Chapter Text
Year 836 BC, Macedonian Border
Above the Balkan Mountains’ jagged peaks, the winter sun reached its misty climax. Rusty hued in the cold air, its apricity offered a fleeting warmth to the silent remains of a battlefield. Bronze corpses were littered across the cracked earth, their bone marrow seeping into red rivers and mounds of flesh.
Travelling merchants might have called the scene a massacre; Solomon called it purification. The first flecks of snow touched down in agreement, as they cleansed the landscape of its affliction.
The dead should not be pitied, and he’d stared too long at their haunted expressions, forever etched in shock. The lesser fortunate would be remembered for their tear stained cheeks.
They’d never seen it coming, never expecting to be humbled by a mere child. When he’d calmly strode into the frontlines, armed with nothing but a lone guard, the enemy had lowered their swords and lost the battle of short lived mockery.
Solomon stifled the urge to laugh himself, recalling how quickly their mirth had trickled out when he raised his arms, ultimately vanishing as he clenched his fists in the air.
Trudging towards camp, he dulled The Light within at an unspoken command, his molten irises quenching to a silvery copper alloy. Head pounding like a hammer, he passed charred apple trees tinged with a sickly sweet fragrance. Their black branches dusted with white, now standing as natural grave markers.
A bead of sweat trickled under his black hair, perfectly concealed by an ivory hood. Father always said weakness was a sin.
Marching into camp, white robed acolytes unfurled offwhite, sail sized banners, declaring their cause with a giant sigil he’d committed to memory. An inner ring of gold represented the world they purified, a crimson circle topped by a single white feather and gilded flame.
It followed words beaten into him from birth.
Lux Per Obedientiam.
“Light through Obedience.” Elder Castor had kindly educated him after several pointed glances at the embroidery.
Soldiers skipped around temporary benches, throwing their arms and ale over a cowardly bard, whose strings were clearly out of tune. Solomon chuckled to himself at the high spirits, proud to be responsible for such merriment. He watched the new recruit Mara scrunch her nose up at an offer of drinks, in the process of dismissing a blushing bearded man.
Her platinum curls coiled amongst the earthy concoction of frankincense and myrrh, kissing the fallen soldiers farewell. Her censer swung like a pendulum between planes, and Solomon found himself miming the prayer of passage alongside her.
Nestled between the creases of her linen wraps, the crest blindsided him and his stained, crestless cloak. Dangerous emotions bled to the surface coupled with equally dangerous inquiries.
Mara's first outing with the Order, and she'd only been with them for five months. How had she earned recognition with the High Priest when he had been born into the Temple and still wore plain garments? Every chance he got to ask for a reward, his requests were denied.
They insisted that his robes were to remain pure, untouched by anything but the Light. The implication didn’t add up. Was blood an exception?
It seemed contradictory that Celesté, two years his junior, who’d never experienced a campaign or ventured outside the confines of the Order, also donned the crest.
Though he would never admit it out loud, sometimes the gift of the Light felt more like a burden.
A horse whinnied softly in sympathy. They both flinched at the crack of a leather belt being reinforced, its rider preparing for the long return to Thracian Territory.
A nameless Acolyte doused the firepit in a hiss of steam, coinciding with the entire party drawing their weapons. Iridescent crystalline polearms vaulted towards the source, and jewel hilted daggers were swiftly unsheathed.
Recounting his training, Solomon acted unarmed, clenching his fits behind his back in a submissive stance. Heavy footsteps drew nearer.
Atticus, his personal guard, stood vigilant at his side, in case the enemy had no empathy or rations to spare. “Stand down!” His booming voice cut through the tension and weapons were sheathed with a harmonious clink. "Speak your business, or speak no more."
“Revere for the Captain!” A distant soldier in red added.
Atticus stepped aside, his hand unwilling to part with his weapon. Solomon’s line of sight all of a sudden being blocked by a scarlet cape and a bronze cuirass.
Peering up, Solomon bore witness to a mutual, if somewhat one sided salute. The stranger lowered their helm, even their hair stood at attention, resembling a lit brazier.
“Captain Pontius of the Thracian Empire, at your service,” his weather worn face spoke of many victories in battle. Though as his brown eyes glanced downward, Solomon perceived him as an uncharacteristically humane person, promptly choosing to focus on the man's boots.
“Lift your head up, son,” a gravelly voice whispered. Ever obedient, Solomon did so, being rewarded with a grimy grin. “And if anyone is to be revered, it shall be this miracle!”
A strong hand pinned his shoulder down, gently. He resisted the instinct to flinch, is this what a gentle hand felt like?
One of the nearby Acolytes grunted a warning at the kinship.
The squeaking of metal alerted him back in the direction of the Captain, now eye level and kneeling. His thick brows creased in deep thought as he assessed Solomon. “You seem about the same height as my eldest, how old are you, boy?”
Solomon opened his mouth, immediately snapping it shut at the sound of a loaded cough. The cost of speaking out of turn meant a lashing for every word uttered. Atticus glared with a stony expression, before nodding slowly. A mote of sunlight bounced off his scalp.
“This shall be my fifteenth winter, sir,” He spoke in a hesitant voice, hoping it drowned the drumming of his heart out.
“Light above!” Pontius leapt up, his helm briefly levitating. “Then I shall stay your enlistment invitation for a few seasons more,”
Armies had requested personal assistance many times in the past. According to his Father, his sole purpose in this world being to serve the Order. Any childish dreams were extinguished on the spot. Dreams like leading his own men into battle, or being part of something smaller and mundane.
Mara interrupted boldly. “The divineborn bloom higher than man; they must be looked up to, never looked down upon.” Improper behaviour for a new recruit, more so a woman.
“Is that so?” Captain Pontius scoffed, possibly embarrassed for the faux pas. He brushed it off with a clap on Solomon’s shoulder, leaving him strangely hollow. “Then I shall pray you reach the heavens and crush all your enemies. May the Light watch over you, boy, you have my utmost gratitude.”
“The Order of Light receives your gratitude and I shall accept it on their behalf,” Solomon clasped his hands together, did not bow, and spoke monotonously. “May His Light shine eternal.”
Pink washcloths wrung out into a tinted clay basin, as servants scrubbed him from head to toe, compelling his skin to sing with crushed lavender paste.
An arduous three days on horseback and attending many failed initiations in passing hamlets were bound to break a child’s body, no matter how special. His cot sat across the room, ushering him to join it. Though it had started to feel small for a divineborn.
He stifled a yawn, searching for a reason to stay awake. Veined marble walls pulsed in the fading light of dusk, complemented by gold framed panels, mirrored on opposite sides of the walls in a rectangular pattern, meeting the arched stone ceiling. To his surprise, the smudges in his prayer mat had been scoured thoroughly, yet on a second glance, the motif had changed.
They’d actually gone and replaced something. If only they’d replace the chipped offering table that threatened to slice his hands every morning prayer.
He slumped on the worn chair, causing it to rock. An elderly hag huffed, propping the chair upright once more and cursed him under her breath, digging her sharp nails into his scalp. “The devil should watch his manners.” Another woman threw freezing water over him. He squealed.
Solomon refused to react to the word “devil”. It wasn't a a word he recognised from the permitted scripture, nor anything new. During visits to neighbouring towns with the Order, people pointed his way wherever he walked, covering their children’s eyes and ears, shutting market stands in anticipation of his arrival.
“He who bathes under the black sun.”
“Crops were said to wilt during the birth.”
Lies, of course. Though he didn’t dare ask Father Alexander to expand on the topic. Rather letting the words fester like rot beneath a wound.
Although he had to ask himself, why did they throw animal dung at his blessed feet? Why would they shudder as he passed, like a foul scent?
Why did people seem to fear him?
Most curious of all, why would crops wilt? On the contrary, his affinity for the Light provided powers of rejuvenation that, with time, could be a grand asset for harvests across the lands.
If they could just be patient, he’d show them his worth.
The undertones of insults had vanished, and his eyes popped open in absence of it. If anyone had found out he’d fallen asleep in the company of servants, unguarded and vulnerable, it would be a day without supper.
The inevitable warning slap against the table never came. Despite their arrogance and insubordination, the servants were merciful today and hadn’t repented for his recklessness. Even leaving a bundle of crestless fresh robes, which only made him feel crestfallen.
No sooner had he blearily threaded an arm through one of the sleeves, a light tap came at the door.
Oh, they changed their mind.
Another tap.
The purposeful rhythm caused a smile to break out. He knew that knock.
“Enter,” His head got caught in the neckline, as he frantically finished getting dressed.
The door mourned its frame, creaking open with a pained groan. In skipped Celesté, announcing herself loudly as tradition. Around the same height as him, her chestnut hair cascaded towards the floor like a ceremonial gown. Her doe eyed expression bright as always, powerful enough to exorcise lingering shadows in his soul. Her personal guard, Theodoric stumbled in behind her, muttering under a winded breath.
Theodoric was an illmannered man, with shaggy dark brown hair and piercing cobalt eyes. His stance forever asked the question, what am I doing here? Celesté often asked if he had anyone to spend time with off duty, and would always be met with a scowl, the two children forced to swallow their amusement.
He struggled with a large iron cage. It contained a petite green and grey bird with aggressively ruffled plumage, pecking at the bars. Recognising it as a greenfinch, like the ones he’d seen illustrated in a copied scroll from a scholar of the Eastern Sea, Solomon scratched his chin, pondering about a sudden kinship with the creature.
Theodoric shoved the cage on the worn altar table, let out an exhausted sigh and flopped face down onto the bed.
Disrespectful, as usual.
High pitched laughter rang out like a sonnet. “That makes me the crowned victor again, Theodoric! You’re aging before your time, old man!”
Theodoric moaned into the pillow, as Solomon’s space was invaded by curious amber and jade eyes.
“Oh praise the Light! You look healthier this time, have you been eating more? Ah, and you’re taller, I think?” She sliced the air between them, though the little sinner stood on her tiptoes.
“Mmhm, a valiant attempt,” Solomon tittered, pushing the girl back onto her heels without force, and correctly measured their heights. “Well then, no need to wait for the end of year feast. You may surrender your sweetbread to me at once.”
“Oh hush, I’ll bury you one day, Sol. Then we’ll see who gets the last crust.” She puffed her cheeks, straightening her green skirts. Daughters of the Mother were exempt from wearing white only, and Celesté often took advantage of that fact.
He wondered how it felt to have such freedom.
“Mother says I’m the tallest of all her children, even counting the ones who returned to the Source.”
“Ah, speaking of, is your Mother still with child? I heard the midwives talking about a ‘quickening’.”
“No! She bore my baby brother in the quiet hours, at the break of dawn. He’s beautiful, Sol. Green eyes like the rest of us, and raven hair like yours,” Celesté bounced on her feet excitedly, as he gave her an approving nod. “That’s why I’ve brought Ophelia, she’s a gift.”
She gestured towards the caged bird and sighed. “Mother’s wings are shedding again, so I hoped Ophelia here would be kind enough to spare some of her feathers. And perhaps if I ask nicely, Mother will sing for us, you know how she used to adore it.”
Celesté sighed dreamily, staring off into the drifting dust motes, as if they held secret answers. It proved to be a wonder that she’d never been scolded for such frivolity. Though, her Mother’s children naturally had a more positive demeanour.
“I’ve not heard her sing in…almost two winters.” Solomon said, slowly.
Her fixed joy cracked into worry, and before she could respond, Theodoric cleared his throat noisily, stressing about losing daylight.
“Oh, Sol! That reminds me,”
She threw him into a stilted hug smelling of the same lavender scent, and warmth he’d rarely known.
“We’re here to relay a message from High Priest Alexander. Tomorrow morning you’re to receive your first dose of the Kiss. I wanted to wish you luck, and he promised to accompany you himself at dawn.”
If she hadn’t been holding him up, Solomon would’ve collapsed. The Kiss had first been teased a few seasons ago, the adults remaining tightlipped about the process, except it was vowed to be the greatest honour and only God’s most gifted were to undergo the transition. There were no scrolls on the subject, the question fell out at Atticus’ once and he received a vague response about “being reborn into something new if successful.”
“Most boys are stationed elsewhere to serve the Order with their new abilities. But you didn’t hear that from me. Any more questions and you know what has to happen.” He’d said half-heartedly, Atticus rarely disciplined him when they were alone.
A ghost of a shiver crawled up his spine, it was exhilarating to think about.
The Kiss was a chance to better himself, and possibly see more of the world outside the walls.
“It’s tomorrow?” His voice broke repeatedly. “I- I wasn’t told it would be so soon, Father gave no proclamation or lecture or -”
“You will be fine.” Celesté clutched him tighter, if he hadn’t been so discombobulated about a lack of preparation, he might’ve noticed the slight waver in her tone. “We are ALL so proud of you! Aren’t we, Theodoric?”
Solomon risked a glance, his smile radiating towards an ever agitated man, who didn’t bother looking up as he thumbed random pages. “I, for one, look forward to seeing what they make of you,” then, barely above a whisper. “Can’t wait to finally get some peace.”
“I’ll be sure to keep the heavenly noise down for you, then,” he laughed.
Theodoric snorted in response. Celesté missed the joke and eventually released him. She always clung to people without a sense of shame or fear of punishment, no matter their rank within the Order.
Solomon admired that carefree quality, why couldn’t he be more like her? Well, he knew why, his Father would beat it out of him.
Theodoric rolled his eyes. “Celesté, do I need to repeat myself about the importance of curfews.” He spat.
“Yes, yes, I am coming!” Celesté stamped her feet and nothing happened, no threat about scrubbing the font for a week, no mention of missed meals, not even a firm hand to silence her. “I shall pray for you, until our next meeting. Oh, and Sol?”
“Yes?”
She hovered under the doorway, at war about something, before curtseying with dramatic flair. “May His Light shine eternal!”
“Goodnight, Celesté.” He chuckled through his words. “May His Light shine eternal.”
“May His Light shine eternal,” Theodoric yawned, accidentally batting him with Ophelia’s cage on the way out, earning a disapproving tweet in response.
As they turned the corner, Solomon’s eyes remained fixed on the bird. The cage bothered him, Ophelia fit in the palm of your hand, yet her living standards looked cramped at a glance. Nothing to entertain her beyond a thimble of water, and half a twig for a perch to stare out of the bars for the remainder of her days. Celesté’s mother being the only company, occasionally checking in to ensure isolation had not driven her mad.
Minutes later, the night guard arrived to seal the door. It had been a busy week of marching, rites, and ending a war with one concentrated bolt of Light. Three days spent grieving his bedroll had followed, and he collapsed into the straw mattress with a sigh that felt older than he was.
The faint flicker of a candle forced his eyes open again, and as he resigned to extinguish it, he surveyed the eerie calm of the room.
A narrow pallet, tucked into the corner of a room like an afterthought. Mismatched furniture that caused him to feel like a guest in his own living quarters. Half filled goblets, replaced without question, day-old bread he didn’t want, served with a punnet of grapes he’d never asked for.
I don’t even like grapes, yet I eat them without question.
Shadows stretched all around, their origin a tiny, out of arms reach window. Long black bars pooled at their ends like ink around the giant Light sigil above his pillow. His silhouette trapped between them.
In a horrified jolt, remnants of his earlier glee died.
It looked an awful lot like a cage.
Ten winters passed, and a life of discipline proved more fruitful to the Order than Solomon himself. His boyish features had long melted away, possessing a sharper jaw that replaced softer edges, bright pewter eyes tempered into steel and bronze ingots. Broad shoulders carved by the blade, were able to bring down entire kingdoms with a single strike.
Celesté owed him a decade’s worth of sweetbread.
With age came inevitable wisdom, and experience had taught him that devotion did not equal freedom, and the ability to freely roam didn’t amount to equality.
Freedom, he’d come to realise, didn’t exist within the Order, not for the guards, the Acolytes, Priests, nor the Daughters of the Divine with their lackadaisical indulgences. Everything had to be under the Lord’s command, or the Grand Shepherd’s exception.
Choosing safety and stability over the unknown, he opted for a vow of silence.
In the crevice of a dimly lit prayer chamber, a mouse skittered across the cold marble floor, its pitiful body twitching with every step. Solomon, who’d been in deep prayer, slowly opened one eye, stilled, and raised his foot.
The mouse's chest beat rapidly at the looming shadow, halting as if accepting fate. It would be a mercy killing, the rat catcher would find the nest at some point, or a stray cat may find an easy meal.
Life was cruel, and death never gave notice.
“No one would miss you.” Their eyes locked in a stalemate, only breaking when its ears flicked up, sensing several tiny squeaks calling out of a nearby fissure in the stone.
Correction, even vermin had a family waiting for them.
“Run,” he said, lowering his voice, addressing the parent mouse. “While you still can.”
Consider it a warning. That’s more than I ever got.
Its maternal instinct snapped into place, and paying no mind to the heel of his boot, it darted into another crack.
A teaser of the outside world amplified itself through crumbling marble. Children laughed, chasing each other with sticks, birds sang in faraway trees, presumably looking for mates, and a pair of rickety supply carts rattled over a nearby bridge. Someone swore loudly as a clay jar splashed into the stream.
The world continued to live, although inside these confines, daylight had been ironically cast out, and joy being dealt with swiftly.
Fifteen lashings for so much as coughing during a vigil. The curve of his spine still stung when pressed.
It wasn’t like silence ever amounted to the dead being risen.
Speaking of the dead.
He took a deep breath and met the dismissive stare of the Priest, now immortalised in a painting. He couldn’t help but smirk at the kindness they’d granted the old man in death. The artist had gifted him an unearned jawline, altered his form to capture a more regal stance, a smile resembling more of a snarl.
Other than the one thing they’d gotten right, who was this supposed to be? It didn’t resemble the man Solomon had been raised by. No spit dribbling from his mouth to symbolise his passionate sermons. Or the glazed look in those dark eyes in remembrance for every ritual wine he’d inhaled at each gathering?
They’d captured the man he pretended to be, clearly only Solomon knew what lay beneath all of those empty promises.
Alexander had tragically passed away due to a violent fever several days before, the Order declaring his final words “I am thankful for my service to the Lord, and forever grateful he allowed me to look upon another divine newborn before my time came.”
Lies, all of it.
Marcus, Alexander's chosen successor, had been the one to deliver the news, being sworn in later the same day. But Solomon’s silence proved to be more powerful than the Light at times, offering little presence. Especially in crowded rooms, so long as his hood remained up.
According to hushed rumours, the drunkard had spilled grape wine down his woven mantle, failing to notice it dripping on the floor, then tumbled down the stairs. Hours later, he'd been found stiff as a board, still clutching his prayer beads like God would save him from his own stupidity and greed.
“A terrible loss indeed.” Solomon had muttered during public grieving. Though if you were to ask him in the space of his own cell, he’d call it poetic justice for a monster, and only wished the stairs had dealt with the bigger monster as well.
Oh, if only lightning struck in the same place twice.
Clutching prayer beads seemed to be a contagious habit for men of the Order, as Solomon began circling self sanded beads, memories of an innocent child and a crazed lunatic pouring in.
The true sin he should've been paying attention to all these years, had been naivety.
Thankfully, on that fateful first dosage, Edo had cured it by hooking him to the ceiling like a slab of meat, force feeding him a combination of belladonna, foxglove, sour fruit seeds mixed with monkshood, again, and again, and again, all the while relishing the agonising screams of a fourteen year old and calling it “trials of strength and endurance.”
The Angel’s Kiss was divine in a sense, being the highest grade of suffering a child would ever have to experience.
After each moon’s torment, Solomon spent the nights praying for a death that never came. Whether it be his own throughout sweating through copious amounts of straw bedding and vomiting most meals, Edo’s, or whoever cursed him as a “devil” when the real foul stench of the Order wore a fox cap, and had curly hair. Sometimes he even prayed for Alexander's, and given the current circumstances, perhaps God had listened in spite of everything.
He spent the next thirty sunsets steeped in resentment, only to relive the agony again in a cycle that taught him why he hated in the first place. By the sixth dose, he’d stopped crying, only screaming to remind himself he was still alive. The torture had reached its crescendo when it remade him entirely.
The Kiss had undulated through his veins in white hot light, and his hair being the only remnant of his “whore” mother, bled of all colour, stripping him of his heritage.
He became the standard, the golden child for all divine-born boys and bestowed with a title of his own, the Silver Divine.
Yet nothing compared to the day he was finally bestowed the crest. Sixteen year old Solomon had been overjoyed, grateful toward the man, and willing to look past the order of his rewriting.
But the Order had overestimated their reach. They could scar the body; they could scar the mind. So, solitude became his ultimate weapon, crafted into an unbreakable shell. With new perception came truth.
Lux per Obedientiam. It had never made sense to him until that day.
The ritual cloak he’d yearned for since childhood was nothing more than another bribe. Because the day he'd been deemed worthy, happened to be the same day they forbade him from ever seeing Celesté again. Muttering something about it being unnatural and an unneccessary bond for the temple. If it hadn't been for the new robes providing him with the temporary delusions of finally belonging, he would've torn through his cage and taken as many lashings as the flesh could handle. He wanted to see her one last time to treasure as a memory.
A distant bell tolled in a low chime. Solomon thanked it for breaking his musings, when the third chime reverberated through his bones.
Another death.
After fighting through swarms of people to enter the Inner Sanctum, two guards had assisted the "Silver Divine" guiding him to the side passage that led to the usually reserved upper ledge. In these uncertain times Solomon found himself missing Atticus, condemning him for getting married and living a life of domestic exile.
A sickening foreboding lurched within him. Although he couldn’t describe why, shaky breaths of awe and confusion below joined him. In the mural overhead displaying thousands of opalescent halos, shimmering under the low torchlight. To his left, a hastily thrown together chanting circle practising different tenors, to his right, servants rushing to scrub the fixtures.
It was a ridiculous bastion of grandiosity, which meant life altering news.
When servants began pouring a viscous golden liquid and scattered orange and white flower petals into the round stone font, he’d sat a little straighter.
The moment Grand Shepherd Aurelius swept through the scripture carved doors like a bird of prey in a dyed black tunic, Solomon knew things were about to change. In all twenty four of his years in this godforsaken world, he had only spoken with the man once, and even then, briefly.
Aurelius, a round man with stunted limbs, waddled to the dais with all the grace of a shrivelled plum. His cane scraped painfully across the terracotta floor with each slow step.
Hurry up, before my hair turns grey.
Oh, too late.
Solomon felt like prey, and realised his dry laugh hadn’t gone unheard. It had been a wonder the Grand Shepherd hadn’t rolled straight down the centre, given the Ritual Hall’s steep incline.
With a commandeering nod, ivory drapes gave way to a beautiful stained glass window behind the dais, lights spilling in green, yellow and blue hues. The glass depicted a winged woman kneeling before a descending hand.
A portion of the congregation shielded their eyes, having already acclimated to life in the dark.
“Brothers and Sisters of the Order,” Aurelius spoke in a velvet baritone, a wolfish smile curling up his lips. “The Sacred Mother has fulfilled her duty to the Light. This very morning, after blessing us recently with another divine lamb, she has returned to the Source to rest with our Lord in his heavenly Kingdom.”
Shock convulsed through the wooden rows, and Solomon found himself grieving a woman he’d only met through a little girl's story.
Upon reflection, The Daughters of the Divine were nowhere to be found.
“Do not despair, children,” Aurelius went on. “The Light has taken, yes. But the Light also giveth. With her passing, we are granted the chance to seek a new Mother and usher in a new age. The river of Grace flows eternal, and the lambs born of the Mother shall likewise fulfil their own sacred purpose within our flock.”
The congregation nodded in agreement, like the good sheep they were. Large double doors yawned open again with a metallic screech, and two rows of benches hummed in a previously orchestrated choir.
He didn’t like this.
Six sentient flames of different heights and shapes strode towards the font. It took him a second to recognise them as girls. Their reflections blended in the golden oil, creating an illusion of layered stardust from the glitter of gold embroidered accents and orange silk. One of the flames barely old enough to walk unaided.
“Behold, the Mother’s blessed daughters!” Aurelius hobbled down to greet them like treasured possessions. “Birthed by the winged prophet, purified by sanctification. With their wombs and the Silver Divine’s seed, the sacred burden shall pass and be born anew.”
Solomon’s blood ran cold. They were asking him to -
No, surely not.
A voice in the dark corners of his mind sneered.
This is what they've been planning, the Angel’s Kiss, your torment. All preparation for this day.
He beat it down before panic could set in.
The words “Silver Divine’s seed” and “wombs” crashed into his spine like ice water. The only service he wanted to provide was spilling blood of the enemy. They had already taken his spirit, broken his body and rebuilt it in their design, he would not let them take his purity.
I want no part in whatever this is.
The entire Order’s heads snapped towards him, as he continued to reel under his hood, gripping both the chair and his prayer beads as an anchor. The font below waiting to receive the contents of his stomach as an offering.
The chamber remained silent. Save for the churning of oil, not to mention his gut.
“Ah, the Silver Divine grows bashful at the title of Father, how precious,” Aurelius crooned in his direction. “Do not be afraid, child. Elder Alexander is smiling down on you.”
Everyone laughed.
Except one of the Daughters, who white knuckled her dress.
Aurelius droned on, using words like vessel and fruit and garden. Solomon began to get the whole picture he didn’t order. Words continued to blur into each other, everything dripping in second meanings, cryptic hymns singing about consent and surrendering it to the Lord.
One of the faceless flames shook.
Everything drifted into background noise. The world highlighting every possible exit, now shining like Heaven’s Gate.
He just needed a distraction.
His gaze dropped to the glow strobing beneath his skin. The Light could giveth him a way out.
Curved daggers rested in velvet-lined chests. One by one, the girls were pushed under the oils and lilies to be cleansed. They surfaced in a thick coating of olive oil, petals latching onto their masked head.
He blinked once as their robes were torn at the centre, revealing their naked bellies.
Twice, when the blade sliced deliberate spirals into their flesh.
Thrice, when none of them made a sound.
One of the girls swayed, dropping into waiting arms. Another had to be dragged out unconscious.
Solomon was on his last prayer, sweat pouring underneath his cloak. Why wasn't anyone helping them?
“Step forward, child.” Aurelius said to the sixth, a brunette. “Do you consent to the Light’s next dawn within you? Your flesh as a vessel for His purpose?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line.
“Ahem. Do you consent?”
No response.
“Daughter of the Divine!” The Grand Shepherd raised his voice, bringing Solomon back to lucidity. His eyes fixed on the rebellious woman. She stood taller than the others, carrying herself in a dignified stance.
The girl who'd once chased butterflies around the gardens every summer, tirelessly tormenting adults with spontaneous song and dance had eroded into memory. In her place, a woman stood with eyes like polished emeralds, capable of cleaving through the lands in hymm.
Celesté grit her teeth and spoke in an imperceptible volume.
“What? Speak up, child.”
She smacked a waiting Acolyte’s hand away, causing them to drop their dagger in the font.
"I SAID, I DO NOT CONSENT!"
An unspoken understanding passed between the Daughters of the Divine. The smallest reached for Celesté, who shook her head in warning not to follow.
The remaining three held on to each other, and made a break for it before the Hall descended into chaos.
“SEIZE THEM!” Aurelius yelled in a vain attempt to be heard over the uproar. People booed, threw their sandals, anything that wasn’t nailed down went over the benches and towards the blasphemer. Some called for her removal, exile, and her death.
With a deafening crash, the sisters climbed out of the window.
The Grand Shepherd had been a fool and summoned the entire Order of Light to this gathering, the girls were free.
Celesté gulped a massive sigh of relief as her sisters disappeared over the horizon, visibly shaken. Tears slid down her face. “Before my Mother’s death, she told me what you did to her,” She faced the seats, hoping to reach their humanity. “She never chose to serve the light, she was nothing more than a prisoner, defiled time and time again, and you dared to call it a chosen union. You used her.”
“This is sacrilege!" Someone called out. “Silence the whore!”
“Listen to me. The Order of Light is a lie! They are nothing more than taskmasters clad in silk. Their words are poison, and you have all been deceived.” Celesté pleaded, but no one took her seriously.
“Restrain her,” a calm voice called out, one with more authority than the Grand Shepherd.“The Mother's madness has spread.”
Nearby guards abandoned their scuffle and moved to seize her, she fought like wildfire. They quickly subdued her.
“Good,” came the voice Solomon never wanted to hear again. “Now, Celesté, let’s talk.”
Doctor Edo prowled from the side chamber with the confidence of a man born to be waited on. He wore the same grey robes, stained with blue liquid.
“Your mother was very sick, the loss of each child weighed too heavily on her. By the end nothing remained in that useless husk. Her vessel had spent.” He said clinically and held out a gloved hand. “Come, child. We can help.”
“That useless husk was my mother, liar!” Celesté spat, a glob landed on his cap. The guards tightened their hold.
“I’ve fixed many things in my time in the Order, and you shall not be the exception.” He removed the pelt hat, wiping it casually with a snap of his fingers.
Celesté laughed dryly as men continued to mob her. “You cannot fix what is not broken.”
Her garments split at the back with a tremendous shred. Sprouting from her spine were two majestic white eagle wings, spanning the width of the Hall.
Solomon’s mouth flew agape, as did many.
“Abomination!” Edo snarled. “You lied to me, you had wings all along.”
“Oh, I simply learned from the best. I concealed the truth. And I suppose, you’re right. I am an abomination, a bastard child born of men's hunger for power,” She said, hovering in mid air, out of reach of the guards who hopped helplessly.
Solomon had seen miracles before, been one, but never one this magnificent.
“Mother loved me regardless, till her last breath. She heard everything that went on in these walls, the children you murdered, the women you sullied, the lies you fed us. Her legacy was not birthing half-breeds, it was to bear justice. All these years she sang of your crimes in the language of angels, calling out for her brothers and any who listened. And I hear her now.”
People stopped scrabbling for the doors and side exits, some recognised her as the new Mother and bent the knee, praying for redemption and forgiveness.
Light poured out of Celestés eyes and mouth as her entire body burned white, mirroring Solomon’s veins. “You have not served the Lord, you are parasites and deceivers. And I shall rid the lands of your evil blight,”
“BE GONE!” She cried out, and several shockwaves of yellow rings rippled around her, obliterating flesh and stone. Anyone in the near vicinity turned to ash.
One of the rings hit a supporting beam, and with a low groan the Sanctuary Hall came undone. People screamed as they were crushed by brick and timber. Glass shards rained down like lances, slitting bone and marrow in execution.
In the commotion, he didn’t hear the balcony give way under him.
Solomon was thrown from the ledge, fragments of marble pummelled his torso. He hit the ground with a sickening crack.
His vision blurry, he forced himself to stand. Trembling with each laboured breath, a rib punctured his lung on every inhale.
Blood rose in his throat, and his hearing twisted into garble. Hundreds of rocky tombs surrounded him, his lack of hearing a blessing as The Order were hushed out of existence.
He eyed a rare metal blade on the ground, groaning as he picked it up and used it as a balancing stick.
The air tasted of burning flesh, oil and metal. When his vision returned, the world blinded him. White and gold tongues of flame licked the banners and the crest, swallowing the Temple whole in ruin.
Splitting the flames, a decanter hurled itself in Celestés direction, shrouding her in a purple haze. Her wings faltered as she touched down by the bath, slightly disoriented.
“Thirty four, You. Will. Come. Quietly.” Edo was manic, speaking in quakes, his flesh peeling like week-old wax. “You and Subject Thirty Six are destined to serve us!”
Despite being half deaf, Solomon let out a breath tasting of iron. Edo had been experimenting on all of them, they were nothing but playthings. Even the Daughters. He cursed his younger self for envying them, thinking they had it better off. When behind closed doors, every member of the Order had been complicit in their never-ending torment. It sickened him that he'd wished for that life.
She glared in disdain, and perhaps pity. “We are not destined for anything! And that’s something you’ll never understand. There is no design, but to breathe, and live, and love as we choose,” She was furious and devastating. “Life outside these walls would’ve been worth living, but it is too late for me.”
She ripped a polearm from the debris. “You shall never use me again.”
“Thirty Four, what are you doing…” Edo wheezed, his composure lost. “Celesté, cease this nonsense!”
Celesté!
Solomon tried shouting to no avail, forced to watch in horror with the few straggling survivors as she plunged the polearm deep into her chest.
Celesté fell into the coagulated rose gold font with a syrupy splash.
Another pillar came toppling down above the deranged physician. When the dust cleared, he had vanished.
Solomon dropped the sword, scrambling towards her through the wreckage. From under a fallen plinth, a feeble hand covered in red jewels beckoned towards any who tread close. Debris shucked away in the heated breeze, revealing their face.
“Silver Divine, my child…” Two sunken in eyes stared at him like he'd grown wings too. Aurelius, or what little was left of him. “Heal me with your Light, we…can…rebuild together.”
He considered crushing his skull. But after everything the Order had done, letting them suffer slowly happened to be a fairer punishment.
“Ask your God to save you,” Solomon said flatly. “I’m not him.”
“To leave someone in need,” Aurelius choked out. “You are heartless! A monster with no soul!”
A monster you created.
Solomon didn’t look back as the flames spread, devouring a tainted legacy in screams.
Adrenaline dragged him through rubble, and he found Celesté gliding in the pink water.
Wading through the rose gold tar, he lifted her dainty body up to him.
“You won the bet.” She said, eyes half lidded and far away.
“And you grew wings,” he smiled sadly. “I think we need to renegotiate the terms.”
“No, it doesn’t count. I always had them,” Celesté leant her head back, gazing at the remains of the ceiling, straight into the sun. “Mother, my siblings, they’re singing for me. Isn’t it beautiful?”
The only sound he could identify were his own heart stuttering and her shuddering breaths.
“Yes,” he lied, forcing a smile, throat filling with more blood. “Yes. I hear them.”
“I want to see her again, Sol,” she confessed. “One last visit.”
His voice, wet and thick. “C-can’t you stay a while? We can share the sweetbread together. Wouldn’t you prefer that?”
Celesté chuckled weakly, raising a tired arm, and plucked out one of her own feathers, pushing it into his hands. “Here, it’s something more precious than sweetbread. It’ll help you grow wings too, and be free of this place.”
The feather hovered weightless in his palm, luminous in comparison to the rest. However, the tips of Celestés wings slowly shed into ash. He didn't understand her meaning, how was one measly feather supposed to help him escape?
“Sol?” Her breathing grew shallow.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll be back by curfew.”
Please, don’t go.
Don’t leave me.
He had never healed anyone before, never been asked to. His hands rose in the frantic fear of losing the closest thing he’d ever had to family.
Surely a wound like this wouldn’t take much, and then they could explore the world together. Like they’d promised each other as children.
Light surged, ready to obey. His hand wavered at the silent plea in her expression. Don’t.
But I don't want to be alone.
Disobeying his command, his hand pressed against her chest. Celesté shook her head, clasping his free hand.
No, she had chosen this, she wanted to rest.
With a choked sob, he let the Light sputter out. He wouldn’t steal her final act of free will.
“It’s okay, Celesté. Enjoy your time together, I won’t tell Elder Marcus.” Unsteady from an invading cold, he drew a shaky breath. “And I’ll hold onto your feather until you return.”
A tear trickled down her face, the sparkle of her eyes fading. “Thank you.”
She let out one last sigh of contentment, her body going limp.
Celesté was gone.
He cradled her, gripping the feather until it singed his palm and prayed for a curfew that would never end.
Then, a chill like no other took root through his body. He wanted to curse everyone and everything, burn the earth with his Light and take vengeance for the Mother, all the fallen children, for his dearest friend.
And he would, when the ringing in his ears faded, and the world stopped spinning.
He felt the exact moment his lungs ceased, again the instinct to heal himself clawed up from within. He ignored it, too tired to want to carry on.
When his heart gave up, he dropped at Celeste's side with newfound peace. They’d be together again, ready to explore freedom in death.
His chest seized in on itself, breath mangling into nothing, vision tunnelling between fire and the ruins, to a single blinding point. Far from poetic, no Light, no Judgement, no Celesté or winged Mother's warm embrace to greet him. Not even his mother made an appearance.
He knew he'd died, with clarity he knew he existed outside of time, reality, somehow able to comprehend thought. The final dregs of rage cooled into acceptance.
Finally.
It’s over.
Until it wasn’t.
Like kindling catching at his core, his senses sparked back to life. First came weight, his limbs heavy with soaked cloth. Then the odour of crushed herbs and smoke. Somewhere nearby, the steady scrape of a whetstone on metal ground his teeth together in a wince.
Pain returned as a fresh re-enactment of what should've been. His lungs suddenly burned in a difficult breath, while his chest spasmed with phantom quakes. Every part of him screamed that he was dying, even as his body refused to obey instinct.
The cuts stippling his skin had knitted themselves together again, his ribs snapping into place to an otherworldly salute. Silver hair, once seared to ash and bald patches somehow sprang back to life as if it had never burned at all. But the stench of decay remained. This world was no longer his, it was all wrong.
Gone were the white and gold walls. Replacing them were skinned fish hooked from the ceiling of a dark wooden hut. Celesté nowhere in sight, replaced with aching finality that he had no one left to care for.
Nearby, the shadow of a man lolled on a makeshift chair of leather scraps, denying Solomon a moment to grieve. They sleepily guarded what looked to be a half eaten bowl of poultice, gripping it with raw, blood stained fingers. The stranger had tried, and failed, to bind wounds that no longer existed.
It had been perhaps the kindest act anyone had ever done for him, but Solomon hadn’t asked to return. Hadn't wanted to remain if life wouldn't give him orders. To be pulled back from that nothingness was anything but salvation that he'd been told one feels on the verge of leaving this plane and joining the Gods. The ruinous rage he'd felt before returned in a warm embrace, during his grief of the theft of something he could never reclaim.
He sucked in a breath that wasn’t supposed to exist. It tore out of him like a reverse death rattle as he lurched upright, hand flying to a chest that should’ve been concave.
The old man dropped his bowl, and in a frail pause, Solomon saw hope of a healer whose patient had recovered. The Gods had possibly taken pity on him, granting a second chance at life without serving anyone.
For one sanguine moment, he let himself believe he'd be safe in an unknown peasant’s hut, far beyond the Order’s reach and the smoking ruins it had become.
Then, the man’s hope curdled into a scowl. “Devil!” he cried, letting out a choked scream. “You were dead, your heart beat no more!”
Before Solomon could reply, the man toppled over the scraps without looking back, bolting out of the door and into the night. Panicked screams rang out over the hilltops as his silhouette disappeared into the pasture.
He reached out with one hand, fingers catching nothing but air.
In the Order, he’d been a miracle, out here he'd be known as the devil incarnate. Apparently the Gods would never allow him to simply be.
Two months later, a pair of village guards drowned him in a river for stealing clothes. Their greasy hands held him under, paying no mind to his struggle or his useless swatting for mercy as the current claimed him. Every second committed itself to memory, the creeping fear, the growing satisfaction on two blurry figures faces as his lungs took their fill of the drink.
The next day, he was found bereft of the stolen tunic, floating under a bridge with stones in his sodden pockets and rasping for air, after death had spat him out.
Every modicum of pain had disappeared, his body miraculously drained of water. His body somehow forgot, but his mind would always remember.
For the rest of his existence, every death felt identical to the point where fear eclipsed itself, emotions stagnated over time, because it simply didn't matter anymore. It would never cease to end. The crushing of his organs, breath shredding in that terrible moment of surrender. No visions or sonnets, only the certainty of oblivion as pieces of him ebbed away.
And of course, the cruel surprise of being dragged back against his will without anyone to welcome him home.
Art of Solomon by my wonderful friend Hyesui
