Candlelight flickered in the dim, cavernous chamber beneath the church, casting twisted shadows that reached across the cold stone walls. Jackelin sat in tense silence, glancing sideways at Jack, who brooded next to her. The air was thick with incense, the scent cloying, but beneath it lurked the stench of rot–a scent that reminded her just how deep below holy ground they had sunk.
Their contact arrived, a robed figure whose vestments bore the opulence reserved for the powerful. His gloved hands were clasped as though in piety, but his eyes were anything but humble. They gleamed with the arrogance of someone who had long wielded authority as a weapon, bending the faithful to his will.
“Children,” he said, his voice an oily whisper that seemed to coil around them like a snake. “You have done well, but there is more work to be done.”
Jackelin bristled at the word–children–yet held her silence. She watched the man’s posture, the way he seemed to loom over them, his thin smile a reminder of his own twisted power. She sensed Jack’s tension beside her, but it was restrained, controlled, as if he too knew the precarious nature of their “favour” with the Church.
“What lies beyond this task of ours?” Jackelin’s voice was steady, though a hint of frustration edged her tone. “You speak of salvation, yet each soul we take does not find peace; instead, it’s bound to us, turned into another restless phantom. Their hunger grows with every life we claim, barely contained.”
The cleric’s smile only deepened, a cold gleam in his eyes. “Fear not,” he murmured, his words laced with an unsettling reassurance. “Yours is a sacred duty–a cleansing of the city’s darkest souls. Each life you take is one less bound for damnation. In this, you are the very hands of righteousness.”Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Beside her, Jack’s silence was stony, his eyes fixed on the cleric with a hard, simmering intensity. Though he said little, Jackelin sensed an unsettling eagerness within him, an unspoken agreement with the cleric’s words. She felt a chill creep through her as they were dismissed with a blessing that felt more like a curse, and they parted ways at the threshold, each lost in their own thoughts.
Later, alone in her cramped quarters, Jackelin scrubbed her hands under the freezing water, her skin turning raw. She could still feel the weight of the cleric’s words, the sense of twisted righteousness coiling around her like a noose. In the basin’s reflection, she saw herself–a ghostly, hollow-eyed figure staring back, haunted by the souls bound to her, each one trailing her like a shadow.
Her gaze dropped to the dagger at her side. She gripped it tightly, wondering what would happen if she turned it upon herself. Would the phantoms flee, or would they linger, bound to her even in death? Her hands shook, and she forced herself to release the blade, her mind a tangled web of guilt and doubt.
Jack’s words echoed in her memory: We’re their instruments. This is our purpose. She wanted to believe it, to cling to the notion that their actions served some higher cause. But the faces of the dead weighed upon her like chains, their spectral whispers circling her mind, each one a dark reminder of her choices.
Outside, the fog crept over the city, thick and cold. Jackelin stared out into the night, feeling the phantoms pressing in around her, a spectral chorus of accusation and grief. She thought of Jack, of his unwavering faith, his quiet fervour that seemed to deepen with each soul taken.
In that moment, she understood with chilling clarity that they were alone in this, bound by blood and shadows, shackled to a fate darker than the night itself. And she knew, with a sinking certainty, that one day, the darkness consuming Jack might force her to make a choice–for herself and for the restless souls forever entwined with her path.