The chapel bell rang like a cracked scream at dawn.
Auren stood in the threshold of the village's temple—stone-wrought and slouching under time's weight. Its windows bled red light, cast by stained glass scenes of burning martyrs and kneeling kings. Not a single god smiled in those portraits.
Inside, villagers gathered in reverent silence, heads bowed, eyes hollow. The air stank of incense and old guilt.
At the altar stood a tall, serene man clad in crimson robes laced with gold threads that shimmered faintly in the candlelight. His face was half-covered by an elegant mask—one half etched with a weeping expression, the other with a smile that stretched unnaturally wide.
Father Vaelric Morn. The Crimson Friar.
"Brothers," his voice cooed, "sisters... my flock of ash and fire…"
Auren narrowed his eyes.
Vaelric's voice wasn't loud—but it carried. It twisted its way through the room like perfume and poison both.
"We are the broken remnants of a world too proud to repent. But here, in Gravehollow, the flame still hears us. The flame remembers. And today, we remember it in return."
He held up a piece of parchment, stained with crimson ink. A sin scroll. Someone's confession, written in desperation.
He read it aloud, without naming the soul.
"I left my son in the pit, so that I might eat another day. I wept. But I ran."
The room shivered. Someone coughed. No one dared look up.
Vaelric's fingers tightened around the scroll. Then, slowly, he lowered it into a silver bowl filled with sacred oil. The moment parchment met flame, the bowl lit with a fierce, crimson blaze.
The villagers gasped—but Vaelric's eyes were on Auren.
"You," the Friar said, gesturing gently. "You are new. But the ash clings to you as if you've walked this path before."
Auren didn't move.
He wanted to leave. To turn and walk out of this place and never look back. But something held him—something deeper than fear. A feeling he hadn't expected.
Recognition.
"Name?" Vaelric asked.
Auren spoke, voice low. "Auren."
"Auren," the Friar repeated, tasting it. "Your soul glows like a coal in water. You are either a lantern… or a flame that consumes."
"I'll let karma decide," Auren replied coolly.
Vaelric chuckled—a sound like soft clapping in a crypt.
"Oh, but it already has."
After the sermon, as villagers filtered out, Vaelric approached.
Up close, the mask shimmered with runes only Auren could see—karmic brands, ancient and binding. His blade fragment pulsed quietly at his side.
"I felt your entry into this world, boy," Vaelric whispered. "You tore through the veil like a hammer to stained glass. You reek of judgment—and yet, you forget who you were."
"I remember enough," Auren said, stepping close. "Enough to know you wear virtue like a thief wears stolen gold."
Vaelric smiled. The real kind. Cold. Confident.
"Good. Hate keeps memory warm."
He placed a hand on Auren's shoulder—briefly. But in that moment, Auren saw flashes—visions:
A tribunal of corpses burning.
An altar of ash where innocents bled.
A masked man standing alone in the flame, smiling.
And then it was gone.
That night, Auren stood on the chapel roof, watching the stars.
He felt the blade fragment hum at his side.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I saw it too. He's not just wicked. He's old. And he's done this before."
The wind carried no reply.
But the heavens, cracked and watching, listened.
"Even wolves learn to kneel—when the shepherd holds the flame." — The Crimson Doctrine, Book I