"Are you really not going to reconsider, Lara?"
Lucian's voice had its usual charm, although this time it was tinged with a genuine plea that broke the almost sacred silence of the library.
Lara sighed, her fingers running over the worn spine of an ancient herbalism text.
Days had passed since Raziel proposed the idea of finding Anya, her old maid, to guide them on the Healer's path.
At first, the proposal seemed like clever madness, but the more she thought about it an insistent whisper warning her that something didn't add up.
"I appreciate your concern, Lucian,"
"but I don't feel comfortable involving Anya in this situation."
Lucian slumped in his chair, letting out a sigh worthy of a Greek tragedy.
"But why not? The plan is perfect! Think about it: a secret weapon, a hidden master of healing arts, right here! It's material for an epic ballad!"
Lara held back a smile.
Lucian, even with the world falling apart, found a way to give a theatrical touch to everything.
However, under that playful facade, she perceived a real loyalty toward Raziel that seemed as admirable as it was strange.
"This isn't a ballad, Lucian," she reminded him, returning her gaze to the dusty book.
"It's real life and Anya isn't a character from your stories, so I'm not going to drag her into our problems."
She remembered Anya's kind eyes, her hands that always found a way to calm her childhood fears.
Anya had been more than a servant, she was her confidant.
But the world outside the walls of her home was a completely different beast, a darkness that not even she could understand, and she didn't plan to expose someone so innocent to that danger.
"But Raziel said she could help us," Lucian insisted, lowering his voice.
"He said she knows things, healing techniques that aren't in the books."
Lara's uneasiness sharpened.
Raziel.
His knowledge, his skills, even the air around him felt different since they returned from the capital.
He had become more closed off, more calculating.
She turned the pages of the text, her eyes scanning the plant diagrams.
Her finger caught on a rough edge and she noticed a small piece of parchment was stuck under a drawing of wolfsbane.
Carefully, she peeled it off, revealing a hidden inscription, with ink faded by time.
"What is that?" Lucian, curious as always, leaned over her shoulder.
Lara ignored him, because her attention was nailed to the words.
"Beware of the false light, the imitation of Zhalyr's grace. It seduces with promises of power, of easy solutions. But its touch is corruption, its essence a perversion of the true faith."
Lara felt her breath cut off.
The words fell on her like a rock.
'Could it be? Was the friend she had started to trust actually using that forbidden power?'
"Lara, what does it say?" Lucian repeated, his voice now loaded with worry.
She slammed the book shut, her hand trembling slightly. She couldn't tell Lucian, not yet.
Not until she understood what this meant for Raziel, for them, and for the faith she had sworn to protect.
"It's nothing," she managed to say, forcing a smile. "Just an old note, surely it doesn't matter."
But as she said it, the seed of doubt was already planted, a deep crack in the foundations of her faith.
She got up from the chair abruptly. "I have to talk to Sister Elena."
Lucian frowned. "Sister Elena? What for?"
"It's a personal matter," Lara replied, her voice cutting.
She rushed out of the library, leaving Lucian confused and worried. As she approached Sister Elena's office, dizziness hit her.
She leaned on the doorframe.
It was her empathy, reacting to the intense emotions emanating from the room.
She took a deep breath. Then, before she could knock, she heard a low and urgent voice she didn't recognize.
"It is a risk, Sister Elena. A very dangerous one."
"The risk is necessary, Brother," Elena's voice, usually so calm, now sounded sharp as steel.
"We must ensure the Church's dominance. The challenges we face require unconventional solutions."
Her hand froze on the knob. 'What challenges? What solutions?'
The other voice continued, and his words froze her blood. "And the boy? What about him? What if he fails?"
"He won't fail," Sister Elena said, with a certainty that made her skin crawl. "If he does, well, then we'll find another, a necessary sacrifice for the greater good."
Lara stood frozen, her back pressed against the cold stone of the wall, just outside Sister Elena's office.
The whispered conversation, those words that froze her blood. "Necessary sacrifice", "the boy... is essential".
They echoed in her head, a horrible counterpoint to the image of Sister Elena she adored.
'How was it possible? The kind instructor, the one who always took care of everyone. How could she be involved in something so sinister?'
Her hand trembled when she tried to reach the door knob. She felt a wave of nausea rising up her throat.
She had come looking for advice, a little comfort, but now... now she was terrified of what she might discover.
She took a gulp of air, pushed the door, and entered the small dim office.
Sister Elena was sitting behind her desk, with a pile of parchments in front and a frown, concentrated.
She looked up as soon as Lara entered. Her expression changed in an instant: from calculating seriousness to a warm and welcoming smile.
"Lara, dear! Come in, come in. I was just finishing some papers. What can I do for you?"
Lara hesitated. The words she had prepared with such care died on her tongue.
She planned to trust Sister Elena, to tell her about her worries regarding Raziel, about that strange power he used, about the inscription she had found.
But now, the words tasted like ash in her mouth.
'How was she going to entrust such secrets to this woman, when Sister Elena herself seemed to be tangled in a web of darkness?'