The Final Gavel

4. The silent cathedral

The Trial ground on.

The train continued screaming through the darkness. People were still falling, but fewer now. Most of those who had survived the first wave had figured out how to stay on their feet, or were simply too terrified to move.

Rem held onto the nearest support and tried to breathe normally. His arms were shaking. His legs felt weak, and the pressure in his head made it difficult to think.

Across the train, someone suddenly collapsed again. It wasn't a new thing anymore. It was starting to feel normal.

Rem looked toward the front of the train and noticed a silver-haired girl. She was standing near one of the doors, holding onto nothing.

While everyone else struggled against the invisible weight, she barely seemed affected by it. Her silver hair was tied into two buns, and she had only one arm. Rem wondered how she was still standing so calmly.

Then the train stopped.

The pressure disappeared so suddenly that Rem nearly stumbled.

"Woah."

For a few seconds, nobody moved. The screaming had stopped, leaving only the low hum of the train and people trying to catch their breath.

Rem looked around. Bodies covered parts of the floor. Some people were still alive, but most of them weren't moving. A man slowly lowered himself onto the floor and stared at his hands.

"First Gate cleared. Entering Primary Trial Domain: The Silent Cathedral."

The doors opened, and cold air rushed into the carriage. Rem stepped closer and looked outside.

There was nothing but grey sand.

A vast desert stretched beneath a black sky filled with stars. Far away, something rose from the horizon. It looked like a church but bigger.

A cathedral.

At first, Rem thought it was just another building. Then he looked at it for a little longer and felt something strange in his eyes. The shape seemed wrong. Its walls rose at angles that made it difficult to tell where one part ended and another began.

He looked away. That was better.

The survivors slowly began getting off the train. Some were crying. Someone stumbled onto the sand and immediately threw up. Another person simply sat down and refused to move.

Rem followed them.

As soon as his feet touched the sand, his throat started itching again. He swallowed and felt the familiar discomfort spread into his chest. He tasted blood.

'Not now.'

He breathed slowly through his nose and waited for the feeling to pass, but it didn't. His chest felt tight, but it wasn't as bad as some of his usual attacks. He could still breathe. That was enough.

Rem looked back at the train.

He saw a familiar white jacket, but it was soaked with blood. The Highborn who had shoved him was still alive, slumped against one of the seats. His face was barely recognizable. One of his arms was twisted badly, and his legs didn't look much better.

When he noticed Rem looking at him, his expression changed. There was anger and shame in his eyes.

Rem walked back into the train.

The Highborn tried to say something, but only a wet sound came from his throat. Rem stared at him for a moment. He waited for the satisfaction he thought he might feel, but he felt nothing, not even pity.

His eyes moved to the man's belt. There was a knife hanging from it.

"It's not going to be of any use to you now, is it?"

Rem crouched and pulled it free. The Highborn tried to shake him off, but even that caused him more pain. He mumbled something, then coughed up blood.

The blade was warm in his hand, though it didn't feel warm from body heat. It had a wire-wrapped handle, an S-shaped blade, and thin runes covering the metal.

[ITEM IDENTIFIED: SERPENT'S KISS. HIGH-GRADE TOXIC ARTIFACT.]

[ORIGIN: HELLFIRE GOD CHURCH CRAFT.]

[MATERIAL: SOUL-FORGED STEEL. TOXIN: NEURO-PARALYTIC VENOM (DIVINE-GRADE).]

"It would be useful."

He stood and tucked it into his belt.

The irritation in his throat suddenly got worse, and he turned away before coughing into his hand. When he looked down, there was a small spot of blood on his palm.

He looked back at the Highborn. He was no longer moving. His head was tilted and his eyes were fixed on the ground.

Rem held his hand under the Highborn's nose. Nothing. He wasn't breathing.

He was dead.

"Karma is a bitch, I guess."

Rem wiped his hand on his trousers.

"The knife is mine now."

He stepped out of the train. Behind him, the doors closed, and a moment later the train rose into the air. Rem stopped to watch it hover above the desert for a few seconds before it suddenly shot backward into the darkness. There were no tracks visible, just a gust of breeze that threw grit in their faces.

The other survivors had already started walking toward the cathedral. Rem followed.

The desert was colder than he expected. The sand shifted beneath his shoes with every step, making the walk harder than it looked. For a while, nothing happened. He could hear people walking around him. Someone was whispering prayers. Another person was complaining about the cold.

Then Rem's breathing became more difficult.

He slowed down. His throat was starting to itch again, and the ache in his chest was becoming harder to ignore. He had experienced this many times before. If it got bad enough, his vision would start blurring.

He kept walking anyway.

'Just make it to the cathedral,' he told himself.

But then something scraped beneath the sand, almost a groan. Rem stopped walking immediately, and the sound stopped too. He looked down. There was nothing there. Whatever it was, it was underneath the sand.

One of the people ahead glanced back at him. Rem waited for a few seconds before continuing.

A few steps later, he heard it again. This time, he couldn't tell where it had come from, but he kept walking.

The cathedral was still far away. At least, it looked far away. Rem blinked. For a moment, he thought it had moved closer. He rubbed his eyes and looked at it again. The distance hadn't changed that much.

'I'm getting dizzy.'

The silver-haired girl was several steps ahead of him. Now that they were out of the train, Rem could see her better. She wasn't talking to anyone. Every so often, she looked around the desert, as if checking the area.

Rem wondered what she was looking for. An exit, maybe. That was the only reasonable thing to look for here.

She looked back, and their eyes met for a moment before she turned away.

'She doesn't look desperate to live, like the rest of us.'

After a while, he heard footsteps behind him. He glanced back. It was the boy with the pendant and curly blonde hair, walking in the same direction a few steps behind.

"Hey."

"Hey." Rem greeted him before turning forward again.

"Thanks again," the boy said. "For the train. Telling me to think of nothing."

"You would've figured it out."

"I didn't think so," the boy said. He walked a little faster until he was beside him. "I'm Leonard."

Rem gave him a small nod.

"Rem."

Leonard smiled.

"You caught on fast back there. The whole emotional weight thing. Most people didn't figure it out until it was too late."

Rem didn't answer. He kept his eyes on the cathedral. Leonard didn't seem bothered by the silence.

"I saw what you did after, to the Highborn. You took his knife."

"He didn't need it anymore."

Leonard glanced at the knife.

"Then you coughed on him and left him to die. That's sick."

Rem looked at him. Leonard shrugged with a small laugh.

After a few seconds, he spoke again.

"Your Stigmata, right? It must be a failed or weak one?"

Rem didn't answer.

"Some people call it a cinder-curse."

Rem looked ahead again. A cinder-curse. He had never called it that or heard of that before. It had always just been the sickness.

"What makes you so sure? And why do you care?"

Leonard only smiled. He didn't say anything.

Rem suddenly felt even more uneasy around him.

They continued walking.

The cathedral was getting closer now. At least, Rem thought it was. His head was starting to feel strange again. His vision blurred for half a second, and when he blinked, the cathedral seemed to have changed.

He looked at it again. There were two cathedrals standing close to each other, almost mixing together. The strange thing was that neither one was blurry. It was just enough to make him wonder if he had remembered the cathedral wrong, but then he looked away. When he looked back, they seemed normal.

'I'm definitely getting dizzy.'

The cold was getting worse too. His loose shirt did little to protect him, and he felt jealous of the Highborns wearing thick jackets ahead.

'They could have told us to come with coats, at least, or provided them.'

Nobody was talking anymore. The wind had begun to die down, and the sound of footsteps became softer. Rem looked around. The others were still walking, but the desert felt strangely empty now.

He looked at the cathedral again. It seemed much larger. The building hadn't moved, but it looked bigger every time he checked.

He looked back at the desert. There was nothing behind them except grey sand. When he turned around again, he felt a strange pressure in his chest. Not the sickness. Something else.

Rem stopped.

A deep sound came from somewhere beneath the sand, and the ground trembled under his feet. Several people froze. The sound came again, a low groan that seemed to travel through the entire desert.

Then everything went quiet.

Rem stared at the cathedral. For the first time since entering the trial, he had the uncomfortable feeling that they weren't simply walking toward a building. He didn't know what was inside. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

The survivors had finally reached the cathedral. Nobody moved for a few seconds.

The entrance was completely black. There were no steps. No guards. No statues. Nothing that made it look like a normal place of worship.

Then the doors opened. The two enormous doors slowly moved inward without making a sound, and cold air came from inside.

The one-armed girl walked in first. The others followed.

Rem waited for a moment before stepping inside. The cathedral was much larger than it had looked from outside. The floor and walls were made of brown stone, worn smooth in some places and cracked in others. Their footsteps echoed through the building, but the echoes seemed to last longer than they should.

Rem looked up. He couldn't see the ceiling.

At the far end of the nave were three large archways, all completely black. Above them, symbols glowed with a pale blue-white light.

A closed eye on the right. A sword in the middle. A scale on the left.

Rem stared at them. Then words appeared in front of his eyes.

[Trial Segment: Path of Judgment.]

[Choose your fate.]

[Time Remaining: 02:00:00]

For a moment, nobody reacted. Then someone shouted.

"Two hours? For what?"

Another person rushed toward one of the archways before stopping himself.

"What are we supposed to choose?"

People began arguing.

The silver-haired girl didn't join them. She walked toward the sword. She didn't hesitate. A Highborn boy with a smirk walked toward the scale. The rest of the survivors stood around, trying to figure out what the symbols meant.

Rem stayed where he was. His eyes moved from the eye to the sword, then to the scale. He didn't know what waited behind any of them.

But he had a feeling that choosing wrong would be worse than not choosing at all.

The timer continued counting down.

The next trial wasn't asking him to fight.

It was asking him to choose.

Three paths.