Dusk was falling along the streets of the Outer Veil. People walked by him without noticing him. That was how it was supposed to be. No one noticed the Pale Order until it was too late. Assassins who stood out were useless. He leaned against the brick building across the road from the apothecary shop. For once he was glad for the lower mask he wore. It helped filter out the overpowering smells from the perfumer whose shop inhabited the building. Usually he would be on the other side where a small boy touted the newspapers but this scholar, Emrys, walked that way to return to his inn. If anyone did happen to notice him, Lucien knew it would be someone from the Ecclesium.

  The Ecclesium, the public part of the Aureate Church, bathed in the Light and blessed by all. He huffed, halfway to clear his nose, halfway in frustration at the fact that a scholar was with her. Lucien knew why they had sent him. More whispers of a magic healer in the Veil had spread just as quickly as Bloom. Few were actually healed in the Basilica despite their promises. Most were left to suffocate when the fungus completely filled their lungs.

  Lucien had seen it once; Bloom that overtook the lungs entirely. It was as if some sort of fungal forest sprouted in the once pink muscle. Mushroom looking stalks stood as tall as the lungs would allow. Shorter ones spread along like grass. If someone didn't know what it was, they might find it beautiful. All it did was remind him that even pretty things were deadly. Pretty things. His attention returned to the apothecary shop. Solenne was pretty.

  Fuck, she was more than pretty. She was the most ethereal thing that Lucien had ever laid eyes on. Not even a Seraph of the First Choir could compare to her. He remembered how she'd looked when they first met eight years ago. Her eyes were wide, innocent. She had reminded him of a fawn before it knew to fear man. Even when he snarled at her, snapped to leave him for dead, she had refused.

  "Solenne..." He whispered her name like a prayer. A familiar heat shot down his chest, following the path of the scar left from that night. The first time he'd said her name the pain had brought him to his knees. Lucien had bitten the inside of his cheek so hard his mouth flooded with blood to stop from screaming aloud. Now it was what kept him sharp, kept him focused. Where others evoked the name of the Light, he evoked hers before his missions. Lucien had never failed one since she became his patron saint.

  A bell chimed causing him to snap back. Lucien watched as Emrys left for the night. Solenne waved goodbye to him before going back into the shop, closing the door behind her. Both of them were smiling. That wasn't something he had expected. He didn't want to admit that he wished Solenne had turned him away. If she had, they would have sent the Pale Order. He would have volunteered for the mission. As much as Lucien worshipped Solenne, he wanted her gone. Her presence consumed him. Rarely was there a day that had gone by that he didn't find himself standing in a place like this, watching over her all while wishing he had the freedom to end her so he could return to the life he had before... if that even was a life.

  What was he saying? Of course it was a life. Lucien was taken in by the Aureate when he was a child. The Veil had once been his home. He remembered when these streets seemed so big and infinite. Back then, the children weren't left to roam in packs. They were picked up and brought to the Basilica to serve the church as the Archon deemed fit. While most went to the Ecclesium, some were sent to join the Candescent Order; the Aureate's righteous protectors. They were judge, jury, and executioner in Caelora.

  Lucien showed a penance for assassin work. Each acolyte went through training for each branch of the Order. Some became members of the guard. Others became knights, protectors of the higher members of the church. Then there were acolytes like Lucien who were shadows amongst their peers. Some swore he was a demon from the Wilds. Primarch Aldren saw the Pale Order perfected within him.

  What did he see now?

  They'd all noticed his change after that night. He was haunted. Not by a spirit, not by his near death, but by her. Lucien spoke the prayers on Midweek. They tasted like ash on his tongue. It felt wrong. The words burned his scar. Calen, his only friend - if he could call Calen that - had noticed the way he winced while praying.

  "You need to hide that better." Calen warned one Midweek years ago.

  Lucien snorted. "Hide what?"

  "You know what Lucien. Hide it or they will think you're marked."

  Lucien couldn't stop the wry smile forming under his mask. He was marked. The ruin lay down his neck, across his chest, where his heart would have stopped beating had it not been for the blood of another. The mark ran deeper than flesh. He could feel her in his veins, his soul, the very essence of who he was and without her, he could not exist. His eyes closed. The ache never stopped. He longed to get close enough to smell her, maybe even dare a touch, but he never could. It didn't matter how many nights he spent keeping her safe, she would never be his.

  He thought about lying to her. Lucien knew he was handsome. His white hair was purposefully unkempt in a roguish way. Sleepy steel gray eyes were said to pierce the soul. Someone had once told him his face was "unforgettable". That one had made him laugh. He had walked right by her three nights later and she hadn't even looked his direction. The Pale Order had taught him how to smile in a way that brought heat to the cheeks, caused a heart to flutter, words to stumble from lips and more. Being an assassin wasn't just about killing people. At times bloodshed wasn't needed to end a heretic. Sometimes all it took was a few well placed touches, kisses, followed by a few whispered rumors to cause the shame to be enough to drag them back to the Basilica every Midweek. Men, women, it didn't matter. If the Primarch wanted them shamed, Lucien was called to do it.

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  It would be easy, wouldn't it? To enter the shop, act like a customer, and flirt with her. Surely he could accidentally brush her fingers with his as she handed him whatever he had bought. His face would flush a little as he apologized. She would do the same, shyly looking down. Lucien would reach over, place his finger under her chin, gently make her look at him. He would sink into that sweet honey brown knowing he would never resurface for air.

  Lucien shook his head. "No." He ran his hand through his hair. Things like that made him weak. By the Light, he wanted to be weak. He craved it. Pushing off the wall, he forced himself to walk away from the shop. A man walked along the edge of the sidewalk with a long pole in hand. He started lighting the street lamps as night descended upon the city. Lucien nodded at the man as he passed by.

  "May the Light protect you." The lamp above them glowed to life as the man spoke.

  "May the Light protect you as well brother." The words tasted like ash.

  ???????????????

  The Basilica towered over the city, skeletal fingers stretching up to the sky to touch the Light who ordained it holy. They'd push it higher if they could. He felt like they had tried before. A vague memory of Wilds stone and lumber wove through his mind. It refused to be held onto. Lucien should have known better than to try to grasp it. Nearly all of his memories before his induction into the Pale were spectral, fleeting. He refused to acknowledge just how much he couldn't remember.

  It made him wonder if the Archons felt like they were fleeting memories to the Choir. That was why they strained to reach up, standing on tiptoes, like a child begging for their parent to pick them up. Were the songs they sang on Midweek nothing more than desperate whines and whimpers? He remembered being told to 'be seen, not heard' when he was younger. Was the Choir telling them the same thing? Stay below, worship us, but know we do not hear you for you are to only be perceived when its convenient for us. There had been no convenient time in hundreds of years.

  Lucien looked away from the ornately decorated arches. At one point he had been so impressed by all of this. Now it didn't mean much. He walked to the gardens to the left of the main entrance. During the day Caelorans would gather on the grass, amongst the flowers, to visit with one another. This was the easiest place to pick up the local gossip from the ladies of Central. He was sure this was where one of his brothers heard word of the healer in the Veil. Light protect whoever spoke to Aldren about it. If he ever found out who it was, they would be displayed for all to see as a warning to leave Solenne be.

  "No they wouldn't. You would kill them, hide their body, and continue to live in the dark as you already do." He reminded himself as he walked down a set of stairs hidden further back in the grass near the cemetery. His boot slipped across a thin layer of algae on the steps. Lucien needed to let (name) know these needed to be cleaned again. Once down them, he knocked a pattern onto an ornate wooden door.

  It opened with a hiss. The smell of myrrh and old oak greeted him. He inhaled deeply letting it fill his lungs as it re-grounded him, reminding him of who he really was; Lucien of the Pale, a silver tongued killer with hands so bloody they'd never wash clean... a nobody. Calen stepped in line next to him. They walked in silence. This was their ritual. One came home, the other walked with them. Words weren't needed. If Lucien believed in soulmates Calen would be his.

  The two of them were so in step the untrained ear would assume one person was walking on stone floors. Calen had a gait just a hair longer than Lucien's, keeping their synchronization from being perfect. It was better that way. Perfection was only allowed to those the church decreed "holy". Solenne was perfect. She was unholy.

  "You're miles away again." Calen's timbre cut through the thoughts of her.

  Lucien hadn't even registered they'd reached their shared room. He was even sitting on his bed. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair as he shook Solenne from his mind.

  Calen was across the gap from him, sitting on his own bed, back against the wall with his legs splayed out. Lucien never understood how he was comfortable like that. Especially in the tight trousers he wore that left little to the imagination. Where Lucien was a ghost, Calen was a shadow. Light and dark. A divinely themed pairing. Even Aldren had to admit he'd enjoyed their dichotomy when they began to orbit one another. They weren't the first pairing of this nature in the Pale. However, Aldren had an aching feeling in his ribs they were the last.

  "I'm allowed to go wherever I please." Lucien finally replied. He knew Calen worried. Hell, he worried himself.

  Calen rolled his eyes. "No. You're not. Not up here." He tapped his own head. "Sure, you can go walk wherever you want. You can skulk around the Veil acting like watching her is normal." His hands went up as Lucien glared daggers at him.

  "Luc... You're my best friend. I know you almost as well as I know myself." He paused as he looked directly at Lucien. The room filled with silence until their eyes met. "You have to stop."

  This was the conversation they always had. Over and over. Round and round and round. Lucien was growing sick of it. He had managed to act normal for a little while. Enough to get Calen off of his back. Then he'd found out about Emrys. This last week had him acting like a jealous lover. He was jealous. Envious. IF he could just trade spots then he would be okay. He just needed to tell her, to touch her, fuck he just needed to make brief eye contact and -

  "Lucien!"

  He flinched. "I am trying to stop." This was where Calen would tell him he needs to do better. Then he would reply he is. Calen would want to know-

  "What happened that night?"

  Right on time.

  Lucien laid on his side facing away from Calen. "I've already told you. Saying it again won't change it. Nothing will."

  Calen growled in annoyance. Lucien felt a pillow smack into his back. "You'd better pray to the Choir to purge whatever this is from your system. Its growing tiring Lucien."

  It took every ounce of his willpower not to snarl and snap at Calen about praying. Lucien had been praying for years. The Choir didn't listen. His words were lost in the whines and whimpers of all Caelorans. No one heard his screams, his pleas. No one saw the way he slammed his fists against the stone in an offering of blood and bruised flesh in hopes that any of them would listen.

  Lucien closed his eyes. There, behind his eyelids, he saw her, doe eyed and terrified. "Please don't hurt me." She whispered as she brought a bloody hand towards his neck.