Chapter 1: The Smell of Bread

I wake to the icy sensation of water leaking from the ceiling and dripping onto the scar on my face. The chains bind me with relentless firmness, as they had decided while I was sleeping to tighten their grip even further, digging deep into my very soul. Today, more than on other days, there is a strong sense of instability, as if their weight were hanging from my throat.

The dungeon walls are of bare rock, and the primordial runes carved into them shed a fine layer of dust whenever I take a deep breath. Some of the designs have even lost part of their shape. If they keep neglecting their maintenance, this cell will soon no longer be able to contain my mana.

Silence is the only companion I have around here.

“Two hundred and fourteen...” I let my faint voice slip out through clenched teeth, pulling myself back to reality.

Counting the cracks in the wall became a habit I didn’t choose. A ritual created solely to maintain some order within a mind that would otherwise drift back on its own to places I’d rather not visit. Counting them is like counting the days. Each crack is a reminder of an existence left behind.

"God does not impose upon you a trial greater than you can bear," I pray softly.

The first time I chanted that hymn, I was eleven years old, kneeling in a chapel that smelled of melted wax. I have returned to this prayer almost every night since. Even on those nights I would rather forget.

It’s strange how a phrase can keep sounding so truthful in my mouth, long after it has ceased to be true anywhere else.

I close my eyes again, and for a moment, I am no longer here. I remember another place, other lives. A small, hungry child with eyes that shone like stars in the night sky. I see him, and it feels as though he were back here, trapped with me amidst these chains. I catch a familiar scent, as familiar as it is distant. The smell of...

"Bread?" I whisper, watching a pale, thin hand offer me something between the bars.

Here, where the light doesn't reach and hope seems to have died long ago, that scent is the only living thing in the air.

"It was a real hassle getting it for you. I think you'd better eat it while it's fresh." A soft voice, warm as sunlight, encourages me to follow my instincts.

I wonder if I should swallow that. Why? Here, where the divine has abandoned me, why would she come? No one, save for the Guards of the Most Holy and my former companions, should know I exist in this corner of the world. No one should risk coming here.

"Is it hard?" she insists, breaking off a piece of the bread. I watch as she lifts it to her mouth, observing for the first time the face of the person before me: a brown-eyed nun, with the stature of someone who hadn't been properly fed during childhood. "See? I didn't poison it."

"That's not what I thought."

"Then why didn't you eat?"

"I was savoring the scent first," I reply, and she responds with a gentle laugh. It is like the sound of her soft laughter makes the weight of the chains begin to lift, as if allowing me to breathe a little easier.

I put my thoughts aside for today and, like an animal, swallow a bit of that hope.

The arrival of the owner of that voice becomes a new ritual, as steadfast as counting the cracks. She starts to sneak in almost every day, stealthily like a mouse, bringing what she can steal from her own hunger to appease mine.

"I heard you were the Paladins' vice captain..." she says softly as she slides a bit more food through the bars. "I mean... I don't usually listen to that kind of talk. I don't go eavesdropping at doors. It's just... people mention it, you know? Your body must be truly extraordinary to withstand so much time in a place as horrible as this."

The mention of my former life brings back memories I would rather leave buried. I was skilled with the sword. I was a perfect exorcist. Always right, always victorious, always obedient. Today, I am merely what remains. The shell of a man who no longer exists. The one who became a monster in the eyes of others.

The world's number one enemy.

"You should just let me die," I grumble.

"I heard the divine call to help you," she replies, with a small but firm smile. "And I never fail to do what I believe is right."

The mention of the faith unsettles me more than I’d like to admit. I can’t let that happen again. I can’t allow it to come and take me back to the life I was starting to accept leaving behind.

That’s when I hear footsteps. The cold wind drags the sounds of metal against the stone.

A guard was approaching.

"You need to get out of here now," I hiss, tense.

She gathers her things quickly but isn't fast enough. The guard has already seen her.

"What do you think you're doing here?" he demands, and the way his hand reaches for the hilt of his sword tells me everything I need to know about the intent behind it.

My heart beats faster. Exactly like that day.

The bloody scene comes flooding back to me. That family home, the blood on the wooden floor, the smell of smoke that would stay with me forever. And the voice of my former captain, clipped and spoken through gritted teeth:

"Only the dead will know paradise, Elias."

The hatred inside me, which I had been keeping bottled up for weeks, breaks free.

That nun didn't know. But I had just decided to protect a stranger for the second time in my life.

"Woman, grab onto that door right now," I order, without taking my eyes off the guard.

She obeys without asking twice.

In a split second, I feel the vortex open in my chest before I can see it. Cold, then hot, and finally hollow, like a gimlet drilling into bone. A coin-sized hole forms at the center of my sternum and begins to spin.

The bars groan first. The straight metal bends like fabric, folding toward the void, and the sound, a high-pitched, almost human screech, is the worst melody I have ever heard. Like a desperate scream coming from hell.

The vortex continues, now sucking in the chains and dragging them across the stone floor like iron snakes, pulling them toward that dark point, which has already grown from the size of a coin to the size of a fist. It keeps swallowing everything in its path until it reaches the guard.

I don’t look at his face while it happens. Not because I can’t. But because I have no right to. I am eliminating my opponent before he can even raise his sword. A man who, minutes ago, still had a name and a uniform. Perhaps a family, waiting somewhere as gray as this place.

One second. That’s all it takes.

The vortex pulls what remains of the guard into that black hole, and then, just as quickly as it opened, I close it. I feel the strain in my throat, an inside-out tug, like swallowing in reverse.

Silence settles over the cell once more. My chest aches in a way the chains never could.

"Are you okay?" the nun asks, still holding the door and frightened, yet more concerned about me than herself.

"GET OUT, NOW!" I shout, more to myself than to her.

"I promise I'll come back," she retorts, with sad yet determined eyes, before disappearing down the hallway.

I stand there in that impossible setting, looking at the place where she had been and confirming what I had long suspected.

The only thing keeping me chained to that cell was myself.