The first rays of sun painted the room in dust and gold.
Azazel lay in bed, amber eyes half-open, the ceiling above him unchanged from the day before—peeling plaster, a long crack running above his bed like a scar the house forgot to heal. He blinked slowly. His body ached, not from pain, but from absence.
The old man was gone.
He found his grandfather dead in his sleep on July 23, in the year of 1512.
His mind clawed back through memories, not dreams. For some reasons this stupid memories, Azazel thought he'd long forgotten, keep popping up like an unwanted notification.
The orphanage. The cold floor. The hollow lectures from men in robes preaching salvation from a God Azazel had never seen, never felt.
He took the name Azazel not out of admiration—but rebellion. Something sharp to cut their doctrine. Something unholy to spit in their holy water.
He had run, and he had never looked back.
Until the old man found him.
A wiry, grey-bearded shopkeeper who ran a curious little business tucked in a back alley of Constantinople, filled with knives, books, powders, and things no merchant should have sold legally. But more than a merchant, he'd been something else.
Azazel didn't pry into his grandfather's secrets. But obviously, Azazel's grandpa was no ordinary man.
For some reason after remembering his face, Azazel wanted to cry, but nothing came out of his eyes.
Azazel had no blood ties to the man, but the bond between them had been thicker than lineage. Stronger than trust. In this world he had been Azazel's only truth.
Now he was gone.
Yesterday was the funeral.
It had rained—not a storm, but a cold drizzle that wormed under clothes and skin. The strange part wasn't the burning coffin, nor the priest's droning. It was the people who came: a dozen high-ranking deacons; and other strangers – men and women dressed in worn coats, some armed openly, others smelling faintly of sulfur.
He looked at the coffin and motionless dead body of his grandpa. In his hands – two daggers – family artifact that he told he'd received from his teacher.
The old man had known more than Azazel ever realized.
A knock pulled him from the weight of thought.
He blinked, looking in direction of the door.
Again, three short raps.
Still in a tunic and trousers, he walked barefoot to the door. Without thinking, he pulled it open.
Standing on the threshold was a man in his forties—perhaps fifties—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a dark coat with silver trim. His face was stern but not unfriendly, with a short beard and sharp, assessing eyes.
"You shouldn't open doors without asking who's behind them," the man said calmly.
Azazel raised an eyebrow. "You planning to rob me?"
"If I was," the man replied, "you'd already be dead."
There was a pause.
Then the man held out a hand.
"Name's Basil. I was a friend… colleague of your grandfather."
Azazel didn't shake it. He stepped aside.
"Come in. Tea?"
Basil shook his head. "No. I won't stay. I'm only here to deliver your grandfather's last will. I didn't want to bother you yesterday."
From inside his coat, he pulled a worn envelope, sealed with dark wax. The symbol etched into it wasn't the family crest— neither Azazel had a family nor his grandpa.
It was the Templar's cross framed with the Seal of Solomon.