They were led in before dawn.
The doors did not creak open. They parted—stone on stone—without sound, revealing the hollow mouth of the sanctuary. The stars had gone. The village was still. Fog clung to the chapel like wool soaked in milk, suffocating every sound but the echo of bare feet on tile.
Thirteen children.
All in white.
No shoes.
Candles in hand.
Their flames already lit.
None remembered when or how.
The interior of the church was colder than the outside. No hearths were lit. The air was thick with a sweetness that turned the stomach—spilled oil, dried milk, crushed lavender, and something else. Older. Something like rust and root.
The children stood in a line before the altar.
Eyes forward.
Hands shaking.
Some bit their lips to stay quiet. Some whispered fractured prayers to gods they didn't understand. One boy wet himself and began to sob.
No one comforted him.
She stood at the end of the line.
Unmoving.
Listening.
Not to the voices.
Not to the robes swaying in the nave.
But to something else.
Beneath the stone.
A murmur. Barely there. Like the memory of a voice inside the walls of a womb.
A single syllable repeating—too soft to catch, but never gone.
The others did not hear it.
She could tell.
They were only afraid.
She was not.
Not fully.
She knew she should be—but it passed through her. She felt hollow in the places fear should live.
A low drone began—deep and round, coming from the mouths of veiled women in crimson hoods.
The Daughters of the Altar.
Their chant did not echo.
It sank, as if the church itself were swallowing it whole.
Then—he arrived.
Elder Gaius, robed in bonewhite, stepped onto the raised altar.
His eyes moved over the line of children with the patience of a surgeon measuring each rib before making the cut.
"Flesh of the Word," he intoned, voice like a wet blade sliding from cloth.
"You stand before the altar not as punishment… but as promise."
The boy who had wet himself began to cry louder. Another joined him. A girl dropped her candle. A third child began to hyperventilate. One of the Daughters struck a bronze bell once, and all the children fell silent again.
"Long before the stars were named," Gaius said, "there was hunger."
He turned slowly, gesturing toward the faded mural behind the altar—a crowned beast with many mouths devouring a sun.
"Hunger was the first god. And from His belly, the world was born."
A second bell rang.
A basin was carried out. Clay. Cracked. Inside—dark paste, steaming slightly, flecked with pale gristle and threads of red. The scent hit like a blow: sour, burnt, faintly sweet.
Each child stared at it with a different kind of horror.
"Blood is memory," Gaius continued. "And flesh remembers what the soul forgets. When the Architect sealed the skies, He called His design perfect. But He was blind. His hands were crooked. His world… incomplete."
He descended from the altar and began to pace before the line of children.
"One day," he said, "a child will tear the veil. One who hears what sleeps beneath the stone. One whose soul was never fully clothed in forgetfulness."
He stopped before her.
Looked down.
She looked up.
Unblinking.
The murmur grew louder.
Still wordless.
Still patient.
Gaius reached out and touched her cheek. Not roughly. Not gently.
Ritually.
"You," he whispered, "have not forgotten."
He took her hand and led her to the basin.
"Lead the meal."
The Daughters placed small wooden bowls into the children's hands.
And then—one by one—the paste was spooned out.
Dark. Warm.
Strangely soft.
The unnamed girl was first to take a bite.
It coated her tongue. The taste was bitter, then metallic, then strangely sweet. It did not taste like food. It tasted like remembering something wrong.
She swallowed.
One child refused to eat.
He was dragged away.
The doors did not close behind him.
The others watched.
And then they ate.
Some sobbed through it.
Some gagged.
One girl whispered "I'm sorry" between bites.
But still—they ate.
The Daughters began to sing again. Their voices wove around the crying like a garland of thorns.
The sermon continued.
"Bread remembers the flesh," Gaius said. "Water remembers the blood. And you—you—must remember the name."
His voice dipped low.
"But not yet."
He stepped behind her.
Placed both hands on her shoulders.
"This one," he said, "has heard the stirrings beneath. She will begin the Offering."
Another bowl was brought.
This one with fire.
A winged creature sculpted in brass—a cherub with no face and too many limbs—was placed at the center of the altar. Its mouth hung open. Smoke drifted from its hollow chest.
She was handed a sliver of something pale and folded in cloth.
A strip of meat.
No one said what it was.
But it was soft and warm in her hand.
She did not tremble.
She placed it into the creature's mouth.
It burned.
Sweet and bitter and thick.
The smoke curled upward toward the ceiling beams, where it vanished.
The Daughters bowed.
Gaius smiled.
The other children stared at her—not in awe, not in fear—but in something stranger.
Recognition.
And from beneath the church, so faint no one else noticed…
The murmur said her name.
The one she hadn't been given yet.
And it was not her mouth that smiled.
It was something beneath it.
A child vomits.
The others recoil. Some cry.
She does not.
She steps forward, wipes his mouth, and continues the chant without missing a beat.
Later, Gaius calls her aside.
"I saw no disgust in your eyes."
"No," she says.
"Why?"
She thinks for a moment.
"Because disgust is pride."
He places a single hand on her shoulder.
"Good."
The others are sent away.
Tears still drying on their cheeks.
Hands still trembling.
But she is not sent away.
Gaius lays a hand on her shoulder.
Soft.
Measured.
Certain.
"Child," he says.
"Do you see what I see?"
She nods.
He does not smile.
"From now on, you will belong to me."
She nods again.
—
From that day on, she walks behind him.
One step behind.
Always.
Never more.
Never less.
She is his shadow.
Not a child anymore.
Not entirely.
Not to him.
Not to the Sisters.
Not to her parents.
—
She wakes before the bells.
Every day.
No matter how tired.
No matter how dark.
She slices the bread.
Fills the bowl.
Stirs the broth.
Places it at his seat.
She stands as he eats.
She reads as he chews.
"And He drew the veil across their eyes, and named it Mercy."
She repeats the line again.
"And He drew the veil across their eyes, and named it Mercy."
And again.
"And He drew the veil—"
He lifts a hand. She stops.
He never thanks her.
He never needs to.
—
Her parents open the door when they visit.
They kiss her hands.
They kiss Gaius's ring.
"She's become so obedient," her mother says.
"So graceful," her father adds.
They give him gifts they cannot afford.
Wine. Salt. A hand-stitched cloth.
"We're honored," they say,
"that you saw something in her."
He says nothing.
He doesn't need to.
—
She once burned his bread.
Just once.
The crust blackened, the smell bitter and sharp.
She threw it out and started over before he ever knew.
But when she set the new loaf down, he only stared at her.
"You lied," he said, not unkind.
She nodded.
"I wanted to fix it."
He cupped her chin.
"The fire is not the sin," he whispered. "The hiding is."
She never burned anything again.
At night she returns to his side.
She kneels when he prays.
She memorizes what he speaks.
She copies his movements, his pauses, his breath.
She no longer asks why.
She no longer remembers if she ever did.
She slices the bread.
Fills the bowl.
Stirs the broth.
She reads.
"And they offered the child, and the child did not scream. And He was pleased."
The stone beneath their feet was cold, damp, and uneven—like it had not been carved, only revealed. The chamber had no torches. No lamps. Only the ceiling itself gave off light, thin mineral veins glowing faintly, pulsing like the veins of something asleep.
Smoke from the thuribles drifted upward in straight, narrow lines. The flames never flickered. Each stood perfectly still, held in place by some pressure in the air.
The Daughters of the Flame moved without speaking. Hooded now instead of veiled, their steps circled inward in perfect synchronization, barefoot on the wet stone, faces always turned toward the center. Their gloved hands carried ancient tools—bowls, knives, spirals of coiled metal—and with each movement they chanted in murmurs too low to be language. A hum without mouth or end.
At the heart of the room, seven figures waited in a loose ring—boys and girls, some marked, some whole. The ritual was not new to them. Their expressions were not of innocence, but of expectation. Quiet terror, rehearsed acceptance.
One figure stood in the center. Barefoot. Robed in deep red, stitched with thorn-dried thread. The robe clung to the figure's frame like something alive. The others stood around in postures of still reverence, trembling not from cold, but from within.
A large pit had been carved in the middle of the chamber—not dug, not built, but born into the stone. Beneath it, something ancient waited. No one could say what. Only that the deeper the chamber, the more clearly it breathed.
A Sister emerged from the outer dark, holding a black clay vessel in both hands. She poured its contents into the pit—slowly, carefully. It poured thick, like sap or oil, but with no scent. It spread evenly into the hollow below until the pit rippled.
No one looked directly at it.
From the shadows, another shape emerged.
The figure moved slowly. No fanfare. No announcement. His robes were plain. Threaded with silver. Dust clung to the hem.
He did not speak until he stood behind the central figure.
"We were given sparks," he said quietly, "not as blessings, but burdens."
His voice was soft, but the stone answered it.
"The ancestors took what was not theirs. They reached into a flame that was never meant to know their names, and they lit their clay bodies with its ash. Then they named it holy."
He turned slowly to face the others.
"Our order does not curse them for this. We pity them. And we unmake the damage they have done."
Each of the seven figures stepped forward one at a time.
A Daughter gave them a black-glass blade. They pressed it gently to their own skin—hands, sides, shoulders. No instruction was needed. The wounds were small. Ritualistic. No cries escaped them.
The figure in the center did not reach for a blade.
She was already marked.
Her wound—shallow, just beneath the ribs—had never fully closed. It pulsed faintly in the quiet. Not bleeding. Not healed.
The silver-robed man stepped forward again, his voice fuller now. More proud than stern.
"She carries it already," he said. "Not the flame, but the proof. Not the light, but the door it left behind."
A bowl was brought forward—wide, shallow, and carved with coiling symbols. It held a second substance, darker than pitch. It shimmered like oil but absorbed all light.
He dipped his fingers in the bowl and smeared the black liquid across the center figure's eyes, lips, and the wound just above her waist.
"She will descend," he whispered.
Two Daughters took her hands and helped her step into the pit.
The liquid welcomed her. Not warm, not cold—just there. She lay down, arms crossed, face still, breath slow.
The Daughters resumed their circling. Their chants folded over one another like braids of smoke. The other figures closed their eyes. The silver-robed man raised his hands, but not in command. In awe.
"She returns what was stolen," he said.
"She remembers what was forgotten."
The stone trembled faintly. The pit did not overflow.
The figure beneath the surface did not struggle.
She lay still for a long time.
Then slowly—gradually, without panic—she rose.
Her breath came out in steamless gasps.
Her eyes opened, glowing faintly. Not visibly. But the kind of glow one feels in the room, even with eyes closed.
The Daughters stopped.
The man stepped forward.
And he bowed—not as a priest to a god, but as a shepherd before a star reborn.
He touched her wound, and it closed.
The others turned inward and knelt.
There were no bells.
No cheers.
Only a silence so deep it pressed against the lungs.
A silence that knew her name—
Maribel.