteered for double rotations and was assigned to the forward medic post at Fort Kessan.
A week later, an ambush occurred.
Details were scarce. Rumors, less so. An enemy scouting force bypassed the forward perimeter under fog cover. What followed was a one-sided battle. Tents burned. Supply lines severed. Survivors were pulled back to the inner fort under emergency recall. I read their accounts.
Her name was not on the survivor lists.
Not officially declared dead.
Not confirmed alive.
Just missing.
The Church made no public declaration yet. But Rinvara’s absence was felt in the hall.
After that, the sixth’s corridor fell into a different sort of quiet.
No more gifts. No more visits.
The other clerics moved on. Their attention relegated to temple affairs.
He was still inside.
Until today.
I had just completed second-rotation’s offerings when I saw him.
The sixth.
With a loud crash, the door to his room flew open. He stepped out as though the last three years of silence were nothing more than sleep.
But he was not what we remembered.
Although he was a bit shorter than his siblings, he was much larger now, easily over a man’s height at the shoulder, broad through the chest and limbs. He wore a type of belt around his front. His fur had darkened with age, thicker and rougher in texture. It gave him the look of something half-feral.
But it was his eyes that drew attention first: sharp, set beneath a furrowed brow, fixed forward in a way that left no room for interruption. There was anger there.
And as he moved down the corridor, his paws struck with weight.
Not symbolic, literal.
Stone compressed beneath each step. Not cracked, not shattered, but compressed. The polished marble of the Basilica floor dented cleanly beneath the pads of his feet.
No one spoke.
We watched him go, and the marks stayed behind.
He moved past servants who had once whispered about him. None dared speak. One dropped a basket. Another bowed without realizing it.
He turned left at the Saint Kaerth mosaic.
The direction was unmistakable.
The Grand Solar Vicar’s office.
We had no record of any summons.
No scheduled audience.
He was going of his own accord.
And not a single person stepped in his way.
I hadn’t meant to throw the door.
I pushed it, just pushed like I always had. But the hinges didn’t resist the way they used to. The wood cracked open with a sharp crack, and the entire door ricocheted off the stone wall hard enough to make the nearby clerics flinch.
I froze for a moment.
Not because I was startled.
But because of the light.
It hit me full in the face, clean and blinding, sharper than anything that had managed to slip between the curtains of my room. The hallway was awash in morning brilliance, gilded by the Basilica’s skylights, sun-flushed and alive.
It made my eyes sting. I winced. My brow lowered on instinct, face twisting into a scowl.
Not that anyone said anything.
My ears caught the silence before my eyes adjusted. Quiet like tension, stretched across the corridor. I stepped forward. The floor met my paws differently than I remembered.
Light.
Way too light.
Each footfall sank slightly, the marble softening beneath me as though it couldn’t quite decide if it was stone or soil.
I didn’t stop to think about it.
Rinvara’s name was already beating in the back of my throat.
She had gone to the south.
She had not returned.
I moved.
Past the ones who used to stare and now turned their heads.
I moved like I had nowhere else in the world to be.
The hallway bent, and I followed it. Left at the Saint Kaerth mosaic. Same path as always.
The door to the Grand Solar Vicar’s office stood tall at the end of the hall.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I didn’t knock.
I didn’t pause.
I pushed.
And the door flew open.
The door slammed against the interior wall with a loud bang, causing one of the sconces beside it to rattle in protest. A swirl of parchment lifted slightly from the desk in the center of the room.
The Grand Solar Vicar looked up slowly.
He was seated behind a broad, polished desk carved from white ash and inlaid with thin lines of gold. His quill paused mid-stroke, tip hovering just above the parchment he’d been signing. His robes, a deep maroon edged in pale light, rustled faintly as he leaned back.
“Ah,” he said mildly, as if commenting on the weather, “Pophet. What brings you here?”
He glanced sideways at the door, now swinging slightly on its hinges, a sliver of wood chipped near the base where the knob had struck the stone.
“Oh dear,” he muttered. “Brother Tamwill’s going to be in quite a state about that. It took him three weeks to finish the enamel pattern on that door. Very particular fellow.”
He looked back to me, voice still dipped in that maddening softness reserved for children.
I didn’t move closer.
“Rinvara,” I said, more forcefully than I intended. My claws curled slightly against the floor. “What happened to her?”
The Vicar reached calmly for a delicate porcelain cup at the edge of his desk, its handle shaped like a crescent sun. He took a slow sip, then set it back down with care.
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Why are you asking about her,” he said instead, “out of all your siblings?”
“She visited me,” I said. “Plenty of times.”
“Ah.” He folded his hands over the parchment. “I suppose she did.”
“Is she dead?”
The Grand Solar Vicar raised one eyebrow.
“No.”
My breath caught, but the knot in my chest only pulled tighter.
“Then—”
“That,” he interrupted gently, “is the very best we can assure you of.”
He folded his hands neatly, eyes now focused on mine, but still calm.
“She was deployed to the southwestern line after a formal request by the command post at Fort Kessan. Conflict was ongoing. She was well-suited for the task. For a time, we received regular reports. Then… nothing. The forward base was compromised during a scouting incursion. Communications went dark.”
He picked up the quill again, inspecting the tip with unnecessary attention.
“We have confirmed neither her passing nor her return.”
He looked at me again.
“She is not listed among the dead. But neither has she returned to the living.”
“She said she was safe,” I growled. My voice came out lower than I expected. “She told me the medic tents were within the border walls. That she wouldn’t be near the front.”
The Grand Solar Vicar set his quill down, slowly and deliberately, as if the placement of it mattered more than what I’d just said.
“She was,” he replied. “For a time. But she volunteered to provide reinforcement beyond the perimeter. According to the reports, we had injured returning from a forward skirmish. She insisted on taking additional supplies herself.”
My breath hitched. “And you let her?”
“She was not stopped.”
“Is there a search squad?” I demanded, stepping closer now, paws pressing into the stone hard enough that I felt it sink further beneath me.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “We’ve already sent one. Bishop Tharne leads the effort. He departed four days ago.”
“That’s not enough,” I said, voice cracking. “Send me.”
He didn’t flinch.
“No.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
There was a pause.
Then, I spoke again. “Is it because you see me as a mistake? An accident? A blemish in a perfect lineage?”
His eyes didn’t waver.
“No,” he said. “It is because you are weaker than your siblings.”
The words fell like stone.
“There is no reason,” he continued, “to lose two of you.”
A long silence followed.
The Grand Solar Vicar watched me. Unmoving. I didn’t return the look.
“You do not need to worry,” I said quietly. “If I were to lose my life, the Church would cheer.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Not quite. We still see you as her son.”
I huffed through my nose. A short, bitter sound. “What a joke. You don’t consider me her son.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You said nothing. Back then.”
He was quiet for a moment.
Then, a soft sigh.
“I apologize for what they said,” he murmured. “But there is only so much I can do from my position.”
I didn’t reply.
I knew what that meant.
I knew how many decisions in this place were made behind embroidered curtains and sealed doors. The conservative bloc of the Inner Clergy had grown stronger with every passing year of Sunmire’s long defensive stand, They were unwilling to change, unwilling to risk, and were content with silence over progress.
Even though I understood what he meant, that didn’t make it right.
I lifted my gaze.
“What can I do,” I asked, “to prove to you that I’m capable?”
He looked at me then. Really looked.
There was something in his eyes. Regret? Or maybe memory?
“You seem intent on going no matter what I say.”
He turned his head slightly. Stared toward the high window, as if reluctant to speak further.
Then, “One of our steamships is departing for the southern front. From the supply outpost behind the Aquifer Vault. Ten minutes from now.”
I blinked.
That was the far end of the Basilica. Barely within the perimeter.
“The guard unit aboard is classified Lower-Phase 7,” he added.
My jaw tensed.
That was no casual escort.
In the Church's military and clerical structure, authority and strength were organized under a ranking system modeled after the moon’s phases, nine in total.
Each moon phase represented a tier of strength and service, the lower the phase, the higher you were.
Since it was the sun’s light that governed the moon’s shape, the phases were considered not just symbolic, but divine in hierarchy.
Each rank was further split into three strata:
- Lower - The Sun at Rise.
- Middle - The Sun at Zenith.
- Upper - The Sun at Dusk.
A Lower-Phase 7 rank was no small thing. It meant combatants who had seen battle; individuals trained not just for survival, but for holding ground in enemy territory.
The Grand Solar Vicar’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“I will not stop you,” he said, “but I will not send you either. If you find your way onto that ship, then that is your choice.”
He looked back to me.
“And you will bear the weight of it alone.”
The window shattered behind me as I launched through it.
Glass exploded in all directions, the stained sigil of Sunmire fracturing midair before it ever touched the floor. I hit the ledge hard, then leapt again. My paws cracked stone as I landed on the tiled roof beyond the office.
The old ceramic groaned beneath me. Tiles split. Some dislodged completely, tumbling off in clattering arcs.
But I didn’t stop.
I continued moving before I could think. On instinct. Driven by urgency.
And I was fast.
Faster than I’d ever been.
Each stride felt impossibly light; my muscles coiled and released like clockwork pistons. The roof barely held me. I crushed tile, fractured beams, sent debris flying in my wake, but I never stumbled.
My breath was steady. My vision sharp. The world unfolded in front of me like a diagram, clean and knowable.
I could see everything. The flicker of steam around the ship’s loading frame. The precise curve of the stabilizer fins unlocking. The final rotation of its drivewheel ratcheting into place.
I thought I’d be too late. That I would reach the platform just as the ship broke away.
But I wasn’t. I was going to make it.
I descended from the roof with one final lunge, slamming into the reinforced awning above the supply platform.
Below me, six guards turned at once.
Clad in reinforced tabards, pauldrons trimmed in brass and sunmetal—Phase 7 detail. Their rifles, sleek, long-barreled steamfused weapons, were already coming up.
“What in the burning hells is that?!” one shouted.
“Is that a beast?! Where did it come from?!”
“It’s charging us!”
Steam hissed.
And they fired.
Hollow-cast steel slugs shrieked through the air, launched by compressed pressure blasts. The shots struck my chest, flanks, legs.
And glanced off.
The fur smoldered where it hit. But there was no blood.
“He’s not slowing!”
“Ready your spears! Form a line!”
The rifles fell away, and six spears rose to meet me.
I didn’t dodge.
I crashed through them.
The first spear met my shoulder and shattered. The blade snapped with a ringing crack, the shaft bending into a jagged arc before splintering apart.
The second didn’t fare better.
The third dug into my flank but stopped dead, the tip crumpling like foil against the tension beneath my hide. I kept moving forward as their defensive line broke. One guard fell backward, another twisted to avoid being trampled.
I shot past them, up the ramp as my paws thundered against reinforced steel.
The moment I crossed the threshold, the steamship let out a long, shrill whistle.
Clamps released. Pressure vents hissed. Gears locked.
The ramp began to pull away behind me.
The ship was already leaving.
And I was on it.