The incense hung heavy in the confessional, cloying the air with saccharine piety that grated against Harlow's nerves. The carved oak box felt more like a coffin than a sanctuary, its shadows swallowing the meager sliver of candlelight that flickered on the bishop's gaunt face.
Bishop Ambrose was all angles and whispers, his robes a cascade of black satin that swallowed him whole. His thin lips, pale as bone China, curled into a faint, predatory smile as Harlow knelt before the grate.
"Forgive me father for I have sinned." Harlow started.
Silence…
"I believe Gerry briefed you, father?" He continued…
Silence…
Harlow bit his lip until he began bleeding. He didn't expect to be called in so fast.
But news spread fast in Araya, the front pages of newspapers peddled tales of terrorist attacks on an apartment building in West Brook.
The pantheon had stupidly brought the entire building to the ground. Missing train carriages and a Resistance stronghold right under the cult's nose.
It had been a long and messy few days… The church of Death didn't take lightly the ones causing and cleaning up such messes.
It hasn't even been a year since they convinced the Aristocrat faction to let them operate in Araya in exchange for some valuables.
They were granted permission but under strict conditions, and almost everything that transpired in the last 3 days had gone against those conditions.
The silence lingered, as the cold air drafted through the candle-lit chapel.
"Lost them, have you, child?" The bishop's voice was a dry rasp, like parchment scraping against stone.
Harlow clenched his fists, his fingernails biting into his palms. Shame gnawed at him, a viper coiling in his gut. "They got the jump on us, Your Grace. A hidden tunnel beneath the West Brook Flats. Men were sent into the Underbelly after the dead were disposed of, but…"
His voice trailed off. The Underbelly, that festering maw beneath the polished veneer of the city held terrors and his blade had many encounters with them.
However, the resistance managed to navigate the labyrinth, and escape still puzzled him. Shadows writhed with unholy whispers and walked those depths, and things with more limbs than teeth clawed at the edges of sanity.
Ambrose leaned forward, his eyes glinting like chips of obsidian in the dim light.
He looked at the mucus that was slowly coming out of Harlow's scars and he didn't seem to be disgusted by it.
"Excuses, Harlow? I do not tolerate excuses. Results boy results, and your results, let's say, fall short." Ambrose spoke.
Harlow's pride bristled; a caged beast desperate for escape.
"I did as you asked, Your Grace. The factory was cleared and at great cost"
Silence….
"According to Gerry's report, you left a mess… losing two boys that worked in the factory, one of which, if not the two of them, might be with the blueprints that Kenneth keeps on raving for." The bishop said through his teeth, condescension laced in every word he spat at Harlow.
"Were you so blinded by the power of the artifacts you possess that you have forgotten that they're not omnipotent!?" Ambrose added.
"True I underestimated the situation father, but I had my hands full. Sir Kenneth lied by not informing the church about the existence of those blueprints and..." Harlow trailed off. He could hear himself whine, complain, and make excuses like a child, it disgusted him.
"There was no way of knowing those fanatics who would gladly spill their blood for their twisted cause and go to such great lengths to conceal their escape." Harlow continued more calmly.
He had stopped by Westbrook and accessed the scene, a part of him wished he had been there, it would have been less messy, less chaotic, more controlled.
Guns for Harlow, are such a loud way to do battle. Blades were more his speed and more intimate. He would have loved to bathe in the blood of the resistance mainly because of how eager they seemed to want to die. Fighting a hopeless battle.
Finding out about the tunnels later made him even more angry. They laid their life down as a diversion. That disgusted him, weak humans with noble grand goals irritated and disgusted him.
"Fanatics," Ambrose scoffed, the sound like dead leaves crunching underfoot. "Convenient, isn't it? A scapegoat for your incompetence. Tell me, Harlow, are you so easily spooked by the heretics with a few guns? Or perhaps…"
He paused, his voice dropping to a sibilant whisper, "I put too much faith and resources into you, looks like your human limitations are catching up with you."
A flicker of ice slithered down Harlow's spine. He knew the rumors that dogged him, whispering accusations of how the artifacts in his care were too much for him to handle. How he didn't deserve his station because he only joined the church as a teenager, rising in ranks faster than any pure blood in the church of death. His mind, honed by years of street smarts, spun like a roulette wheel, searching for a defense.
"Never, Your Grace! I am still your sharpest and deadliest blade, use me." His voice cracked, barely a whisper in the oppressive silence. The air grew thick, the incense cloying like blood in his throat.
Ambrose chuckled, a dry mirthless sound that echoed off the damp stone walls. "Then prove it, Harlow. Find them, bring them back to me, broken and kneeling. Make them confess their sins, not in some dank tunnel, but before the entire congregation. Let their blood be a testament to your faith, an offering to Thanatos showing him the fire that burns within you."
Harlow bowed his head, a cold sweat clinging to his back. He was blamed for things he wasn't even responsible for, how was he to know that the battle fought in West Brook was only a diversion from the Resistance when he wasn't even present for the battle?
The bishop's words were a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down. Failure was not an option, not here, not within these shadowed walls.
"As you command, Your Grace," He rasped, the words tasting like ashes in his mouth.
"Stand by, a healing ritual will be held in a short while, although it wouldn't do much for your soul, it will help close those scars and dye your skin proper, participate."
As Harlow rose from his knees, the bishop's voice followed him, cold and slithering as a serpent. "Remember, Harlow, faith demands sacrifice. Are you willing to give yours?"
Harlow didn't dare turn back. He stalked out of the confessional, leaving the suffocating darkness behind.
The weight of the bishop's words pressed down on him; a stone tablet etched with an unavoidable task. His scars had barely healed.
He had already given so much over the years, he was so close to an artifact capable of divine rejuvenation, a clean slate… his soul, cleansed of most of the consequences of reckless artifact usage to get ahead.
He didn't have much time. He looked at his greenish reflection in a puddle on the cobblestone street just outside the chapel.
He had to find those, not just for the bishop, but for himself. To prove his loyalty, to exercise the whispers of doubt that coiled within him, and also, to survive.
Harlow had a theory about Matthew and Theodore and how they were able to remain unaffected by his magic and the artifact.
Also, he had to figure out how the Resistance gathered the resources for such a base deep in the heart of Araya, this was by contract, and although temporary, the church of death's territory someone had to answer for this gross negligence.
He knew that as much as he hated stirring things up, he had no choice…
Outside forces were at play and he was excited to be the hand of death once again.
The city sprawled before him, a labyrinth of glittering towers and festering alleys, a canvas painted in shades of decay and soot. Somewhere in this continent, Matthew and Theodore hid, their laughter echoing in the shadows, mocking his failure.
He wouldn't fail again. He couldn't. This wasn't just about proving his loyalty. It was about redemption, about carving his own path through the tangled mess of faith and fear that choked his existence.
He would hunt them down, not for the bishop, not for the church, but for himself. And when he finds them, their blood would not be an offering to a celestial fire, but a crimson testament to his struggle, his desperate prayer for survival in a world consumed by darkness.
Soon, everyone in his way would echo with the song of his blade, and their loved ones would learn the true meaning of grief.
For Harlow, the hunt had just begun…
A few minutes after Harlow left, Gerry appeared beside the bishop.
"Was it right to blame him for what he was unaware of?" Gerry questioned. He didn't like the way the bishop used his name to lie.
"Are you questioning my decisions or choice of words?" Ambrose responded, unperturbed by Gerry's feelings.
"I… forgive me, father," Gerry answered, keeping his thoughts to himself.
"Join Harlow for the healing ritual, there's much work to be done, child."
"As you command, father." Gerry bowed and dismissed himself.