Part I
Sylas had made peace with damnation long ago — but the church never let him forget it. At dusk, the bells tolled with the patience of a verdict. Incense clung to the air as if to sanctify what he had forfeited. Under the cascade of moonlight, the stained-glass windows became unblinking eyes. Worse still, the forest that sheltered him lay beneath the stone edifice’s shadow.
The former priest wore kindness like a vestment, its folds concealing the iron beneath. To the villagers he was reverence incarnate. To Sylas he was merely a stone given voice - cut from the same cold quarry as the edifice he called holy. The oak’s broad trunk shielded him from the church’s gaze, but not from memory. He had once crossed those monolithic wooden gates beneath a sky heavy with snow, seeking mercy. The priest had offered none. The folds of kindness had parted that night, and iron had answered in its place. That night had carved him into what he was. The villagers cast him out into the cold, their burning gazes following him long into the night. The forest took him in.
He no longer remembered his father’s voice, only the silence left behind. That silence endured for decades. Those who cast him out withered into memory and their children stood where they once did. A few even dared to stand at the tree line, where the woods began its stillness.
He seldom heeded the murmurs from the tree line. He would have let their voices pass as always — had the wind not carried a word he had not heard in years: priestess. The church was to receive a new priestess. The men of God had been rigid enough. He expected no gentler hand from a woman.
Dark clouds gathered into a leaden vault above. The first lashes of rain fell sharp as knives. Lightning cleaved the heavens, white and merciless. The leaden vault broke open with a fury the village had not known.
The trees that sheltered Sylas now bent and cracked beneath the tempest. He had no refuge, no branch or hollow to claim. The forest stood hollowed; the beasts had fled its depths. The beasts had long sustained him; without them his strength waned.
The rock arched over Sylas, a meagre shield against the lashing rain. A chill — cold as the breath of death — crept through his hollowed body, setting his limbs aquiver and fangs clattering in the dark.
The church seemed almost warm against the ashen sky, its tower rising like a fortress carved from shadow. A lone chamber burned with light, visible through a single high window.
He had sworn never to cross its threshold, yet the storm pushed him toward it with relentless arms. Consciousness wavered; the world swayed at its edges. The place that had once cast him out stood still — daring him to come nearer.
He would not have gone to it for mercy. But the night was merciless, and his strength had bled too thin to defy it.
Sylas pressed forward through the piercing rain, each step wrested from the storm’s grasp. He reached the wooden gates — and there he halted, pride tightening about him like a shackle. He stood unmoving, as though hewn from marble. His fist rose to strike the gate — then faltered and fell. For a single breath he wavered, torn between oath and desire. Before resolve could harden, the door opened from within.
