Chapter 5: Thorns Among the Faithful
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The summons came at dawn.
Not that anyone could tell the time in the hive — the light never changed, the sky never moved. It was just more noise. More static.
Elias had been waiting.
He hadn't slept since his return from the underhive. The System still buzzed faintly in his spine, like a wire half-connected, vibrating every time his thoughts got too loud.
So when the courier servitor arrived at his barracks cell — holding a data-slate embossed with a golden aquila and sealed with red wax — he was already awake, sitting on the edge of the bunk, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his knife like a rosary.
"REPORT TO SUB-LEVEL 11. ESCORT DETAIL. CODE: ECC-TRINITY-10. BY ORDER OF COMMISSAR VAEL."
The slate didn't say what he'd be escorting.
But the wax seal was Ecclesiarchy.
And that meant it would reek of faith.
He met Fira outside the drop-lift chamber, both of them armed, both of them silent.
She looked him up and down.
"You're limping."
"Less than yesterday."
"Still limping."
He gave her a tired smile. "Don't worry. I'll grow something new if the leg falls off."
She didn't laugh.
Instead, she handed him a fresh rebreather.
"Clean filter. You'll want it. Serek likes his incense."
Elias blinked. "You've met him?"
"Once."
"What's he like?"
Fira adjusted her coat, eyes forward.
"Smiles too easily. Talks like his voice has weight. You'll know what I mean."
The lift opened with a rattle.
Inside stood Father Serek.
He was tall and slender, with flawless white robes wrapped around gilded body armor. His face was narrow, eyes slightly too wide, teeth perfectly white. He carried a staff carved with scripture and draped in red velvet.
He looked like a saint from a stained-glass window.
But his aura was… sterile.
Clean in a way nothing should be in the hive.
Too polished.
Too rehearsed.
"Ahhh," Serek said, his voice flowing like warm oil. "The honored escort. The lion plucked from fire."
He stepped forward and extended a hand to Elias.
Elias didn't take it.
"Mercer," he said simply.
The priest chuckled, not offended in the slightest.
"So they told me. The Unrecorded. The Exception. The one who fights without doctrine. I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Elias glanced at Fira.
She said nothing.
Serek turned, gesturing toward the hallway behind him.
"I've been called to re-sanctify the Tarsis Theta shrine sector. After the purge, the zone still... echoes."
"Purge?" Elias asked.
"Chaos incursion. Small. Dirty. Already dealt with."
"Then why do you need an escort?"
Serek smiled again — wider this time.
"Because not all rot dies when you cut it down."
They walked.
Elias noted the others in the retinue.
Three guardsmen — clean armor, barely scratched, moving like parade soldiers. One acolyte, blindfolded, carrying a censer that belched gold smoke with every step. And a servo-skull that whispered litanies in binary High Gothic as it hovered behind the priest's head.
Everyone else was silent.
Only the priest spoke.
As they neared the transit platform, Serek leaned closer to Elias.
"You've seen what the Warp can do. But have you seen what faith can undo?"
Elias didn't answer.
Serek continued, more softly.
"Devotion can cauterize. Purity can cure. The body forgets. But the soul—ah, the soul remembers."
He tapped the side of his head with one long finger.
"It needs to be scrubbed."
Elias glanced at the others in the squad.
They didn't flinch.
They didn't even seem to hear him.
Like they were props.
No… like they were already burned out.
The transit doors hissed open.
A tram waited — sleek, ceremonial, painted in bone-white and gold, draped in red silks covered with scripture.
The side read:
"FLESH MAY FAIL — FAITH MUST NOT."
Elias stepped on last.
As the doors closed, he looked once over his shoulder at Fira.
She didn't wave.
She just said, quietly:
"Don't let him purify you."
[END OF PART 1]