They bound the final Corrupt, struggling to outmaneuver its long limbs and gnashing teeth. A cut lanced across its face, temple to jaw, framing long, wild hair and dirt-smeared skin. It was a nasty injury to be sure, but not one that was unearned. It had brought it upon itself when it resisted their incense and nearly bit a legionnaire’s finger clean off.
Something deep within Mithras quite liked him.
Silas approached, exhaustion—and resignation, perhaps—creeping into his posture and stride. Beneath his mask, his jaw twitched. Mithras noted it, like he noted most things, and waited, expectant.
“Which have you chosen, my lord?”
“That one—” Mithras gestured to the injured Corrupt. Its eyes glittered like emeralds, snake-like. They fluttered once, twice, then closed. “It will come with us to the Citadel.”
“And the rest?” Silas questioned, vaguely glancing at the other Corrupt. They laid in piles nearby, waiting to be gathered. Some were still—sleeping, peacefully; others twitched or groaned as the incense took hold. “There are…many.”
As Mithras beheld them, some small, distant part of him felt ill.
They were unclean, clothed in mud and other filth. Mothers, fathers, children—all from another village too deprived and too desperate to afford or regulate elixir. He knew that none were suitable. It was in their eyes, mostly—but it was also in the way they looked, smelled, fought .
Mithras arranged his face to reflect remorse. “None.”
“But we took so many from Norhavellis,” Silas began, shifting from one foot to another.
“It is the Maker’s will. His glorious purpose.”
Purpose . Mithras could almost taste the word. Earthen, cloying, deceptive.
Uncorrupt villagers, the remaining few that would remember the day the Light Legion came to cleanse them of their sins, hesitated at the Legion’s perimeter, faces twisted with wonder. They whispered, dizzy with relief, about their Corrupted loved ones. Before today, their hope had withered.
But today, in the anticipation of the Light Bringer, hope lived.
To be purified was to have purpose, even beyond the brutality of Corruption. Purification was salvation—a cleansed soul made true by the Lord of Light. Only Mithras could absorb the Corrupt’s parasitic demon and leave the original soul bare and free. A transformed soul, a beautiful, clean soul, ready to be welcomed by the Maker.
Lies, all of it.
The truth was much simpler. It involved shovels, dirt, and a bit of discretion. At Mithras’s call, unsuitable Corrupt were dispatched and buried. Purified not by the Light Bringer, but by dirt and their own mortal, diseased bodies.
Perhaps these souls still made it to their Maker.
Or perhaps not.
Silas nodded, turning to gather a few of Mithras’s most trusted men. Before he left, he added, quietly, “The legionnaires will ask why they weren’t spared—why the Norhavellian Corrupt were brought to Istralla, but these were not.”
“I will speak to them,” said Mithras, glancing at the remaining villagers. His attention drifted past them, toward where a young boy stood, waving an incense staff in one hand and pressing his borrowed mask, about three sizes too large, to his face with the other. Admittedly, Elliot was a useful worker, eager to prove himself while his parents wasted away, all so that Esmer might be released from her sentence sooner. It was noble—and foolish. To himself, he murmured, “Perhaps I will say their Maker has forsaken them.”
How fitting , Mithras thought. Because He has already forsaken me.
