Chapter Nine: The Inquisitor's Smile (Part 1)
The cold stone beneath Lucian's feet was slick with the dark, viscous stain of blood—fresh, cruel, and unmistakable. The corridor stretched before him, hollow and echoing, whispering every step with the weight of horror. The air hung thick with iron and silence, a silence heavier than any scream.
At the heart of it all, suspended grotesquely on a blackened iron hook, was the mutilated corpse of Soldier Raphael. The dim flickering torches threw shuddering shadows across his twisted form, the pale moonlight barely touching the outline of broken limbs and ragged flesh. His head dangled unnaturally, twisted to a grin of eternal agony. Those vacant eyes stared blindly into a darkness even deeper than the one that swallowed the corridor.
The blood that pooled beneath him seeped from the stone in thick, creeping rivulets, soaking every crack and crevice. It was as if the walls themselves bled from the wound left by the brutal justice enacted here.
A thin, near-invisible scarlet script was etched into the cold stone just above the gutted frame, the words writhing faintly in the flickering torchlight:
"Justice wears my face now."
Few dared approach closer. The nobles who gathered murmured in fear-struck tones, their whispered prayers drowned beneath the weight of paralysis and disbelief. Some had vomited, overwhelmed by the visceral evidence of death's merciless hand. The palace guards stood mute, weapons clutched tighter in shaking hands, unwilling to meet the gaze of those assembled—or perhaps unwilling to accept what had truly been done.
Lucian, hidden in the shadows of the far end of the hall, watched it all without moving a muscle. His heart beat slow and measured, but beneath his ribs, the demon's fire raged like a wildfire enclosed in iron.
"Kill them all. End their lies. Raise the shadow around the throne." The voice slithered inside his mind, both a whispered promise and a screaming demand.
But Lucian answered with practiced calm, a breath colder than the night around him.
Patience.
The heavy, deliberate footsteps arrived like a dark herald, stepping silently over cold stone. The air changed—the flickering torches dimmed, shadows bending toward a figure swathed in muted grey and black robes. Wherever he passed, the silence grew thick, the cold needle-sharp.
Malrek Vale—the Inquisitor—had come.
His presence was as chilling as the grave; his eyes were dead obsidian, carved smooth and impenetrable, reflecting nothing but the darkest thoughts. His every movement was a study in silent authority, as if even the ground obeyed his will not to disturb him.
Palace staff and soldiers flinched reflexively as he passed. His gaze swept the corridor, stopping at Raphael's body. The nobles, who had dared whisper curses moments ago, now bowed their heads, swallowed. Fear rippled through the gathered crowd like a cold wave.
Malrek stepped forward, voice low and clipped, carrying the weight of a thousand unseen judgments.
"Finally... a worthy game."
His long fingers trembled slightly as he reached down to trace the mutilated edges of Raphael's severed limbs, his touch clinical, practiced. Every slice, every gash, was a line of dark script to be read.
His eyes flicked sharply as he studied the angles and depth of each wound—the slow precision, the quiet cruelty. An artist's work, cold and deliberate.
A faint, almost imperceptible pulse lingered beneath the blood, a residue of dark power. Malrek inhaled sharply, tasting the echo of shadow magic, its chill crawling across his spine. He had hunted the worst horrors—cults, heretics, demons clawing up from forgotten abysses—but this was something more than madness or chaos. It was purpose. A message etched in flesh and death.
"The blood speaks," he murmured, lips tight in a thin line. "And it tells of an old darkness awake in this kingdom... something long thought dead is stirring once more."
Far beneath the surface, hidden in a damp tunnel lined with cold stone and forgotten histories, Lucian sat hunched over a rough worktable. His hands trembled—not from fatigue, but from the weight of memory and the burning power he struggled to contain. Sweat dripped from his brow and clattered against the floor as he sharpened a black blade darker than any starless night.
His mind erupted with the image of his mother—her face etched forever in horror and sorrow. He saw the last moment, forever frozen: her eyes glazing over, the last breath stolen, the desperate grip of her once-strong hand dissolving into lifelessness.
The sickening echoes of laughter haunted the memory—the abominable taunts of the three men who had pinned her, who had twisted pain into their own cruel worship.
Lucian's nails extended sharply like claws, an automatic response to pain and fury, but he forced himself to clamp the darkness down. The demon inside him whispered icily:
"Two more. Then I will open the door you seek."
"What door?" he breathed, voice choked.
The silence was an answer as thick as iron, broken only by a faint heartbeat—one that was not his. Something alien. Something forbidden.
He swallowed hard.
In the grand chambers of the palace, a secret meeting cloaked in arrogance and cruelty unfolded. The three men responsible for his mother's torment assembled in confident cruelty, their laughter a mockery of justice.
Commander Jurn, broad and brutal, barked orders like an angry beast.
Sergeant Krail, lean and sadistic, ran his fingers over knives like a predator savoring the hunt.
Priest Arvan, cloaked in holy vestments that hid a hellish veracity, muttered prayers soaked with poison.
Lucian's gaze burned into each face, etching their cruelty deeper into his soul.
You will die slower than Raphael.
The vow resonated, cold and absolute.
Meanwhile, the Inquisitor stalked through the palace halls like a shadow of inevitability. He interrogated trembling guards, mused over dusty records, and studied the impish symbols left in blood upon the stone. Patterns emerged beneath the turmoil—a ritual both ancient and profane, woven with merciless purpose.
"Not random vengeance," Malrek whispered under his breath. "A ritual. A transformation. Someone is becoming... something far darker than mortal flesh permits."
The night wrapped Lucian in cold velvet shadows as he watched one of the marked men—Priest Arvan—enter a locked sanctum alone. Lucian's form blended into the darkness like smoke, silent and deadly.
His eyes narrowed.
"One down," he thought. "Two remain."
A chill ran down his spine as he whispered into the blackness,
"And your sins have found you."