The news spread like wildfire.
But not with urgency.
There was no panic. Just quiet voices, a few murmured “He overdid it,” passed from tent to tent like idle gossip.
Ysilla stormed toward Dal’s tent first, shouting profanities in a language no one dared question. Gorrath’khaal followed close behind with his arms full of medical supplies.
Then came Killeon, Bella, and Anders, all hushed and paler than normal, hovering near the doorway.
Varg and Nolan lingered just outside too, grim and unreadable. Silent. Waiting.
"HELLO?!??! Did—did you guys SEE THAT??" Rish, who had only arrived hours ago, paced back and forth like a wild creature.
“Y’all are too calm for a corpse this pretty!” She squeaked, voice raising too high. “What the fuck happened?!”
“Overdid it,” Ysilla muttered, crushing herbs in a ceramic bowl. Unbothered. Just slightly pissed.
“Again,” Killeon confirmed, arms crossed. Calm.
“Overdid it?!” Rish yelled, throwing her arms energetically. “Your brother just DIED!"
“Yeah he does that…” Killeon nodded.
Then—
“Wait,” Varg’s voice cut through. He stepped into the tent. “Dal, what exactly happened?”
The Pale Elf didn’t turn away from the bloodied basin.
“Unfortunately,” he said flatly, “your lovely walking corpse over here didn’t share the details with me.” He finally looked up, eyes calm and cold. “Your best bet is that Church boy of yours.”
Nolan’s heart stopped.
“Shit.”
He turned sharply. “Where’s Cael?!”
Dal barely looked over his shoulder. “Last I saw? Stalking me from the bushes.”
“Gather the others,” Killeon snapped. “We’re launching a search. Immediately.”
Torches swayed between trees like dying stars fallen into a nightmare. Boots scraped over roots. Moss swallowed their echoes. Even the insects had gone quiet.
The search party split into groups. Varg tracking. Anders casting soft illumination over their path. Bella whispering encouragement. Nolan charging forward like a man possessed.
“If he’s hurt, I swear I’m killing Sol again,” Nolan grumbled, hunched over as though tracking scents only he could sense.
“He’s fine. Sol would never. Probably throwin’ a tantrum somewhere,” Varg muttered—but he didn’t sound sure. The forest was dangerous.
They passed a corpse—mangled, unrecognizable—half-melted into the dirt.
Then… a ruined temple.
A broken altar. Blood crusted in sacred grooves. The smell of iron thick enough to choke.
Red footprints. Bare. Uneven. Leading into the dark.
Another set, following after. To the camp.
They searched for hours.
And when the uneasiness reached its peak, finally, movement. Deep in the pitch darkness.
“GOT HIM!” Someone’s voice rang through the silence of the night.
A shape stepped into the dim light.
Caelus. But… not Caelus.
A revenant.
Pale as death, blood-matted hair clinging to his face, sword clenched so tightly his hand gone rigid.
He stepped out like a man woken from the casket. Blank eyes. Hollow cheeks.
His armor was ruined, dried blood flaking from the seams, his posture limp—tilted.
But, thankfully, safe. Whole.
At least his body.
“Damn… he finally lost it.” Someone whispered.
“Cael, buddy—” Nolan said gently, holding out a hand while he approached. “Give me the sword, alright?”
He smiled nervously, coaxing him like an animal.
No response.
Nolan had to pry his fingers open. Bone-creaking resistance.
The blade dropped with a dull thud.
Caelus eyes, unfocused, glided over the shapes of each person before him, before landing at Nolan.
He laughed. Bitter. Broken.
“Why bother?” He muttered, barely audible. Not to them. Not even to himself. “You’ll kill me anyway.”
They brought him back to camp.
He didn’t resist.
Walked like a man marching to execution.
Someone stripped his armor. Piece by piece. Not roughly—but carefully. As if peeling off guilt. The blue tunic beneath was soaked dark with blood and dirt.
Anders’ voice rang through the murmurs of the crowd watching him. He felt their stares burning onto his back.
“You think Sol said something?”
“Whatever he did—it broke the poor bastard.”
This is the end.
He expected the worst. He thought the worst.
But instead—soothing warmth of water on his sore, tired body.
Not splashed over him. It moved, gentle, caressing like a living thing, glowing softly.
Anders.
Magic.
They washed him.
Didn’t stab. Didn’t torture. Didn’t even throw insults his way.
Washed, dressed, escorted to the tent. Tried to feed, even.
Nolan didn’t leave his side once.
But Cael wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t sleep.
He sat in silence. Eyes open. Drenched in blood that no longer stained skin—but soul.
This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be.
He was dreaming. Dying. Voidbound. There was no other explanation.
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The blood was still there. He could feel it.
His head spun.
People came and went. Their faces distorted, even if just for a second.
He saw them, their true faces, he knew what they were.
They brought him back.
He didn’t remember walking.
He didn’t remember anything.
Time looped. Or maybe it folded. Or maybe the world had been peeled back and stitched wrong.
He sat beside the fire.
He sat in the temple.
He sat in the woods.
He wasn’t sure which one he was still in. Or if he ever left.
Someone tried to hand him food again. He flinched so hard his own hand struck the bowl from theirs.
He didn’t apologize. Just stared at the broth in the dirt like he was seeing something else.
He could still feel it. The weight of that gaze. The sound of blood sliding from Sol’s mouth. The silence of God.
And the laughter. He’d heard it behind his eyes. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just hungry.
He whispered the old prayers.
They didn’t fit anymore.
He tried again.
Still wrong. The shape of them was off—like trying to draw a circle with broken hands.
He scraped one hand down his face as if he was trying to wipe something off. It didn’t help. He still felt the sickly warmth. He still tasted copper. He still saw the earring.
Someone laughed.
He curled inward.
Because what if it was him.
On the third day Nolan tried again.
He spoke gently. Comfortingly. Tried jokes. Pleaded.
But Caelus just stared past him, lips parting slightly, like he was hearing someone else entirely.
He didn’t remember laying down. But he was on the ground now. Hands over his face. Not weeping. Just… vibrating.
“Sorry bud.” Nolan raised his fist.
One punch. Clean. Controlled. Gentle.
Caelus collapsed into sleep.
Nightmares.
Over and over again.
In each. Sol stepped closer and closer.
In each, Sol died by his hand.
Each death more gruesome.
But always, it was Cael’s hands that held the blade.
He didn’t want to. But his hands still moved.
Clawing. Choking. Stabbing.
At first, it felt justified.
At first, he convinced himself it was righteous.
But by the sixth, the tenth, the hundredth vision—he didn’t know anymore.
Who was the victim?
Who was the monster?
Demons don’t bleed like that.
Demons don’t die like that.
Demons don’t smile like that each time the blade slides down their skin.
He woke up at dawn. Clutching his medallion so hard it cut into his palm.
The whispers were gone.
The faces were real again.
And they were watching him.
Not with hate. With worry.
He flinched, startled.
Killeon crouched beside him, tentative as a man of his size could possibly be. “Hey. It’s alright.”
Why?
Caelus blinked blearily at the room.
Nolan. Anders. Bella. Even the Pale Elf and the Witch, hovering over a mess of bottles and scrolls strewn across the table.
All present. All Calm.
“You’re not in any kind of trouble, okay?” Killeon reassured, giving him a light pat on the back.
“Oh, but we are, then?” Dal’s voice cut in, too calm for comfort.
“Why is it I’m the one solving your shit all the time?” He didn’t even glance up—just raised an eyebrow at Killeon, as if Caelus weren’t three seconds from shattering again.
“Dalimor!” Ysilla slapped his arm without looking.
“Don’t spook him.” She frowned, uncorking a small vial. “Whatever Sol did traumatized him enough already.”
What is happening?
They weren’t angry.
No one had a blade to his throat. No one spat on him. No one screamed.
Were they not supposed to be bloodthirsty?
Was Sol alright?
Did he hallucinate it all?
Was it all a nightmare?
Did Sol do something to him?
Drugs?
Magic?
Nolan, already lingering at his side, touched his shoulder. “Cael? You with us?”
A nod, slow and uncertain.
Bella grabbed Anders’ hand and shook it violently. Whisper-yelling, “HE’S RESPONSIVE!!”
Nervous laughter rippled around the tent.
Relieved. Awkward. Human.
“Alright,” Killeon drawled, rising.
“You should rest. We’ll talk when you’re ready.” A beat. “Unless Sol recovers first.”
So something DID happen.
“You’re free to walk around,” Killeon added gently. “Just… don’t go into the forest again.”
Dalimor pressed a vial into his palm.
Caelus, against all sense, drank without question. Bitter. Clarifying. It silenced the storm in his skull, just a little.
The mercs said something else. Reassurance. Comfort.
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t ask.
He just got up.
The templar drifted through camp like a specter.
Not a guest. Not a prisoner.
People greeted him. Nobody mocked him. Nobody hit him.
They just… included him.
That was worse. He, blissfully, didn’t care.
Day after day, he moved within a pattern.
Wake up. Ignore food. Drink the bitter vial. Wander the camp. Avoid eye contact. Dinner—half-consumed. Sit by the lake. Watch the sun go down.
But every night…
He found himself outside Dalimor’s tent, watching from the trees, unseen.
Watching people come and go.
Leaving gifts. Small gestures of love.
Flowers. Snacks. Carved trinkets. A feather braided with string.
Watching Dal enter with clean bandages—
Watching him leave with bloodied ones.
Too afraid to go in.
Too afraid to see what lay inside.
A Week Passed. And the numbness began to fade.
Dal stopped giving him the potion.
Cael began to speak again. Quietly. To Nolan. Then Bella. Then Anders.
The jokes returned. Softly, at first. Measured. Careful.
Like testing the edge of a blade.
Clarity.
And with clarity came perception.
The camp was still breathing. Still moving. Still alive—
But different.
The songs still rose at night, but no one danced.
The arena still echoed with combat, but the hits lacked joy—methodical now. Colded.
Everything was quieter.
Slower.
They missed him.
And not just because he nearly died. They missed Sol.
Of course they did. Because they didn’t see what he saw. Or maybe they had and loved him because of it.
That thought made Caelus want to be sick.
That evening, the air was still.
It was late. The clearing colored in vibrant pinks from the sleepy sun. Quiet. Almost peaceful.
For once, Caelus’ head was clear.
And for reasons he couldn’t name, his steps took him forward.
Not around the tent. Not behind the trees.
But to the front.
He should’ve turned back.
He knew he should’ve.
But the tents stood open, wide and waiting—no flap, no barrier, nothing to keep the outside world from peering in.
He was approaching from the side, slow, hesitant, every step lighter than the last. His chest tight. His thoughts whispering ‘don’t’.
The first thing he saw were Sol’s feet.
Bare. Motionless. Paler than he remembered.
Caelus went rigid.
One more step—
Just one.
From this new angle, he could finally see inside.
Only part of the interior, where the flicker of lantern-light brushed against flesh, fur and shelves filled to the brim with jars and vials.
And there—curling, twisting, crawling through the air—
Red fog.
His pulse jumped.
That fog… he’d seen it before.
That temple. That throat. That blood.
But the realization came too late.
He had already stepped closer.
Time stilled. So did his lungs.
Inside, Solferen lay flat atop a low cot of wood and fur, limbs still and armor stripped, his chest bare and unmoving. Not even a sheet covered him. He looked like an offering laid upon a burial slab.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
No, the worst part sat directly atop his chest.
There—at the center of the tent, half-shrouded in shadow, half-washed in red haze—It sat.
Perched atop Sol’s unmoving chest, hunched low like a predator guarding its kill.
The Thing.
From where Cael stood, he couldn’t see its face.
Didn’t need to.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink.
Even from this crooked angle, with fog clouding the edges of his vision—it looked like Sol.
But stretched. Distorted.
Starved.
The creature’s hair spilled around Sol’s head in a waterfall of blood, strands dragging across his shoulders. Where its fingers curled into his ribs, the fog spread thicker—leaking into the air with every breath Sol didn’t take.
It wasn’t breathing.
Neither was Caelus.
This wasn’t just magic—this was something older, something that stank of iron and ozone and things best left buried.
His fingers twitched. His hand moved instinctively.
To his hilt.
SNAP.
The Thing’s head whipped around. Too fast. All wrong.
Cael’s legs locked. The world shrank to the width of its gaze.
Its eyes—if they could even be called that—were two glowing hollows, faceless and depthless.
Its face was smooth, featureless. Alien.
And once he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it. A hole in the world where reason went to die. Its head turned too smoothly. Too fast. Its body didn’t breathe—it just waited.
And it was staring straight at him.
Caelus didn’t scream.
He couldn’t.
The second their eyes met, something broke.
His vision shattered.
It hit him like lightning.
The world slipped sideways.
He was no longer standing. No longer living. No longer himself.
Something cracked open behind his eyes.
He tasted blood. Or maybe it was memory. His knees buckled. He couldn’t tell if he fell.
A flood. A storm. A cry from a throat that wasn’t his.
It was fire.
War.
A city crumbling under divine ruin.
Gore.
Screams.
Not his. Not now—but real.
He heard them as though they were buried in his own skull, wailing through the cracks in his thoughts. Bones snapping. Salt air.
A statue. Towering. Familiar. Glorious.
Then—
Pain.
His chest—splitting.
He saw a blade—no, felt it—thrust into his chest.
The pain. Searing. Real.
Then, warmth.
Light.
Healing.
Almost divine.
Until—
Him.
Aurenos.
Unmistakable in form.
Unmistakable in rage.
No light. No mercy.
Only claws—raking down his throat.
