Chapter 4: Merit

I arrived at the site with my entourage the day after the attack. The smell of iron and ash still hung in the air. I counted seven guards' bodies laid out under tarps, and another eight wounded men gathered in a makeshift tent, being treated by a field medic who clearly hadn't slept in days. The rest of the party, five men, according to the records, had deserted or fled.

Was what happened here the result merely of brute force or of carelessness? The distinction matters. It will determine how many of these men still have a place in the combat ranks after this.

One of the survivors, a thin corporal named Ness, knelt when he saw me get off my horse. The state seal engraved on his breastplate was dented, one side deeper than the other. His low-cost armor was probably reused from a previous corporal, indicating that the actual condition of his unit was not the best.

"Azriel..." the corporal began, then corrected himself, his voice still trembling. "I mean, Captain Ben Ophir. We tried to contain..."

"You didn't even try." The disrespect shown toward my new rank irritated me. "The Guard of the Most Holy exists for custody and transport, Ness. You should have been trained to contain a coordinated ambush, but apparently, your people are useless enough to create extra work for the Paladins."

He was stunned, which struck me as odd. I had merely stated the truth about the hierarchy he was already familiar with. Paladins exist to locate and neutralize threats of Sin before they become irreversible. The Guard exists to maintain day-to-day order: to escort, arrest, and keep watch. A job just as necessary, only on a smaller scale. There was no excuse for their incompetence in keeping a prisoner confined.

I surveyed the rest of the scene alone. Hoofprints indicated at least eleven riders approaching from the north. The remains of a sacred mantle, the kind used to contain the unstable mana of high-risk prisoners, lay in tatters, cast aside like trash. That bothered me more than the bodies. It had taken six months for that fabric to be stitched and blessed by at least seventeen priests. Tearing it up like a common rag was a level of disrespect that went beyond the crime itself.

In the past, Elias would never have allowed this under his command.

But he was no longer the man I had known before.

Images of that moonless night last month came back to my memory.

We were two vice-captains summoned for the same mission. I came from the south, while he had already been in the field for weeks. Since our training days, Elias Aster had been the Order’s most skilled paladin. Any instructor would confirm that without hesitation. No other paladin of our generation came close to his level. That was never a point of contention between us; it was simply an established fact, like a man’s height or the range of a bow. I, on the other hand, was always more consistent.

I had left the campsite to take a bath and get some fresh air. The scene I found upon my return was devastating.

The tents, the horses, the land, the surrounding trees. Everything had vanished, as if a great monster had swallowed them whole. I tried to understand what had happened, but there were no bodies to identify.

On his knees, clutching his sword, Elias was the only one left. The seal was there too, carved into the hilt of the blade he still held. The same symbol we all bear, in one way or another.

"What happened here?" I ran up to Elias and shouted, grabbing his shoulder.

Elias remained kneeling, his hands still open beneath the sword, gazing at them as if he did not recognize what they had just done.

"I... I killed the captain, Azriel. I killed them all."

So that was it. Not only the captain but the entire squad were already dead. Not at the hands of any Sin we were hunting, but at Elias’s, in a moment when something within him opened up in a way no manual of the Order had ever cataloged.

He didn't resist when I handcuffed him. I double-checked the fit of the cuffs, just as I would with any high-risk prisoner. Not out of distrust, but because a botched procedure is a useless one, no matter who is on the other end. He stood there, looking at me, waiting, almost pleading, for someone to finally decide for him what to do with what he had become.

With no other options, I hid him in the nearest sanctuary, a small order of nuns, under the care of the Guards of the Most Holy. Then I set off for the official outpost to report what had happened.

That is what really took place.

But a story like that serves no one.

The Church of Apex needed a victory, not a tragedy involving a broken man being gently handcuffed. The Paladins needed a new captain who appeared to have earned the position, rather than one who had inherited it by accident.

What my official report came to state is that I subdued the Enemy of the World in direct combat, that I contained his heresy with superior discipline, and that the Church could trust me to lead from then on.

Technically, none of that is a lie. I handcuffed him. I restrained him. I simply adjusted the narrative the way I would adjust the posture of a poorly formed recruit, correcting what needed to be corrected so the structure would remain standing.

I walked back to the tent pitched nearby by the Guard of the Most Holy. It was made of unadorned grey canvas, with the seal of the Sacred State of Elyon stitched above the entrance and the familiar motto just below: Vices extinguished, long live the Balance. Words I have heard since before I even learned to read them myself.

A messenger from the Council of Bishops was already waiting for me inside, wrapped in a cloak that still smelled of incense.

"Captain ben Ophir." He bowed lower than protocol required and hesitated for a moment before raising his eyes again. "The Congress has reviewed the incident. Your authorization has been expanded."

"Define expanded."

"You now have the right to unrestricted tracking to identify any of the fugitive's allies and report directly to the Church, without intermediaries."

He paused, choosing his next words with care.

"The Eighth Sin is now a top priority for the Holy State, Captain. This includes investigating rumors previously dismissed as peasant superstition. There is recurring mention, in the northern provinces, of an isolated valley that deserters call the Promised Land."

"That's just a fairytale."

"The Eighth Sin was, too." He didn't look directly at me as he spoke. Few do, ever since the promotion. "So the Congress prefers to confirm new rumors in person now."

I accepted the papers without rereading the entire contents. There was no need. I knew exactly what it meant. The signet sealing the document bore the same coat of arms I recognize on every surface that matters on this continent.

I also knew, though I didn’t tell the messenger, as it was none of his business, that accepting this mission brought me closer, at last, to an evaluation I had been putting off for months.

The Church of Apex reserves an ancient rite for paladins whose loyalty no longer needs to be tested. I did not ask when my turn would come. To ask would betray impatience, and impatience is a form of doubt.

After the messenger left, I remained alone in the tent, gazing at the seal of Elyon stitched onto the canvas.

"Elias Aster..."

His name slipped from my lips automatically.

Aster. The surname given to the orphans by the Church because it teaches that every star exists to point the way to this country, Elyon. In other words, they belong to the Holy State.

But I do not serve the bishops in the Congress. I do not serve the people who compose it, nor those who obey it. I serve what that seal symbolizes, the only thing on this continent that has not changed its form in five hundred years.

People are going to call this a manhunt. I’ve already heard the soldiers whisper that word when they think I’m not listening.

It isn’t.

Elias was the best of us, the example every recruit was instructed to emulate. What happened to him wasn't a choice. It was a structural failure, a blind spot no one identified in time, not even me.

And that is why I knew he had to be made an example of.

I will find him again. And exterminate the evil he represents.