Path of the Forsaken Sigil

Chapter 37

Bruce Thompson walked into the freezing, toxic gray fog. He took five steps forward, his heart hard and his mind set on revenge. He was ready to face the terrible Gray Wastes. 

But on his sixth step, he bumped hard into a solid brick wall. 

Bruce gasped, stumbling backward. He hit his burned right arm against the rough bricks, sending a fresh wave of blinding pain through his body. He fell into a deep puddle of freezing, dirty water. 

"What?" Bruce whispered. He looked around, confused. 

The wind blew hard, pushing the thick gray fog away for just a few seconds. When the fog cleared, Bruce realized the truth. He was not in the open wilderness of the Gray Wastes. He was still inside the city. 

He was in an alleyway surrounded by tall, broken brick buildings. The roofs were made of rusted iron. Piles of wet garbage lined the narrow streets. The air smelled of rotting food, cheap alcohol, and wet dog. 

Bruce looked at the Ashen Seraph. The giant angel was leaning heavily against a wooden pole, breathing hard. Its smoky wings were still burned and full of holes from the Holy Light. 

"I thought we left the city," Bruce said, his voice shaking from the cold and the pain. "You said we surfaced a mile outside the walls."

"I was wrong, Master," the Seraph replied. Its deep voice sounded incredibly tired. "The shadow-rift failed. High Inquisitor Bontus used too much holy pressure. It disrupted the dark magic. I could not carry us all the way to the open Wastes. The portal collapsed early."

"So where are we?" Bruce asked. 

"We are in the Lower Slums," the Seraph explained. "This is the very edge of Oakhaven. It is the Outer Ring. The walls you saw in the distance earlier were not the city walls; they were the walls of the Inner City, where the Iron-Heart nobles live. The toxic fog of the Wastes bleeds into these outer streets. We are trapped in the poorest part of the city."

Suddenly, the sky exploded with sound. It was the sound of massive, heavy bells. But they did not sound like normal church bells. They were glowing, golden bells, ringing from the high towers of the Inner City. 

The sound was magical. It vibrated in Bruce’s teeth. It made the dirty puddles on the ground shake. 

"The Purge Bells," the Seraph whispered. The angel looked up at the purple, cloudy sky. "The Inquisitors are sounding the absolute alarm. They are locking down the entire city. No one goes out. No one comes in. They are going to hunt us street by street, house by house."

As the bells rang, the sky opened up. A heavy, freezing rain began to fall. 

It was not clean rain. In the Lower Slums, the rain mixed with the toxic smog from the factories and the Wastes. It was dirty, acidic rain. It washed the gray ash off Bruce’s face, but it stung his terrible burns. 

Bruce sat in the freezing mud. He looked at his right arm. It was a blackened, blistering mess. His hand shook uncontrollably. Deep inside his chest, his dark mana core felt like a cracked glass bottle. Every time his heart beat, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain. Trying to eat the High Inquisitor's divine fire had broken his young soul. 

The physical pain was terrible, but the emotional pain was a hundred times worse. 

Bruce closed his eyes, and he saw his mother. He saw Victoria hanging from the hard-light chains. He remembered her gentle, glowing phantom hands touching his face. He remembered the sound of her voice telling him to run. 

He had left her behind. He was a coward. He had run away while she was trapped in a cage of burning light. 

A sob broke out of Bruce's throat. He bent over, pressing his forehead into the dirty mud. He cried. He cried for all the years he had lived without her, and he cried because he had lost her again. He felt incredibly small, weak, and useless. 

"I can't do this," Bruce whispered into the mud. His tears mixed with the freezing rain. "I am just a servant boy. I am not strong enough. The High Inquisitor almost killed me in one second. How can I fight the entire church? How can I go to the Solarian Capital? It's impossible."

The Ashen Seraph stepped closer. The giant angel did not look down on Bruce with pity. It looked at him with ancient, cold wisdom. 

The Seraph knelt in the mud beside Bruce. It placed its large, skeletal hand gently on Bruce's unburned left shoulder. 

"Tears are a luxury for the safe, Master," the Seraph said firmly. "We are not safe. We are hunted."

Bruce sniffled, slowly lifting his head. "I failed her."

"You did not fail her," the Seraph corrected him. "You survived. That was her only command. If you die in this mud, crying about what you could not do, then her sacrifice means nothing. She burned the last drop of her life force to blind the Inquisitors so you could escape. Will you waste her final gift?"

Bruce looked at the Seraph’s cracked silver mask. The angel was right. 

"Your body is burned, and your core is bleeding," the Seraph continued. "If we stop, the light will catch us. If you do not eat magic soon, your cracked core will shatter, and you will die. You must stand up, Master. You must walk."

Bruce wiped his nose with the back of his left hand. He took a deep, shaky breath. The heartbreak inside him did not go away, but he pushed it down deep. He used it as fuel. He remembered his oath.