Chapter 42: Trust
A reverberating roar tore through the church corridors, rattling the stone beneath their boots and cutting everyone short. Even Elina flinched, her hand instinctively snapping to her sword hilt.
Nuri hadn't even set eyes on the thing yet, but the sheer weight of the pressure felt like cold iron pressing against the back of his neck. Sweat slicked his palm. The tense conversation vanished; every eye turned down the dark hallway toward the source of that crushing, wrong energy.
"How do we force it out?" Elina asked, her voice tight. She forced herself to look straight at Lucien. "Or better yet... how do we kill it?"
Suspicion didn't matter anymore. Lucien was a mystery, but he knew things none of them did. Right now, he was the only leverage they had against a divine entity.
Lucien rested the crook of his umbrella against his shoulder, tapping his fingers idly against the handle. "I have a play," he said smoothly. "Targeted, quick. But you have to let me run it without jumping down my throat. If you second-guess me halfway through, the whole thing falls apart."
His blue eyes drifted over to Elina, a faint, polished smile touching his lips.
"What's the catch?" she snapped, staring at him like he was a viper coiling in front of her.
"Trust," Lucien said. "Simple as that."
Nuri swallowed a dry groan. Of all the people in the valley, Lucien was the absolute last person anyone should hand blind faith to.
Inside Nuri's coat, Mo's spirit seemed equally stunned. The charm stayed dead quiet for three seconds before a faint, horrified mutter buzzed against Nuri's ribs. "...The nerve on this guy..."
Elina stared at Lucien, her jaw locked. The silence stretched until the distant roar echoed again from the nave.
"...Fine," Elina said, her voice dropping an octave. "We do it your way."
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Alina and Nuri shot her a sharp, startled look.
"But," Elina added, stepping closer until she was a foot from his chest, "every single one of us walks out of this church alive. Got it?"
Lucien’s smile didn't flicker. "Naturally. I’m very good with my word."
The smile was bright, but his eyes were completely dead, devoid of a single drop of warmth. Alina shifted her weight nervously, looking between the two. It felt less like two allies making a plan and more like a high-stakes standoff between armed mercs.
"First step," Lucien said, breaking the tension as casually as if ordering tea, "is finding the cult leader. Rowen. I need five minutes with him."
Elina frowned. "What does Rowen have to do with putting down the avatar?"
Lucien gave a mild shoulder shrug. "I thought we just agreed you were going to trust me?"
Elina let out a long, heavy breath through her nose. "...Fine."
In truth, finding Rowen had zero to do with stopping the beast. Lucien couldn't care less about saving the church. Rowen had pieces of an ancient puzzle he needed, and everything else, the monster, the girls, the ruined valley, was secondary.
"Tell you what," Lucien added, stepping back. "We can split the legwork. You keep the avatar's attention off the main doors, I get my answers, and then I execute the fix. Sound reasonable?"
Before Elina could even formulate a response, he was gone.
No smoke, no mana flare, no sound of a footstep. One second he was leaning on his umbrella; the next, the stone where he’d stood was empty. Even the small black token in Nuri’s pocket vanished with him.
The three of them stood frozen, staring at the blank air. Nuri slowly lifted a hand and pressed his knuckles against his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.
"...The man is a menace," Nuri muttered.
Deeper in the east wing, Lucien glided through the shadow of the vaulted arches alone.
There was zero chance he was bringing three noisy kids along to an interrogation. The less they saw, the fewer awkward questions they'd bring back to the capital. If they caught him breaking Rowen down, they'd run straight to Caelan.
Lucien paused near a shattered window frame, his brow furrowing.
Though... Caelan might already know.
A flash of genuine annoyance crossed his face. He’d miscalculated Nuri. He’d assumed the kid was just another magically gifted farmboy with good reflexes. He hadn't expected him to be sharp, connecting fragments of information, tracking discrepancies, and reading motives far faster than a boy his age had any right to.
Lucien clicked his tongue against his teeth, his umbrella tip digging a small groove into the soot on the floor.
If I’d known he actually had a brain in his head, I wouldn't have let so much slip in front of him.
He let out a quiet, irritation-laced sigh into the dark hall.
"Gods above... why does nobody ever stay in their assigned lane?"