The day after the King's Proclamation, Aethelburg awoke to a new kind of chaos. The oppressive, fearful quiet of the Great Silence was gone, replaced by a loud, frantic, and divisive cacophony.
Lian, a seventeen-year-old scribe's apprentice, felt it in the very air as he tried to make his master's deliveries. The city had become a landscape of arguments. On one street corner, a Royal Crier would be hoarsely reciting the King's decree, his message of a "Celestial Tyrant" and "defiant silence" drawing a small, grim-faced crowd. Fifty paces away, a rival crowd would be gathered, screaming that the King was a heretic who had doomed them all. The Royal Guard, with Captain Eva's cold efficiency mirrored in their every move, marched in tight patrols, their presence a constant, simmering threat, breaking up any argument that threatened to spill into violence.
Lian clutched the scroll case in his hands, trying to make himself as small as possible. Before, the fear had been a unified thing, a shared burden. Now, it had splintered, turning neighbor against neighbor. You could see it in their eyes: the desperate search for something, anything, to believe in.
It was near midday when a new sound began to cut through the city's din. It was the sound of a single, powerful voice, amplified by the acoustics of the grand Merchant's Forum. A crowd, larger and more focused than any other, was gathering there. Curiosity and a sense of dread warred in Lian's gut, and dread won. He changed his route, intending to steer clear. But the voice was magnetic, pulling at the frayed edges of his own fear. He found himself on the fringe of the crowd, peering over shoulders to see the source.
In the center of the forum, standing on the auction block where rare silks and spices were once sold, was High Scrutator Ouen.
He was no longer dressed in the pristine white robes of the Observatory. He wore a severe, black tunic, stark and absolute. His followers, the priests and acolytes who had abandoned Theron, stood around him, their faces grim and resolute, forming a protective circle.
Ouen's voice was a fire in the cold, fearful air, and he was masterfully turning the King's truth on its head.
"The King tells you that your God is lost!" Ouen boomed, his arms outstretched. "I am here to tell you that He has never been closer! He has never listened more intently!"
A murmur of hope and confusion went through the crowd.
"The King, in his fear, consorts with a heretic scholar and offers you only a silent, empty sky! He offers you the cold comfort of a 'noble' despair! He asks you to be a shield, to stand together in defiance!" Ouen scoffed. "And what has your defiance earned you? Another Reaping! Another random death! Your silence is not a shield; it is the bleating of lambs in a slaughterhouse!"
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, seductive whisper. "But the God of the Sky offers you more than just silence. He offers you power. The power to shape your own destiny. The power to get what you want. The King offers you a noble death. The God of Bargains offers you a miracle. All He asks for in return is a show of ultimate faith. A price."
Ouen's gaze swept across the desperate faces in the crowd. "The King calls this a trap for the soul. I call it a testament of devotion! What is a single, fleeting life, which will end in dust and decay regardless, when weighed against the eternal glory of a miracle granted? What greater love can a mother show than to offer her own life to cure her dying child? What greater faith can a man show than to trade his own breath for the prosperity of his family?"
He was not selling a religion; he was selling agency. In a world where every person felt like a helpless victim, he was offering them a choice, a way to exert control over their own fate. It was a monstrous, seductive logic, and Lian could feel its pull on the desperate people around him.
"The King asks you to die for nothing!" Ouen roared, building to his climax. "I ask you to die for something! To prove your faith! To seize your miracle! Who here has a faith strong enough to make the covenant? Who will be the first to show this city the true path?"
A heartbreaking wail came from the front of the crowd. An elderly woman, her face a mess of tears and desperation, pushed her way forward. "My grandson!" she cried, her voice thin and reedy. "He is dying! The Grey Fever, the healers can do nothing! I will pay the price! I will make the bargain!"
Ouen's face lit up with a triumphant, predatory smile. "Come, mother," he said, helping her onto the auction block. "Let all of Aethelburg bear witness to true faith."
He stood beside the weeping woman, placing a hand on her shoulder. He did not Whisper. He raised his face to the cold, grey sky and shouted for all to hear. "Oh, God of Bargains, who hears all prayers! This woman, in her love and her faith, makes the covenant! She offers her soul for the life of her grandson! Heal the boy! Accept her sacrifice!"
The crowd was utterly silent, a thousand people holding a collective breath. The woman stood, her eyes squeezed shut, tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks.
A faint, golden light, visible even in the harsh midday sun, enveloped her. She gasped, her eyes flying open, a look of ecstatic wonder on her face. "I see him…" she whispered, a beatific smile spreading across her lips. "He is well… he is sitting up… he is…"
Her words caught in her throat. The light vanished. Her smile froze, and she crumpled to the stone platform, as lifeless as a pile of discarded robes.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the wind. Then the crowd broke. A third of them screamed and fled, their faces masks of pure horror. But the other two-thirds… they did not run. They stared at the dead woman, then at Ouen, their expressions a terrifying mixture of awe, fear, and desperate, dawning hope. They had just seen a prayer answered. They had seen a miracle. They had seen power.
They fell to their knees.
Lian was frozen in place, his heart hammering against his ribs. He felt sick with horror, but he could not look away. He saw the raw, intoxicating power of Ouen's new faith, and he understood, with a chilling certainty, that it would spread like a plague.
Suddenly, the crowd stirred. A wedge of silver-inlaid armor was pushing through the throng. The Royal Guard had arrived. But as they tried to reach the auction block, the kneeling worshipers rose to their feet. They formed a human wall, a shield of fanatical bodies, protecting their new prophet. They glared at the guards, their faces no longer those of scared citizens, but of zealous converts.
It was a standoff. Lian saw the guard captain, a young, earnest man he recognized as Joric, hesitate. He saw the conflict in the soldier's eyes. His orders were to disperse crowds, but this was a congregation. To attack them would be to start a civil war right here in the forum. With a grim expression, Joric ordered his men to pull back, to contain the area but not to engage.
Lian watched as Ouen's followers reverently lifted the body of the old woman, carrying her away as if she were a saint. The High Scrutator stood victorious on the platform, the messiah of a monstrous new religion. The city was no longer just afraid. It was now at war with itself, a war between the King's defiant silence and Ouen's miraculous, deadly bargains.
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The Chronicle of the Fallen
Time Period Covered: Day 51 of the Age of Fear
• Victims of The Reaping: 0
• Victims of the Covenant: 3 (The sermon inspired a small, immediate wave of public sacrifices)
• Total Lives Lost: 3
Of Note Among the Fallen:
— An elderly woman in the Aethelburg Merchant's Forum.
— A bridge-warden at the strategic crossing of the Great River.
— Zahir, a sand-diver of the Scorpion Clan, who harvested rare minerals from beneath the sands of Zahram.