Chapter 8: Blood-Stained Faith
Valemire's skies turned ink-black, even though it was midday.
The Abbey called.
Nestled between cliffs and fog-drenched woods, Blackthorn Abbey stood like a jagged wound in the earth. Its crumbling towers whispered secrets to the wind—secrets of torture, exile, and twisted beliefs long thought dead.
Dorian approached in silence, cloaked in mourning black. He knew this place—it was once the sanctum of those who murdered his family.
The same zealots who whispered lies in the ears of nobles.
The same ones who painted him a monster before he ever learned how to smile.
And now, they had Evelyn.
He crept through the broken stained-glass corridors like a ghost, avoiding the sentinels. His mind recalled every cruelty this place had birthed. In these halls, his mother's screams had once echoed. Here, his brother's ashes had scattered like dust.
Each step was vengeance reborn.
Below, in the Abbey's cellar, Evelyn sat, wrists bound but spine unbroken.
"You think he'll come for you?" a cloaked figure sneered. "He is nothing but a shadow."
Evelyn smiled, despite the bruise on her cheek.
"You're wrong. He's the storm the shadows fear."
They didn't realize her chains were already loosened.
That the candle wax she dripped every night onto the rope had slowly weakened its hold. That while they preached cruelty, she remembered kindness—and her belief in Dorian gave her strength.
She wasn't waiting to be saved.
She was preparing to fight beside him.
Above, Dorian unleashed himself.
Silently, he took down each zealot with calculated rage. One by one, they fell.
A whisper of poison in a chalice.
A cracked skull against altar stone.
A rusted blade in the spine—always in the shadows, never seen.
When the Grand Priest finally saw him, it was already too late.
Dorian's eyes glowed not with hellfire—but with purpose.
"Where is she?" he asked calmly, blood dripping from his cuffs.
"She is gone. You are too late."
Dorian stepped closer.
"No," he whispered. "You are."
He plunged the blade into the priest's chest—just as the cellar doors burst open.
Evelyn stood there, eyes wild, face bruised, holding a rusted dagger.
They stared at each other for a moment.
Both scarred. Both breathless.
Then she dropped the dagger and ran to him.
The devil had found his light.
And the light had chosen to stay.