Lastlight's Revenant #20

The church’s barricaded courtyard was alive with movement. People scurried like ants before a storm, hauling burlap sacks stuffed with meager supplies—dried meat, moth-eaten blankets, cracked waterskins.

Even from the gates, Garran could see the desperation in their haste.

Kaelvar cracked his knuckles. “I’ll tell the men about those cave-rats. How to kill them, how to lure their likes.” He smirked. “Might as well make a lesson of it.”

Garran gave a curt nod, his gaze already scanning the crowd. He spotted Tomas near the church steps, directing a group of civilians with more enthusiasm than skill. The boy’s face lit up when he saw him.

“Where’s Sylrithiel?” Garran cut straight to it.

“Upstairs,” Tomas said, jerking a thumb toward the bell tower. “Been holed up there since your signal lit the sky.” He hesitated, then grinned. “We’re really leaving, huh?”

Garran’s steps faltered.

Leaving. Yes. But to what? A crumbling ruin beneath their feet? A warren of tunnels that might collapse or flood or house things far worse than tooth-blind rodents? And with this many—children, elders, wounded—how many would even make it to the courthouse?

His jaw tightened. “Not if you keep idling,” he said, voice rough. “Get back to work.”

Tomas chuckled, rubbing his neck, but didn’t argue. He vanished into the throng, shouting orders that were half-drowned in the din.

Inside the church, the chaos was thicker. Every able body moved with purpose—rolling bandages, bundling torches, herding wide-eyed children into ragged lines. Only the gravely injured lay still, their breaths shallow, their bandages already seeping red.

And among them—

Edric.

The young lord looked like a corpse propped up for a funeral. His skin had taken on a sickly gray pallor, his lips cracked and bloodless. The blanket draped over him did little to hide the way his ribs pressed against his flesh, or the dark veins creeping up his neck like roots.

Yet his eyes were open.

And when they met Garran’s, Edric smiled—a bitter, broken thing.

...

Garran turned away without a word, but the disappointment hung between them like a drawn blade. He'd thought better of Edric—thought the man had enough steel left to meet death cleanly.

Instead, he clung to his rotting flesh like a beggar to his last copper, forcing others to shoulder his slow decay.

If it were Garran's choice alone, he'd leave the lord to the crows. But the soldiers still whispered Edric's name like a prayer, and faith was harder to break than bone. So he walked away, boots grinding against the stone floor as if he could crush his frustration beneath them.

The stairwell smelled of old blood and lamp oil. Tobin sat hunched on the third step, fingers knotted in his greasy hair, rocking like a child trying to lull itself to sleep.

His breath hitched in ragged bursts, each exhale carrying the sour stench of a man who'd forgotten his last meal.

Garran's shadow fell across him. "You alright?" The question was rougher than he'd intended, scraped raw from hours of barking orders.

Tobin's rocking stilled. He lifted his head slowly, eyes glinting in the dim light like chips of broken glass. "I helped find the ruins, yes?" His tongue darted over cracked lips. "Shelter good, yes?"

"Yes." Garran didn't soften the word with pity. "You did well."

A grin split Tobin's face, too wide, too sharp—the rictus of a man who'd forgotten how joy was supposed to feel. "Did well, I did..." Then the light in his eyes guttered out.

His hands slid from his hair to dangle between his knees, fingers twitching as if plucking at invisible threads. "But... I don't know what else to do. No purpose. No reason to live..."

Garran's calloused hand closed on Tobin's shoulder. The bones beneath the threadbare tunic felt as fragile as a bird's. "You did enough. Many will live thanks to you." 

He paused, weighing the next words. A man like Tobin needed an anchor, not empty comfort. "Once we're settled in the new shelter... I'm sure we can find other ways for you to be useful."

Tobin's head snapped up. "Yes..." The word slithered out, eager. "New shelter, new problems... new purpose." He surged to his feet with sudden energy, brushing past Garran like a gust of wind. "I can be useful once more..."

His mutters echoed down the corridor—purpose, purpose, purpose—each repetition softer than the last, until the shadows swallowed them whole.

Garran took a deep breath, and the air tasted of smoke and old rot. Bitterness coiled in his chest like a serpent. So much misery. So much death. 

If he’d just reached Lastlight with warning—if he hadn’t been half-dead with fever, stumbling through the wilds like a gutted stag—maybe things would have been different.

Maybe the walls would still stand.

Maybe the people of Vaeldrith would still be sleeping soundly in their beds, blissfully ignorant of the horrors gnawing at the edges of their world.

His fist clenched hard enough to ache, then went slack. No. What-ifs were for poets and fools. The dead didn’t care for regrets, and the living had no patience for them. There were still people to save. That was all that mattered.

He exhaled sharply and climbed the stairs.

The upper hallway was dark, the torches long since burned out. Sylrithiel had claimed she needed space for her ritual, and Garran remembered the head priest’s quarters—the largest room on this floor, now empty of its pious occupant.

The man’s corpse was probably feeding crows in some alley, another nameless casualty in a city drowning in them.

Garran pushed the door open.

The room had been stripped bare. No bed, no tapestries, not even the priest’s beloved brass censer—just cold stone and the sharp scent of herbs crushed underfoot.

Sylrithiel stood in the center, her silhouette haloed by the eerie glow of a magic circle etched into the floor. The runes pulsed like a slow heartbeat, their light the color of old blood.

At her feet lay the arcane heart—the twisted, crystalline artifact they’d torn from the Duke’s quarters. It floated just above the ground, suspended in midair, its jagged edges drinking in the light.

Black veins throbbed within its depths, as though something inside it still lived.

Garran’s skin prickled. He’d seen enough magic to know when it was about to bite.

"You’re late," Sylrithiel said, without turning. Her voice was cool, distant, as if she were speaking from the bottom of a well.

Garran stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind him. "Had to make sure everyone was ready to leave."

Sylrithiel’s lips curled, though it wasn’t quite a smile. "And?"

"They're as ready as they could be."

She nodded once, as if she’d expected nothing else. Her fingers twitched, and the runes flared brighter. The heart shuddered in response, its black veins writhing.

Garran watched, jaw tight. "What’s the price this time?"

Sylrithiel finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were entirely silver, no pupil, no white—just liquid metal, swirling like molten ore.

"The cost won't be mine to pay for once," she murmured, her silvered gaze never leaving the pulsing heart at her feet. "It's what all the preparation was for." A pause, then, quieter: "Ready when you are."

Garran didn't answer immediately. He crossed to the window, the warped glass cool against his palm as he pushed it open. Below, the barricade teemed with motion—soldiers forming ranks, civilians clutching bundled possessions, children herded close to their mothers.

Torches flared to life one by one as dusk settled over the city like a shroud. They were as ready as they'd ever be.

His gaze lifted, drawn inexorably to the horizon—to that sickly green pillar of light spearing the heavens. It had grown since he'd last dared look at it. The sight coiled in his gut like a parasite, whispering of things best left unthought.

He'd avoided dwelling on it, focusing instead on the immediate, the survivable. But soon—

Soon.

Once these people were safe. Once they could stand without his sword propping them up. Then he would resume his duty as Repentant in truth. He would walk into that hell and carve answers from whatever dared defile the beacons of Lastlight. And when he found its source—

He would erase it alongside every filthy demon that dared to set foot in the ancient fortress.

No matter the cost. No matter how many bones he had to break—his or others'. No matter what he had to do to get it done. He would scour it from the world as fire scours rot from flesh.

The promise settled in his chest, cold and certain.

Behind him, the arcane heart gave a wet, shuddering pulse.

Garran turned from the window. "Begin."

Sylrithiel's hands moved.

The runes ignited.