Path of the Forsaken Sigil

Chapter 36

The journey was brutal. Bruce was tossed and turned inside the veil. His burned arm throbbed with every sudden movement. His lungs burned for air. He coughed violently, spitting up black ash and blood. 

He was angry at the Seraph for taking him away. He was angry at Lady Hestia. He was angry at High Inquisitor Bontus. 

But most of all, he was angry at himself. He was angry that he was too weak to eat the holy fire. He was angry that his mother had to save him. 

"I will never be weak again," Bruce promised himself in the dark. He clenched his good hand into a tight fist. "Never again."

After what felt like hours, but was really only a few minutes, the intense pressure suddenly vanished. 

BOOM!

A massive explosion of dirt, rocks, and gray ash erupted on the surface of the earth. 

Bruce was forcefully ejected from the ground. He flew through the air, completely covered in thick, dark soot. He crashed hard onto a surface of dry, freezing dirt. He rolled a few times before finally coming to a stop on his back. 

The Ashen Veil dissolved into mist. The Seraph materialized next to him, falling to one knee. The giant angel was completely exhausted, its silver mask lowered toward the ground. 

Bruce gasped for air. He sucked in a massive breath, filling his burning lungs. 

But the air he breathed was terrible. It tasted like poison. It tasted like old sulfur, rotten wood, and bitter cold. He immediately started coughing, hacking up the toxic air. 

Bruce slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He looked around. 

He was not inside the city of Oakhaven anymore. He was not in a lush forest or a green field. 

He was sitting in the middle of a nightmare. 

The sky above him was not blue or black. It was a swirling, bruised purple, completely choked with thick, heavy gray clouds. There was no sun. There were no stars. 

The ground beneath him was dead. It was made of cracked, gray mud and sharp, black rocks. There was no grass. The only trees were twisted, dead black trunks that looked like the skeletal fingers of buried giants reaching for the sky. 

A fierce, howling wind blew across the flat landscape. The wind carried a thick, gray fog of toxic ash. The ash stuck to Bruce’s sweaty skin, stinging his fresh burns. The temperature was freezing, biting through his torn, thin shirt like icy teeth. 

"Where are we?" Bruce croaked, his throat dry and painful. 

The Ashen Seraph slowly stood up. The angel looked out into the swirling gray fog. 

"We are exactly where the Matriarch ordered you to be thrown, Master," the Seraph replied softly. "We have surfaced a mile outside the northern walls of Oakhaven. We are in the Gray Wastes."

Bruce shivered as the freezing wind hit him. 

The Gray Wastes. It was the most dangerous, desolate place in the entire kingdom. It was a massive wasteland filled with toxic fog, poisonous swamps, and roaming, mutated monsters that even the Inquisitors were afraid to hunt. It was a place of exile. It was a place where people were sent to die and be forgotten. 

His mother had told him to come here. “Hide in the toxic fog where the light cannot follow you.”

Bruce slowly turned around. 

Far in the distance, cutting through the gray fog, he could see the massive, towering stone walls of Oakhaven. The city looked beautiful from far away. He could see the bright, glowing lights of the Iron-Heart Estate sitting on top of the hill. He could see the massive, golden beacon of light shooting into the sky from the center of the city, cast by the frantic Inquisitors searching for him. 

That city was his home. It was the only place he had ever known. And it was full of monsters wearing silk robes and holy armor. 

Bruce stared at the distant, glowing walls. The heartbreak inside his chest slowly began to harden. The tears on his dirty face dried in the freezing wind. 

He did not feel like a crying boy anymore. The boy who slept in the stables was dead. The boy who let his cousin use him as a footstool was dead. 

Only the Devourer remained. 

Bruce reached down with his good left hand. He dug his fingers into the freezing, toxic gray dirt of the wasteland. He squeezed the dirt tightly in his fist, letting the sharp rocks cut his palm. Blood mixed with the gray ash. 

He raised his bloody fist toward the distant city. 

"I swear it," Bruce whispered into the howling wind. His voice was cold, flat, and absolute. It was a blood oath. "I swear on my own soul, and on the magic I will steal."

The silver fire in his eyes flared to life again, burning brighter than the glowing lights of the city. 

"I will survive this wasteland," Bruce vowed. "I will eat every monster, every spirit, and every demon in this fog. I will grow my core until it is as deep as the ocean. And then..."

Bruce lowered his fist. He looked at the Ashen Seraph. The giant angel bowed its head, ready to follow him into hell. 

"And then," Bruce finished, his voice turning into a dangerous growl, "we will walk to the Solarian Capital. We will rip the Key of Dawn from the Pontiff’s dead hands. We will free my mother. And we will burn the Iron-Heart Clan until there is nothing left but ashes."

Bruce did not look at the city of Oakhaven again. 

He turned his back on civilization. He turned his back on the light, the comfort, and the lies. 

With his broken arm hanging limply at his side, his body covered in burns, and a monster of absolute darkness walking behind him, Bruce Thompson stepped forward. 

He walked directly into the freezing, toxic wind of the Gray Wastes, disappearing completely into the thick fog.