Chapter 86: Ashes of Faith
The Sanctum’s Great Church towered against the storm-streaked heavens, its spires clawing skyward like the fingers of a god dying.
Pale light spilled from the vast stained-glass windows, painting the cracked stones below in hues of crimson and gold. Within its sacred walls, the air was heavy — not with incense, but a tense heaviness.
In a chamber behind the altar — deeper still, past locked iron doors and muttered prayers — two cardinals sat in a windowless office, their faces grim in the candlelight.
The room was spare and cold.
A single oaken desk separated the two men. Books bound in cracked leather stacked the corners. Scrolls of doctrine lay scattered across the desk.
A map of the Hellscape’s First Reach was pinned to the wall behind them, stained with fresh inked notations of skirmishes and losses.
Cardinal Varlen, a severe man with sunken eyes and silver-streaked hair, leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
Across from him, Cardinal Mavrek, broader of shoulder and darker of gaze, scowled at a crumpled missive resting on the table between them.
Neither spoke.
The silence between them was brittle, ready to snap.
A heavy knock shattered the stillness.