GRAVEHOOK

Chapter 4: Ashes Don’t Pray

The bells continued through the night.

Even deep in the mountains, the sound carried through the snow and dead trees in slow waves that made sleep impossible. Church warning bells always meant the same thing.

Either something escaped. Or someone important had died.

Draeven sat alone outside the stable with his coat open despite the cold. A small knife rested in his hand while black blood slid slowly from the cut across his forearm into the snow beneath his boots.

The veins had spread farther.

Thin black lines twisted beneath the skin from his wrist almost to his shoulder now, pulsing faintly whenever pain moved through them.

He pressed heated metal against the wound. The flesh hissed. No reaction. He felt almost nothing anymore.

“That is a terrible sign.”

Malgraves stepped out of the stable carrying two steaming cups. The priest handed one over carefully before sitting beside him against the frozen fence.

Draeven glanced at the drink.

“What is it?”

“Something pretending to be tea.”

“Smells like boiled dirt.”

“That means it’s medicinal.”

Draeven drank it anyway. The warmth helped slightly.

For several moments neither man spoke while snow drifted quietly around them. Inside the stable, Oric finally slept after hours of refusing to close his eyes.

Malgraves stared out toward the dark forest.

“I know what M-17 means.”

Draeven looked at him.

The priest rubbed tired fingers against his jaw before continuing.

“Years ago the church divided bloodline experiments into categories. M-series subjects were failed transformation trials.”

“Transformation into what?”

“That depended on the experiment.”

Draeven’s expression hardened.

“You knew about this the entire time.”

“I knew rumors. Fragments.” Malgraves shook his head. “Not this.”

The priest looked genuinely disturbed now.

That worried Draeven more than the creature itself.

“M-17 survived corruption,” Malgraves continued quietly. “According to those records, no subject should have lived after full exposure.”

“But it did.”

“Yes.”

“And now it’s loose.”

The old priest stared down into his cup.

“Not loose,” he said carefully. “Directed.”

Draeven understood immediately.

Sylveth.

Every trail led back to her. But something still felt wrong. The creature in the stable had recognized him. Not by sight.

By blood.

The same way the night creature beneath the cathedral had.

As though something connected them. Mournhook shifted faintly against his back. Because something does. He ignored the whisper.

Again.

“Why would the church create things like this?” Oric asked from the stable doorway.

Neither man had heard him wake.

The boy looked exhausted beneath the lantern light. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes while dried blood still stained one sleeve from earlier.

Malgraves hesitated. Draeven answered first.

“To control what they feared.”

Oric frowned.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It never does at the start.”

The boy stepped outside slowly.

“You really think the church made those things?”

Draeven studied him quietly for a moment. Most people would already be running south after what happened in the stable.

Oric stayed.

Fear still lived in his face, but something stronger sat underneath it now.

Anger.

“My sister worked in the cathedral kitchens in Brașov before she disappeared,” Oric said. “One day church soldiers came for her. Said she was selected for purification.”

Malgraves closed his eyes briefly. The boy continued.

“My father believed them.” His voice tightened. “He thanked them.”

Draeven saw it then. Not guilt. Hatred.

“How long after they took her did she return?”

“Three weeks.”

Too long for ordinary infection. Too organized for random mutation. Draeven rose slowly to his feet.

“We leave now.”

Malgraves blinked at him.

“In the middle of the night?”

“The bells aren’t for monsters.”

The priest understood immediately.

“They’re hunting witnesses.”

Draeven walked toward the horses. Inside the stable, M-17’s ashes still stained the broken floorboards black.

Something about them bothered him. He crouched beside the remains carefully. The ash moved. Not from wind.

Tiny black strands beneath the soot slowly pulled together like threads searching for each other.

Still alive.

Draeven’s eyes narrowed. Without hesitation he drove holy fire through his gauntlet directly into the floor.

Blue-white flame exploded outward across the ashes.

The stable shook violently. Pain tore through his chest instantly.

The curse reacted hard this time.

Blood spilled from his nose onto the floorboards while the veins beneath his skin spread another inch across his neck.

Oric stared.

“What happened to you?”

Draeven wiped the blood away before answering.

“Nothing useful.”

But his hands had started shaking. That was new. Malgraves noticed immediately.

“You’re overusing the fire.”

“The ash was moving.”

“I saw it.”

“Then you know why.”

The priest looked unconvinced but said nothing else. They left the checkpoint less than twenty minutes later.

Snowstorms swallowed the mountain road almost immediately. Visibility dropped low enough that only the lantern hanging from Malgraves’ saddle kept them moving forward through the dark.

Hours passed in silence except for wind and hooves against ice.

Then Draeven saw the fire. Far below the cliffs. A village burned in the valley beneath them.

Oric sat upright instantly.

“That’s Blackwater.”

The boy’s voice cracked. Draeven urged his horse forward.

By the time they reached the outskirts near dawn, the village was already dead.

Bodies littered the frozen streets.

Some burned. Some torn apart. Some kneeling where they died as though praying.

Smoke drifted between houses while church banners flapped from broken rooftops overhead.

Malgraves dismounted slowly.

“This wasn’t monsters.”

Draeven already knew. The wounds were wrong again.

Too clean. Too deliberate. Executions.

Oric suddenly stopped walking near the village well. A woman’s body hung above it by iron chains wrapped around her wrists.

His mother.

The boy stared silently for several seconds before approaching.

Draeven followed carefully. Words had been carved across the woman’s chest.

HERESY BREEDS CORRUPTION.

Church punishment. Oric’s face went empty. No tears. No shock. Just emptiness.

Malgraves muttered another prayer under his breath. Then they heard coughing nearby. All three turned immediately.

An old man crawled weakly from beneath a collapsed cart near the road. Blood covered his beard and one leg bent wrong beneath him.

“Please…” he rasped.

Draeven reached him first.

“What happened here?”

The old man grabbed his coat desperately.

“They came at night. Church soldiers.” His breathing shook violently. “They took everyone touched by the sickness.”

“Sickness?”

“The smiling ones.”

M-17.

“How many?”

“Almost thirty.”

Malgraves looked horrified.

“Dear God…”

The old man’s eyes shifted toward Draeven’s face.

Toward the black veins creeping above his collar.

Fear appeared instantly.

“You…”

Draeven held his gaze steadily.

“What did they take?”

The old man swallowed hard.

“Children.”

The word settled heavily between them.

“Why children?” Oric demanded.

The old man looked toward the mountains behind the village.

“They said the monastery needed fresh blood.”

Silence followed. Even the wind seemed quieter now. Then the old man spoke again.

“There was another hunter with them.”

Draeven’s expression changed slightly.

“What hunter?”

“Tall man. Silver armor beneath black cloth.” The old man coughed blood into the snow. “The soldiers called him Executioner.”

Severin Thorne.

Malgraves looked stunned.

“The church sent an executioner this far north?”

Draeven’s eyes remained fixed on the burning village. No. Not sent. Positioned. Everything suddenly connected too cleanly.

The crypt. The experiments. M-17. Blackwater Monastery.

This had been operating for years. And now the church was erasing evidence. Mournhook whispered softly. You are finally seeing the shape of the cage.

Draeven looked toward the distant mountains where the monastery waited somewhere beyond the storm.

Then the dying old man grabbed his sleeve weakly.

“There’s something else,” he whispered. “The soldiers weren’t afraid of the children.”

His breathing slowed.

“They were afraid of what was already waiting inside the monastery.”

The old man’s hand finally slipped loose from Draeven’s coat.

Dead.

Oric looked toward the mountains with pale eyes.

“What could scare church executioners?”

Draeven stared into the storm ahead.

Then Mournhook answered before he could.

“Me.”