Chapter 129: Ashes in the Streets
The door crashed open with a sound like thunder, shaking dust from the ancient ceiling.
"We leave. Now." Sylas stood silhouetted in the entrance, his green eyes hard as polished jade. "Inquisitors have found the upper passages. They’re collapsing the tunnels behind them."
Naeria’s head snapped up from her work, her hands frozen mid-gesture over a collection of runic symbols. "Impossible. The wards should have—"
"The wards failed," Sylas cut her off, already moving into the chamber. "Cathedral brought Flame Knights. They’re burning through everything."
Soren pushed himself up from the stone bench where he’d been sitting for the past hour, his muscles aching in protest. The half-finished meal beside him, stale bread and dried meat, scattered to the floor.
Three days in these underground chambers had done little to restore his strength after the Inquisitors’ attentions.
Behind Sylas, hooded figures moved with urgent precision, gathering scrolls and instruments, stuffing them into waiting packs. The chamber that had served as their temporary sanctuary was dissolving into controlled chaos.
"I’m not finished here," Naeria protested, clutching a leather-bound book to her chest. "The translations require at least another day, and the resonance patterns—"
"Move. Now." Sylas’s voice carried the edge of a blade, not raised, but brook no argument. "Or stay and explain your work to Calvian personally."
The scholar’s face paled at the knight’s name. She hesitated only a moment longer before snatching up her satchel, cramming texts and instruments inside with none of her usual care.
A distant boom shook the chamber, dislodging small stones from the ceiling. The vibration traveled through the floor into Soren’s bones, making the shard against his chest pulse with cold warning.
’They’ve breached the second seal,’ Valenna whispered, her voice sharp with urgency. ’These old passages were never meant to withstand such violence.’
One of Sylas’s assassins appeared at Soren’s side, wordlessly thrusting a pack into his hands. The man, or woman, Soren couldn’t tell beneath the hood, moved to the next task without waiting for acknowledgment.
"What about the sealed chamber?" Soren asked, shouldering the pack with a wince as it pressed against his still-tender wounds.
Sylas didn’t look back as he issued rapid commands to his people. "Some doors are best left unopened when the house is burning."
Within minutes, the chamber that had been their refuge for three days was stripped of anything valuable or incriminating. Sylas led them through the doorway into the twisting corridors beyond, his curved blade now drawn, its strange blue-green light illuminating their way.
The tunnels felt different now, threatened, closing in. Dust sifted down with each distant rumble, coating Soren’s hair and eyelashes. The air tasted of ancient stone and newer fear.
They moved in tight formation, Sylas at point, two assassins flanking Soren and Naeria, the others bringing up the rear or scouting ahead at crossroads.
Water splashed around their ankles as they traversed a section where an ancient aqueduct had finally surrendered to time, spilling its contents across their path.
"Left," Sylas commanded at a junction, ignoring the passage they’d originally used to enter these depths.
Naeria stumbled beside Soren, clutching her bulging satchel. "The texts," she muttered, half to herself. "I should have copied the third codex. The patterns were almost clear..."
Another boom, closer this time. The stone beneath their feet trembled, and a section of ceiling collapsed twenty paces behind them, sending everyone lurching forward to escape the cascade of debris.
Soren’s lungs burned as they increased their pace, his body still weakened from days of Inquisitorial attention followed by inadequate rest. Sweat trickled down his back despite the underground chill. The shard against his chest pulsed in time with his racing heart, Valenna’s presence sharp with alert wariness.
’These burrows are collapsing upon themselves,’ she warned as they rounded another corner. ’The old ways remember how to die when violated.’
The passage narrowed, forcing them into single file. Water now reached mid-calf, cold enough to make Soren’s feet ache. The liquid reflected Sylas’s blade-light in rippling patterns across ancient walls.
"How far to the surface?" Soren gasped, helping Naeria when she slipped on submerged stone.
"Too far," Sylas replied without turning, his pace never slackening. "And not far enough."
They emerged into a larger chamber where four passages converged. The ceiling had partially collapsed, creating a heap of broken stone and what appeared to be fragments of more recent construction, bricks, mortar, even splintered wood.
"We’re beneath the outer city now," one of the assassins said, the first words Soren had heard from any of them. A woman’s voice, clipped and precise.
Sylas pointed upward, where metal rungs protruded from the wall, leading to what appeared to be a heavy iron cover. "Our exit."
As if in answer, the loudest boom yet shook the chamber. Cracks spiderwebbed across the remaining ceiling, and the water at their feet rippled with the force of the blast. Stone groaned, a sound so deep it seemed to come from the earth itself.
"They’re determined," Naeria said, her voice steady despite her obvious exhaustion. "Calvian won’t stop until he’s purged every inch."
"Then we disappoint him," Sylas replied. He nodded to two of his assassins, who immediately began scaling the metal rungs.
The first reached the iron cover and pushed upward, straining against centuries of rust and debris. For a moment, Soren thought it wouldn’t move, then with a shriek of protesting metal, it lifted. Night air rushed down, carrying the scent of smoke.
One by one, they climbed toward the surface, Soren’s arms trembling with the effort of pulling his weight up the ancient ladder. The shard pulsed cold against his chest, Valenna’s presence alert but strangely quiet, as if she too were holding her breath.
He emerged into a night painted in firelight and ash.
Northaven was burning.
Soren stood frozen at the edge of the rusted iron grate, the reality before him too enormous to immediately comprehend. They had emerged in what appeared to be an abandoned tannery on the city’s eastern edge, its roof partially collapsed, its walls providing temporary shelter from the chaos beyond.
Through gaps in the crumbling structure, he saw the city he had called home transformed into a vision from nightmare. Buildings blazed like torches against the night sky, their flames reaching toward stars obscured by billowing smoke.
The air tasted of ash and something worse, burning that wasn’t just wood and thatch.
Distant screams carried on the wind, punctuated by the occasional crash as structures collapsed. Banners of the Flame snapped in the hot updrafts, carried by groups of armored figures moving with terrible purpose through the streets.
"They’re burning their own city," Soren whispered, the words inadequate against the scale of destruction.
Sylas appeared beside him, those green eyes reflecting the distant fires. "Not the first time. Won’t be the last." His voice carried no emotion, merely observation. "The Church burns what it fears, then builds anew on scorched earth."
Through a gap in the wall, Soren watched as a family was dragged from a modest home, forced to their knees in the street. A white-robed figure raised a hand over them, mouth moving in what must have been judgment or condemnation. Two children clung to their mother, faces white with terror in the firelight.
The shard against his chest turned ice-cold, Valenna’s presence surging forward with unexpected force. ’This is what they have always done,’ she whispered, her voice carrying a weight of memory that seemed to stretch back centuries. ’Purge. Rebuild. Rewrite. Until none remember what came before.’
"We can’t just—" Soren began, but Sylas’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, fingers digging in with warning pressure.
"Quiet." The command was barely audible.
Moments later, the reason became clear. A patrol of Inquisitors swept down the street directly in front of their hiding place, black robes billowing in the hot wind. Unlike the disheveled figures Soren had seen in the Cathedral’s collapse, these moved with coordinated precision, scripture-chains glinting in the firelight.
Behind them came a figure that made the shard against Soren’s chest pulse with violent cold. Ser Calvian strode through the burning streets like vengeance made flesh, Solbrand drawn and blazing with that terrible golden fire.
His scripture-etched armor reflected the surrounding flames, making him appear as if he were burning from within.
The assassins melted into the shadows of the ruined tannery, becoming almost invisible despite the flickering light. Naeria pressed herself against a wall, clutching her satchel of texts as if it might shield her from discovery.
Soren couldn’t tear his eyes away from the family kneeling in the street. The Inquisitors surrounded them, scripture-chains raised.
The father tried to shield his children with his body, his mouth moving in what might have been pleas or prayers.
A gasp rose in Soren’s throat. Sylas’s grip on his shoulder tightened to bruising force, holding him in place when every instinct screamed to intervene. For one terrible moment, he thought they would witness an execution.
Instead, the family was hauled to their feet, herded toward a gathering point where other civilians huddled under guard. Not killed, at least not immediately, but displaced, their home already engulfed in flames behind them.
The patrol moved on, Calvian’s golden form disappearing around a corner. Only then did Sylas release his grip, leaving Soren’s shoulder throbbing.
"We move now," Sylas ordered, his voice pitched low. "Stay tight, stay silent."
They slipped from the ruined tannery into narrow alleys choked with smoke, avoiding the main streets where Cathedral forces concentrated their efforts. Twice they froze in doorways as patrols passed nearby, the assassins becoming one with the shadows, Soren holding his breath until his lungs burned.
Naeria stumbled beside him, exhaustion evident in every line of her body. Yet she clutched her satchel with unwavering determination, as if the texts inside were worth any risk.
"Should have brought more," she muttered as they pressed against a wall, waiting for a group of armored guards to pass. "The third resonance key was almost translated."
"Your life matters more than dead words," Soren whispered back.
She gave him a look of such genuine incomprehension that he almost laughed despite their desperate situation. "The words aren’t dead," she replied. "They’re waiting."
Sylas led them through a maze of back streets and abandoned buildings, somehow finding a path through chaos that seemed to have no pattern. The assassins moved like extensions of his will, communicating with hand signals Soren couldn’t interpret.
The smoke grew thicker as they approached the city’s northern edge, making eyes water and throats raw. Through gaps between buildings, Soren caught glimpses of the Cathedral itself, its massive structure silhouetted against the burning sky.