Chapter 534: Recapitation
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
The scream tore through the temple.
For a single, frozen heartbeat, no one moved, only for the silence to be shattered into chaos. Doors burst open. Footsteps thundered down stone corridors.
That agonizing scream—
Acolytes still in their nightrobes scrambled toward the source of the scream, their faces pale. Was it another vision? Not long ago, the Saintess had foretold the Emperor’s death, and the Emperor had died from assassination.
Was this another prophecy, another glimpse of calamity to come? Or was it something worse? An attack? An assassin, the same ones who killed the Emperor? Had someone breached the temple’s sanctity and laid hands on their Saintess?
The corridors filled with bodies, priests, priestesses, temple guards in their ceremonial armor, all rushing toward Ruby Vaiva’s private quarters.
The torchlight flickered wildly against the stone walls, casting leaping shadows that seemed to flee alongside them. Someone was shouting orders. Someone else was praying aloud.
Igor and Veras ran with the rest of them. Their polished composure, so carefully maintained throughout their verbal duel, had cracked wide open.
His heart pounded against his ribs as his legs carried him forward, his mind racing through possibilities and finding only dread.
Saintess Ruby, for God’s sake. This was Ruby. His master’s beloved. The woman for whom Arzhen had thrown away his bond and marriage to that fake saintess, killing her. Everything Arzhen had done, every cruel word, every ruthless decision, had been for Ruby.
And now his master had suddenly relapsed from whatever mysterious illness had seized him, waking in the night drenched in sweat and screaming for a healer, while the Saintess was in danger—
Igor followed Veras to push through the crowd that had already formed outside Ruby’s door, shouldering past gawking acolytes and trembling priestesses.
His breath came in ragged gasps and his eyes strained to see past the bodies blocking his view. Then the crowd parted just enough, and he saw her.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH—AAAAAHHHH!!!"
Ruby was on the floor. Two priestesses were holding her, their arms wrapped around her shoulders and waist, trying to contain the violent convulsions that wracked her body.
But she was not seeing them. She was not seeing anything in this world. Her face was full of animal terror, her eyes wide and rolling, the pupils blown so large they nearly swallowed the blue of her irises.
Her mouth was open, stretched into a scream that had no end, and the sounds coming out of her throat were... they were strangled, guttural noises, half scream, half choke, and in between, were rattles. Death rattles.
Her hands were clamped around her own throat, fingers digging into the soft flesh with bruising force, nails raking red furrows across her skin.
She was holding her neck. Holding her head in place. As though she believed that if she let go, even for a second, her head would... fall from her shoulders and roll across the floor.
At the same time, Bimo slipped through the crowd like a shadow, his small frame weaving between the hips and elbows of panicked adults who barely noticed him.
His heart hammered against his ribs, but his face betrayed nothing, just the wide-eyed confusion of a young acolyte caught up in something he didn’t understand.
Inside, though, his mind was racing.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
He didn’t know what this meant overall. He didn’t know what had happened to the Saintess or why she was screaming like a woman being murdered.
Maybe it was another prophecy after all, the kind that left her shaking and babbling about futures no one else could see.
Or maybe it was an attack. An invisible one, using some airborne poison. Something that had slipped past the temple guards, past the wards, past every layer of protection that surrounded the most holy woman in the world. Something that was strangling her from the inside out.
Either way, the conclusion was the same. The Saintess was in obvious, undeniable distress. And the only person qualified to treat her... would be the temple’s lead healer!
But Father Rohan wasn’t here. He hadn’t returned yet from the Dawnoro capital estate. He was still there, summoned by the Luna for whatever urgent reasons.
And if people started looking for him now, if they searched his chambers and found them empty, if they questioned where he had gone so late at night, if they connected his absence to the Saintess’s sudden madness—
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
Ruby’s scream cut through his thoughts. The sound was inhuman now, raw and ragged, scraping against the edges of her throat as though something was trying to claw its way out.
Her body convulsed in the arms of the priestesses holding her. Her nails drew fresh lines of blood across her neck. Her wild, rolling eyes seemed to stare at something no one else could see.
"Call someone! Call the Healer!" a priestess shrieked, her voice cracking with panic. "Father Rohan!"
"Father Rohan!"
The name spread through the crowd like fire through dry grass.
"Where is Father Rohan?!"
"Someone fetch the healer!"
"Father Rohan, quickly!"
No, no, no, no...
Bimo’s blood ran cold. He had to do something. He had to stall them, redirect them, buy enough time for Roarke to return and slip back into his role.
But what could a twelve-year-old acolyte do against a crowd of panicked adults all demanding the same thing?
Call the Pope or the Cardinals? Convince everyone it might just be a violent Vision?
He needed to subtly influence something!
Direct them to the possibility of assassins? Scare them? What? How—?!
"Calm down—please step aside."
Bimo’s eyes lit up in sudden relief.
That voice!
The crowd instinctively parted to let the speaker through, and Father Rohan strode into the room. His temple healer’s robes were immaculate. Not a wrinkle, not a stain!
Truly as though he had just stepped out of his chambers after a long evening of quiet study rather than sprinting across half the capital to arrive here in time.
His dark hair was neatly combed back. His expression was calm and professional. In one hand, he carried his worn leather medical bag, the handle polished smooth by years of use. Even a disguise needed the added flavor of history behind it.
Bimo’s knees nearly buckled with relief. Father Rohan had returned! He had made it, somehow, against all odds. He had slipped back into the temple and donned his disguise and arrived exactly when he was needed most.
But wasn’t he urgently needed for something very important back at the Dawnoro capital estate?
No matter! He’s here!