Interlude: Credo
Renuart Kross knelt beneath the statue of God, bowed his head, and for a long moment realized he did not know what to say.
He opened his mouth to begin his prayer, paused as a strange sensation came over him, and hesitated. He knelt there for several minutes, feeling his armor bite into his knees. He knelt long enough for the pain to turn to numbness, and for the pattern of moonlight shining through the stained glass window above the statue to change many times as clouds moved overhead.
He was not in Rose Malin. The chapel around him lay in a western satellite of Garihelm, a fortified township hard hit by a devastating siege the city still hadn’t fully recovered from even after most of a decade. Outside, whole neighborhoods lay as shattered husks. Ghosts of those slain in the violence haunted every buried nook and ash-smeared window.
Even years of effort by the city priests hadn’t put all of them to rest — the city was simply too large, and too old.
Forsaken, forgotten, and devoid of the teeming crowds congregating in the rest of the great city. A good place to unburden oneself.
“I have grown very used to hearing the sins of others,” Kross began, keeping his head bowed. His pale gray cape fell around him like a shroud, spreading out across the tarnished mural floor. “I admit, it has been a very long time since I have focused on my own.”
A cloud passed over the moon, briefly darkening the nave. Kross stared down at his gauntleted hand, at the smooth steel he’d clad himself in. A knightly disguise, one which had served him well in this land.
Clenching his armored hand into a fist he said, “The people of this land call me a devil. Even as I seek to bring them into Your light, they would shut their doors in my face if they saw its truth.”
Kross turned his eyes up, staring at the image of the Heir. She stood nearly fifteen feet high atop the pedestal, clad in a gown of ancient design, Her brow adorned with a horned crown woven of silver vine. Someone had scraped the silver enamel off the wood, leaving it white and bare, almost skeletal. They’d looted the golden auremark too, with the gargoyles who guarded blessed ground fled or slain in the siege.
“I have done many terrible things,” Kross said to the face of God. “I have lied, and murdered, and brought good people to ruin. I have wandered this sphere for six centuries, and in all that time I have served.”
She stared down at him, what remained of the spear in Her hand held aloft like a scepter.