Blightreach welcomed them with open arms, branches curling behind as a mother’s longing embrace. The air rang with laughter—Anders, Bella, and Rish trading stories like old friends. Tales of the forest. Of the camp. Of themselves.

  “So,” Bella asked innocently, reaching out to touch Rish’s thick braid that had tumbled over her shoulder. “How does an orc lady have such beautiful platinum hair? I thought orcs usually have darker tones?”

  Rish grinned, her tone soaked in flirt. “My lady, you’re quite observant! I’m half-orc, half Pale Elf.”

  Sol—who had been suspiciously silent through the entire exchange, busy trying to burn holes in the back of Caelus’ head with sheer willpower—finally broke his silence.

  “Ah, an orc-elf,” he mused, joining them with a sly smile. “How lovely. Just like my brother.”

  Rish mirrored his expression immediately. “The one I’m supposed to like? Wonderful.”

  “Oh, you two will absolutely bond,” Sol nodded sagely. “Love for brute force. Big blades. Height. He’s half Wild, though.”

  “I can’t wait to meet him already,” she growled with a grin, voice hovering somewhere between excited child and hunting beast.

  Then she paused—really looking Sol up and down. Her brow furrowed.

  “…So you’re not an elf?”

  “I am,” he replied, far too proudly.

  “But your brother?” She quirked her eyebrows, the black lines above her brow scrunching.

  “They adopted me!” He tilted his head.

  Rish squinted. Took a very long, studying look. “You don’t look like an elf. You’re HUGE. And—hairless? Wild Elves usually have at least some body hair. Bit of stubble? Chest hair?”

  She gestured at him broadly, nearly unseating Bella from the saddle—not that the girl minded. She just giggled.

  “And you?” Rish huffed. “I’ve seen more hair on a bar of soap.”

  Anders wheezed behind them.

  Rish threw her hands up in exasperation. “Seriously, what kind of elf are you?”

  Sol’s smile sharpened like it always did when he was about to say something unhinged.

  “Aw, don’t worry about it,” he said airily, fingers graceful in the air. “Just an eldritch ghost of a forgotten race that predates your entire bloodline. Nothing to lose sleep over.”

  Rish let out an impressed whistle. “Hot.”

  Bella clapped softly like he’d just told a bedtime story.

  Caelus, meanwhile, looked like he was in physical pain.

  He knew no one in this camp was sane. But this level of delusion?

  “Sun scorch me! What is wrong with you people?” He muttered under his breath.

  Then, louder. “The only thing pre-dating civilization is the way you behave.”

  Sol didn’t argue. He just smiled wide and audacious.

  Caelus regretted speaking immediately.

  Finally, the trees released them.

  The clearing opened before them in full glory, bathed in the warm glow of evening light.

  It was alive.

  People bustled about, offloading boxes and barrels from the arriving cart. The arena pulsed with energy—drums pounding, a crowd gathered and roaring, rhythm in the air as thick as thunder.

  It made Caelus shiver.

  In the corner, Lady Rovena crouched beside her monstrous striped beast, gently rubbing its belly as if it was just a massive puppy.

  Children, spotting the approaching party, came barreling up from the lakeside, barefoot over soft grass, shrieking and giggling as they ran. Hands full of wildflowers, they threw petals in the air like bursts of confetti.

  Rish gasped audibly, eyes huge as the horses carried them closer along the familiar winding path.

  “This is what you meant by the camp?!” She blurted, jaw unhinged in awe.

  “Wait till you see the sanctuary!” Bella grinned proudly from in front of her.

  Rish whipped around.

  “THERE’S MORE?!” She yelled—and grabbed Bella by the shoulders like she'd just glimpsed paradise.

  Moonshine with Anders crested the hill first, Sol leaning low as the not-horse burst ahead in excitement after them.

  “Yo, imbeciles!” He hollered as they neared the top. “We got another nutcase!”

  The entire camp turned.

  Whatever they were doing—training, cooking, sharpening blades—it all stopped. Heads swiveled.

  And when Rish’s unmistakable silhouette rose into view above the hill—

  The crowd erupted.

  Laughter, cheers, stomping feet, a few celebratory howls. Someone banged on a pot. Someone else yelled, “We’re gonna need more ale!”

  Rish froze. Her eyes went wide. Then wider. Her mouth parted, and for a moment, she just stared at the chaos—at the sheer welcome of it.

  As though her chest might explode from joy.

  Caelus could swear her eyes watered.

  They accepted her. Just like that. Not a single question. Not a single raised brow. As if towering in with a bloodied sword was all it took to be accepted around here.

  They didn’t hesitate.

  Didn’t ask for proof, or reason, or trust earned.

  The camp greeted her like she’d been carved from the same blasphemy that birthed the rest of them.

  No pause. No judgment.

  Just open arms, laughter, cheers.

  Murderers welcoming another beast into the fold.

  And maybe that’s what she was. Maybe that’s what they all were.

  But something in his chest twinged. He didn’t know why.

  Caelus slid off his horse without a word.

  Tired.

  He was so tired.

  But not from the ride. Not from the mission.

  From being the only sane man in a place that kept making madness look like home.

  He didn’t belong here.

  He didn’t need to.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  From behind, footsteps approached—light, deliberate.

  Then Sol’s voice, just loud enough to reach him. Smooth. Casual. Cruel.

  “Careful, Templar,” he crooned with a smile in his tone.

  “Keep frowning like that and people might think you’re jealous.”

  Caelus faltered.

  Just for a second.

  Then he turned—sharp, mechanical. A man barely holding back the urge to break something. Someone.

  Sol had already walked past, greeting villagers with a lazy wave like he hadn’t just driven a dagger under his ribs and twisted. Rish ran after him excitedly.

  “OH MY GOD IS THAT HIM??!” She screeched, grabbing the Mercenary King by the arm so hard he wobbled, chuckling.

  The knight stood there, fists clenched so hard his knuckles whitened, jaw tight enough to snap.

  He wasn’t jealous.

  He wasn’t.

  He was furious.

  He was humiliated.

  He was alone in a camp full of monsters pretending to be people.

  And they were celebrating.

  Again.

  The camp was too loud.

  Too cheerful. Too comfortable. Too quick to embrace the orc, the cultist, the witch, the monster, the joke.

  Too welcoming to people who should, by all logic, be burned at the stake.

  And yet here he was.

  Still the outsider. Still the one mocked in whispers and elbow nudges.

  He—the templar. The soldier. The trained, sworn servant of the divine.

  But apparently, none of that mattered.

  Because he was from the Church.

  Because he had discipline.

  Because he believed in structure.

  Not because of his ‘insufferable attitude,’ of course.

  No, he was being targeted. Obviously.

  He marched through the camp with a righteous storm in his step.

  Pointing out crooked fences.

  Criticizing the patrol rotation.

  Correcting a young boy’s grip on a training sword with too much spite.

  He even adjusted the soup pot, muttering something about ‘open flames too close to linen tents.’

  The mercenaries stared.

  Some blinked.

  Most ignored him.

  Sol?

  Sol watched with the indulgent amusement of a cat watching a mouse rearrange furniture in a burning house.

  He didn’t stop him.

  He let the knight dig.

  Then it happened.

  A few of the mercs were sparring in the arena—nothing serious, just play fights to kill time.

  Caelus, still brimming with misplaced fury, walked past.

  Someone threw a comment.

  Cael threw one back.

  The insults escalated.

  And before long, he was stepping into the ring with a half-smirk he haven’t felt putting on and the full confidence of a templar who had spent his life training for war.

  He lasted four seconds.

  Maybe five, if you count the time it took him to hit the dirt.

  Caelus gasped. Dust in his mouth. Blood on his tongue.

  Disbelief in his bones.

  And then he heard it.

  Clap. Clap. Clap.

  Slow. Taunting.

  Familiar.

  The Viper’s silhouette loomed overhead, arms crossed, lips curved in a grin too bright to be kind.

  “Well done, my lord. You lasted a whole—what? Five seconds?”

  The camp roared.

  The laughter was brutal.

  Not cruel. Not even malicious.

  But it felt like a sword through the ribs.

  Cael didn’t speak.

  He stared at the dirt like it held the meaning of life.

  Fists trembling.

  Ego shattered.

  “Y’know, Templar,” Sol said, voice light with feigned interest, “you seem awfully concerned with the way we live in this godless, backwoods camp. Almost like it’s your concern somehow.”

  Cael didn’t even look up.

  “Because it affects me directly!” he snapped. “I’m stuck here, remember? I have to live with this chaos.”

  Solferen turned, fully now, eyes unreadable.

  “Does it?” He hummed.

  “Because the lengths you go to, for someone who’ll go running back to the Church the second this ends—who’ll pretend none of this ever happened, or worse, hunt me on the Pope’s orders—” he didn’t finish meaningfully, and gave him a scrutinizing one-over instead.

  “You criticize. You question. You hover like this place is yours to fix.”

  A beat.

  “It’s almost like you’re planning to stay.”

  Silence.

  The words slammed into him as a charging bear.

  It ached.

  Not from anger. Not from insult.

  But because—for a moment—he couldn’t answer.

  He turned. Left.

  Didn’t yell. Didn’t defend.

  Didn’t even breathe.

  He walked, slow and aimless, past the firepits and the laughter.

  Past the tents. Past the children.

  Past the field where he fell.

  And into the woods.

  The last light of day poured amber through the trees, making the world soft, beautiful, unreal.

  He didn’t care. Not anymore. Not now.

  Not about the forest. Not about the mission. Not about the Church.

  Let it all rot.

  His hands were shaking as he walked, but he refused to slow.

  If something came for him, let it.

  If the forest wanted his bones, he’d make the damn trees choke on them.

  A week.

  It had been a week of mocking, degrading, hostility and straight up terrorism.

  This wasn’t their barbaric, uncultured nature.

  It was intentional.

  They were toying with him.

  He was sure of it now.

  They wanted him to snap.

  They bullied him, then brought him food and drink and provided comfort.

  They pushed him into the stream just to hand embroidered his shirt with respect to his faith like they didn’t just mock him for it.

  They wound him, then they extend their hands in acts of pure kindness.

  It was psychological warfare.

  Kindness, cruelty, kindness again. Over and over, until he forgot which one was real.

  They were trying to break him.

  Caelus walked aimlessly through the hills, his thoughts a storm behind his eyes.

  Then—

  His heart stuttered.

  Tucked in the underbrush, half-consumed by vines and shadow—

  Stone pillars.

  Broken. Overgrown. Familiar.

  A sanctuary.

  A temple.

  He stepped inside as a man crawling into the arms of a memory.

  The dust didn’t matter.

  The cracks in the altar didn’t matter.

  It was quiet.

  And for the first time in days, he breathed.

  Light.

  This was what Light felt like.

  What truth felt like.

  He dropped to his knees.

  Fingers steepled into the shape of the sun’s crown.

  Words—old prayers—formed on his tongue.

  Above him, Aurenos stood.

  Or what was left of him.

  Time had worn the marble face into ruin, but the weight of its judgment still pressed down from above.

  He bowed his head lower.

  Ten minutes passed. Maybe less.

  Then—

  A sound. Something outside. Predatory. A rustle.

  A low hum of metal drawn across flesh. A wet, heavy drip.

  Footsteps.

  Caelus knelt in silence, fingers still locked, trying—desperately—to block out the slow footsteps behind him. He knew that sound. He knew who it was.

  “What would you have done without me, little lion?” A low rumbling voice came, reverberating through the marble ruins.

  Caelus pressed his eyes shut tighter. Doing his best to finish his prayer.

  As if it could help somehow. As if it could shut him up.

  “Your god is awfully quiet.” Sol mused, voice sweet as honey. “I’d have taken that as an answer already.”

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  “And what do you know of my God, demon, to speak like that?” Cael’s voice was low, steady—barely. He still didn’t look.

  He wouldn’t. He will not break. He will not allow that monster the pleasure. Not here. Not under the watchful gaze of Aurenos.

  “More than I should have... Templar.” The Beast’s voice was unnervingly sincere.

  Cael exhaled sharply through his nose.

  “Leave,” he said, eyes closed. “You don’t belong here.”

  “Don’t I?” Sol’s voice echoed off the stone. “Funny. I seem to recall bleeding in places holier than this.”

  Drip.

  Cael didn’t have to look to know—there was blood. On his hands. His blade. His smile.

  He stayed still.

  “You kneel and kneel and kneel—and for what? Silence? Cold marble? A dead name?” Sol murmured, so soft with morbid curiosity.

  Cael’s hands tightened. “Stop.”

  Sol didn’t. “No thunder. No vision. Not even a whisper. You’re the Pope’s favorite, aren’t you? Yet your god doesn’t even look at you.”

  “Stop.” Caelus hissed through his teeth.

  “No wonder the Church has to lie.” The viper’s voice was mockingly understanding.

  Caelus rose to his feet like a drawn sword.

  “You don’t know a thing about faith,” he spat, head hung low. “You don’t know God. You’re just a thing. A nobody. A freak with an ego big enough to blind the damn sun.”

  Solferen grinned, eyes glinting gold in the low light.

  “Is that what you think He is? The sun?” His voice darkened. “Aurenos was a jealous, trembling shadow pretending to be a star. A hollow light—bright only because he stole it.”

  Cael’s stomach turned.

  “Heresy.” He said flatly. But his hands trembled.

  Sol chuckled. “He feared what the others had. He couldn’t love. Couldn’t give. So he carved your kind in his own image—pitiful. Desperate. And still, he failed.”

  Caelus shook his head, turning sharply to glare at him at last. “You don’t know Him.”

  “Oh but I knew him.”

  Sol’s voice dropped into something low. Something ancient. “I knew his rage. His fear. I knew his claws at my throat. I remember how he died—scratching like a rat in a fire he started himself.”

  Something shifted.

  The air.

  The light.

  The space between them.

  Cael’s eyes widened.

  There, around Solferen, was fog. Red. Subtle.

  Flickering like smoke from a dying flame. Only for a second. Only at the edges. But it was there.

  He took an instinctive step back. It didn’t register under the rage that blinded his mind.

  “You’re not right in the head,” Cael whispered. “That’s not truth. That’s poison. That’s your disease.”

  “Truth is poison,” Solferen said, standing unnaturally still. “If you’ve been raised on lies.”

  Cael trembled. He was barely holding now.

  But this was still a temple.

  Still holy ground.

  He would not draw steel here.

  So he lifted his chin and snapped, “Let’s see how your god answers when you are the one with your throat cut then.”

  A pause.

  “Oh?” Sol’s smile turned sharp. Too sharp. His eyes were void of any warmth, the look in them no short of demotic.

  “My slit throat is all it takes for you to see the light?”

  His hand moved.

  Quick.

  Almost invisible.

  The bloodied knife was still in his grip.

  “Watch this, then,” the Beast whispered.

  And just like that—

  Slick.