Chapter 2: Found you!

"Don't look at him unless you want to feel the wrath of God."

The older guard’s voice cuts through the heavy cloth covering the iron cage where I’ve been placed, and his companion murmurs words too low for me to understand, yet loud enough to convey the fear steeped within them. A paladin learns to judge a person by the texture of their words. I recognize these patterns because I once taught younger recruits to understand them, too.

The carriage wheels creak over the uneven stone road, and I count the clatter just as I was trained, gauging the distance by the time between one creak and the next. My chains are new, thicker than those from my previous cell. The fabric covering the bars allows only a sliver of light to pass through, betraying the moonlight. It is no ordinary piece of coarse cloth. It's a sacred mantle, embroidered from end to end with inscriptions I recognize, even though I cannot read them in the dark. They are the same symbols of containment carved into the walls of my old dungeon.

I find myself counting the stitches, seven per inch, double the standard I used to inspect on field seals before every mission. Someone decided that iron alone was no longer enough for me.

I am being taken to an official prison now. The cell where I was held until yesterday was merely the dungeon of a roadside church, the one closest to the camp where I was captured. I keep wondering how many cracks in the wall there will be in the new prison.

The transport moves forward at a pace similar to the march I undertook a few months ago, back when I still wore the grey and silver uniform of the Paladins. I remember a child guiding my squad along a path through dead trees to the house where evil had to be exterminated.

That was how the Church explained it: whoever bears a perversion too great for the soul to sustain becomes a sin. Cruel anomalies that must be exterminated by the power of God. The body rots from within until it becomes a living corpse. And it falls to us paladins, exorcists, and instruments of God’s will to find these people and free them from their own rot.

The carriage jolts violently as it hits a pothole in the road. The guard to my right mutters a profanity. Something outside bangs against the wooden side. A branch, perhaps, or an animal startled by our passing. No one pays it any mind.

I was good at what I did. My superiors liked me for it. Efficient, precise, always coming back alive, and always with the mission accomplished. My comrades liked me less. A man who never hesitates is uncomfortable to have around. He makes others aware of the hesitation of their own.

My memory goes back to that day. I did my part, as usual. I went in, found what needed to be found, and did what needed to be done. I left once the Sin had been annihilated. When we finished the job, a special team designated by the captain would stay behind to carry out what they called "cleanup." I never asked exactly what that meant. It wasn't part of my role. My job was to execute and move on. That was how I was taught, and that was how I learned to sleep at night.

Yet, that day, as I rode back to camp, the image of the child who had guided us wouldn't leave my mind. Her bare, calloused feet, accustomed to walking faster than her age should have required. Ribs visible beneath clothing far too thin for the season's chill. Sunken eyes.

I knew that face. Before the Church found me on some random street and decided my heavy mana was worth something, it was the same as mine.

I came back alone. I shouldn't have come back.

The house still smelled of fresh, rising smoke when I arrived. I found the bodies before I found any explanation for them. The father. An older brother, whose existence I hadn't even known of, until I saw him sprawled by the back door, his hands still raised as if he had tried to shield himself from an attack. The mother, her clothes torn in a way that the violence of a sword alone could not explain.

And I saw the child's body, huddled behind a broken barrel, looking at me with the same sunken eyes from hours before. Now devoid of any light.

I don't remember deciding to return to the camp after that. I only remember being back, fists clenched, chest aching inside, and the scene of destruction, like the aftermath of a tornado, all too well.

The sacred texts foretold that one day, much like other aberrations born of human blasphemy that the Church strove to eradicate, the Eighth Sin would be born. Greater than all the others: the Enemy of the World. And only the return of the true Messiah could stop it.

And because I believed in it so strongly, I didn't doubt when I became the fulfillment of that prophecy.

The carriage brakes violently. Something heavy slams against the side.

"It's an ambush!"

The world around me becomes a chaotic blur of weapons and shouts. I hear the clash of metal against metal. The cloth covering the cage shakes from an impact, an arrow, perhaps, and for a split second, through the gap between the bars, I glimpse shadows moving too fast for me to identify who they are.

I try to calm myself down by counting my heartbeats. The body usually decides faster than the mind, but I don't want to deal with the consequences of losing control today.

I notice all the guards around me have run off towards the fight. I am alone in the cage, listening to the chaos outside, unable to do anything but wait to see what kind of outcome this day has in store for me.

And then the fabric is torn away.

The light of the full moon and the torches floods in all at once, too intense after so much darkness. Before my eyes can fully process the scene, a pale, slender hand has already opened my cage and is outstretched towards me. 

Long ago, I learned to gauge the intent behind a hand by the angle of the wrist. This one is not poised to strike or harm me. Instead, like a divine calling, it offers a salvation I do not deserve.

"Found you!" she says, smiling as if she had just won a game, not run into an armed ambush.

In my prayers, I begged that face would never meet mine again.

Yet, once more, reality struck me with the truth. 

He was no longer listening to my pleas.

And then I decided to hold the hand of that nun whose voice I had not expected to hear.