The Whispering Woods had never felt so small.
Elias ran until his lungs burned and his bare feet bled. Branches whipped his face, roots caught his ankles, but he did not stop. Behind him the alarm bells still tolled—distant now, yet every peal felt like a nail driven into his spine. The sigil on his chest throbbed in time with his heartbeat, hot and insistent, as though it were counting his steps.
They will not tire, the voice said inside him. They have been trained to hunt things like us for centuries.
"Shut up," Elias hissed through clenched teeth. He ducked under a low bough, stumbled into a shallow stream, and kept going upstream so the water would hide his scent. Or so he hoped. He had no idea if that even worked on inquisitors.
The voice—Abaddon, it had named itself once, the word tasting like ash and iron—did not sound offended. It sounded amused.
Brave words for a boy who just fed me his blood.
Elias splashed out of the stream and collapsed against the trunk of an ancient oak. His chest heaved. Rain still fell, softer here under the canopy, but cold enough to make his teeth chatter. He peeled his soaked shirt away from the wound. The sigil had spread. Thin black lines now traced outward from the broken crown like veins, reaching toward his collarbone and down his ribs. They pulsed faintly, the same rhythm as his pulse.
He pressed his palm over it. The heat flared, then settled into something almost comforting. Like a second heartbeat.
You feel it already, Abaddon murmured. Power. Purpose. The world has been lying to you your whole life, Elias Voss. I am only telling you the truth.
"I don't want your truth." Elias's voice cracked. "I want Mira to be safe. I want my mother not to wake up tomorrow and find out her son is… whatever this is."
A low chuckle rolled through his mind.
Your mother is already awake. She heard the bells. She is praying for your soul even now.
Elias squeezed his eyes shut. He could picture it—his mother kneeling beside the small hearth, hands clasped, lips moving in the same litanies the Church had drilled into every household. "Lord of Light, shield us from the shadow. Lord of Light, burn away the unclean…"
He had said those words himself a thousand times. Now they tasted like betrayal in his memory.
Dawn was coming. The sky behind the trees was turning the color of bruised steel. Elias pushed himself up. He had to keep moving. If the inquisitors caught his trail before full light, they would drag him back to the village square. They would bind him to the stake Father Aldric kept polished for just such occasions. They would read the charges—pagan vessel, demon host, enemy of God—and then they would light the fire.
He started walking again, slower now, trying to think. The woods opened eventually onto the old trade road that skirted the Whispering Hills. He stayed off the path itself, moving parallel through the underbrush.
That was when he heard the hoofbeats.
Elias dropped flat behind a fallen log. Three riders appeared around the bend—white cloaks mud-spattered, silver masks catching the first pale light. Inquisitors. Two carried crossbows slung across their backs; the third, the leader, held a long staff topped with a crystal that glowed faintly gold.
Father Aldric.
Elias's stomach lurched. He had sat in Aldric's catechism classes for years. The priest had always seemed kind in a distant, pitying way—like a man who believed he was saving souls by reminding children how easily they could be damned.
Now Aldric reined in his horse and lifted the staff. The crystal flared brighter.
"Spread out," he ordered. His voice carried the calm certainty of someone who had done this many times. "The heretic is close. The Lord has marked him. We will feel the corruption in the air."
The other two dismounted and began sweeping the treeline with short swords drawn. Elias pressed himself lower. His heart hammered so loudly he was sure they could hear it.
The sigil burned suddenly, sharp enough to make him gasp.
They sense me, Abaddon said. Or rather, they sense you. Your fear is delicious. It calls to them like blood in the water.
"Stop it," Elias whispered. "You're making it worse."
I am not doing anything. You are.
One of the inquisitors stepped closer—too close. His boot crunched on wet leaves less than ten paces from Elias's hiding place. The man paused, head tilting as though listening.
Elias held his breath.
Then the inquisitor turned away.
Relief flooded him—until he realized why.
Mira.
She stepped out from the trees on the opposite side of the road, hands raised, voice shaking but loud.
"Father Aldric! It's me—Mira Hale! Elias isn't here. He… he ran toward the river. I saw him go!"
Elias's blood turned to ice.
She was lying. For him.
Aldric swung down from his horse. The crystal on his staff pulsed once, twice.
"Mira Hale," he said slowly. "You were seen with the vessel at the pit. You helped him flee."
"No!" Mira's voice cracked. "I tried to stop him! He—he pushed me away. Said he didn't want me to get hurt. Please, Father, you know me. I've never missed a service. I swear on the Light—"
Aldric raised a hand. One of the other inquisitors moved behind her, quick and silent.
"Child," Aldric said, almost gently, "the Lord sees all lies. And He has no mercy for those who shelter darkness."
The inquisitor grabbed Mira's arms. She cried out, struggling.
Something snapped inside Elias.
He didn't think. He simply moved.
He burst from behind the log, bare feet silent on the wet earth, and threw himself at the inquisitor holding Mira. His shoulder struck the man's side like a battering ram. They went down together in a tangle of limbs and steel.
The inquisitor's sword flashed. Elias rolled, felt the blade slice across his forearm—hot pain, blood welling—but he didn't stop. He drove his knee into the man's stomach, then scrambled up and yanked Mira free.
"Run!" he shouted at her.
She didn't. She stood frozen, staring at the black lines crawling across his bare chest, at the way his wounded arm smoked where the blood touched the ground.
Aldric stepped forward, staff raised. The crystal blazed like a small sun.
"Abomination," he intoned. "In the name of the Lord of Light, I bind thee—"
Elias felt the words hit like physical blows. The sigil on his chest flared violently. Pain lanced through him, white-hot, but beneath it came something else—something cold and vast and hungry.
Enough, Abaddon said.
This time the voice was not just in Elias's head.
It rolled out of his mouth in a tone deeper than any sixteen-year-old boy should possess.
"Enough."
Black fire erupted—not from his hands this time, but from the ground itself. It surged upward in a ring around the three inquisitors, a wall of cold flame that gave no heat, only light-devouring darkness. The horses screamed and bolted. The two lesser inquisitors staggered back, shields raised, but the fire licked at their cloaks and left only ash where it touched.
Aldric stood his ground. The crystal on his staff cracked, then shattered. Golden light spilled out, clashing with the black flames. For a moment the two forces held each other in balance—light against void.
Then Abaddon laughed.
The black fire surged higher. Aldric's robes caught. He screamed—a high, unbelieving sound—and dropped to his knees as the flames consumed him from the outside in. Within seconds there was only a charred skeleton clutching the broken staff.
Silence fell. The black fire guttered out, leaving scorched earth in a perfect circle.
Mira stared at the remains. Then at Elias.
He was shaking. His arm bled freely now. The sigil had retreated somewhat, but the black veins still traced his skin like a map of ruin.
"Eli…" she whispered. "What did you do?"
He looked down at his hands. They trembled.
"I didn't," he said. His voice was his own again—small, terrified. "He did."
Mira took a step toward him, then stopped.
"You have to run," she said. "They'll send more. The whole diocese. The High Prelate himself if they have to."
Elias nodded numbly.
"I know."
He turned to go.
"Eli—wait."
He looked back.
Mira's eyes were wet, but her jaw was set.
"If you ever… if you ever come back… I'll be here. I swear it."
He wanted to tell her not to wait. That whatever he was now would only bring death to anyone who stood too close.
Instead he only nodded once.
Then he ran.
Behind him, the first rays of true dawn broke over the hills, turning the scorched circle gold.
But no light reached the place inside Elias where Abaddon waited, patient and eternal.
The hunt had only just begun.
End of Chapter 2