Chapter 4 – The Rot Beneath the Altar

The masonry is loose.

I feel it beneath my bruised fingertips long before I can see it. When Tadeo slammed me against this section of the wall yesterday, the crushing weight of his body driving the air from my lungs, the stone at the base of the alcove shifted. It was a minuscule movement, a microscopic grind of ancient mortar giving way, but in a cage where nothing changes, any shift is a flaw. And flaws can be exploited.

My fingernails are cracked and bleeding by the time I manage to pry the heavy, rectangular flagstone away from the wall.

The freezing air of the dungeon immediately rushes into the dark, rectangular void left behind, disturbing a thick layer of dust. I hold my breath, ignoring the stinging pain in my torn cuticles, and plunge my hand into the freezing cavity. My fingers brush against something soft. Not stone. Not iron.

Leather. Old, rotting, and stiff with dampness.

I pull it out into the weak, bruising light of the high grate. It is a small, heavy journal. The binding is unraveling, the pages swelled from years of trapped moisture. The cover bears the silver-embossed crest of the Sanctum of San Severo, but it has been violently scratched out, gouged repeatedly with something sharp.

I glance at the heavy oak door. Silence. The Abbot’s visit has passed, and Tadeo’s shift does not resume until the evening bell. I have time.

I crack the book open. The spine snaps with a dry, hollow sound. The ink inside is faded to a rusty brown, the handwriting frantic, jagged, and rapidly deteriorating as the pages go on. It is not written in the high, melodic script of the holy texts, but in a rushed, panicked scrawl.

…the ninth lamb did not appease the mountain. None of them do. I watched from the upper cloister. There was no holy fire. There was no divine consumption. He drank it. Valerius drank the chalice…

My breath hitches in my throat. I turn the fragile page, terrified it will turn to dust in my hands.

…the blood moon is a lie drawn by a false astronomer. It is merely the cycle of his decay. When his skin begins to crack, when the rot in his lungs makes him cough up the black bile, the bell tolls for a tithe. We are not feeding God. We are feeding a parasite wrapped in white wool.

I stare at the faded ink, the implications locking together in my mind like the teeth of a rusted gear. The grand theology. The isolated mountain. The absolute, unbending rules of purity. It is all a colossal, bloody theater constructed to hide the grotesque vanity of one man. Valerius is not a prophet channeling divine will. He is a mortal clinging to life, utilizing the fanatical devotion of men like Tadeo to butcher girls like me.

"What are you holding?"

The voice cracks through the silence like a whip.

I flinch, dropping the journal into my lap. I did not hear the tumblers turn. I did not hear the hinges scream. Tadeo is already inside the cell, his heavy boots carrying him across the stone floor with terrifying, silent speed. The crimson lantern in his hand swings violently, throwing wild, chaotic shadows across the vaulted ceiling.

Before I can scramble backward, he is on me. He drops the lantern and drops to one knee, his large hand snapping out to snatch the rotting book from my lap.

He recognizes the leather cover instantly. The color drains from his sharp, aristocratic face, leaving him looking like a carved marble statue. The absolute, chilling control he always exudes shatters, replaced by a raw, unadulterated panic.

"Where did you find this?" he demands, his voice a low, lethal hiss. He grabs my upper arms, hauling me to my feet, the iron chain snapping tight against my collarbone. "Show me!"

"In the wall," I gasp, my toes barely touching the freezing stone. "Behind the loose block."

He looks at the gaping hole in the masonry, then back to the book in his hand. His chest heaves, his breathing suddenly shallow and erratic. He is terrified. Not of me, but of the object in his hands.

"You read it," he states, the realization twisting his features.

"I read enough," I say, my voice trembling, but I refuse to lower my gaze. I push against the paralyzing fear radiating from him, using the sheer momentum of the revelation. "I read about the ninth tithe. And the eighth. Tell me, Tadeo, does the Abbot share the chalice with his High Priest, or does he make you wash the altar while he drinks the grace alone?"

His leather-clad hand moves so fast I do not even have time to blink. He clamps it over my mouth, slamming my head back against the wall, pinning me exactly where he had yesterday.

"Do not speak," he snarls, his face mere inches from mine, his dark eyes wide and wild. "If you breathe a word of that heresy in the upper halls, they will not wait for the altar. They will flay you alive in the courtyard."

"It’s true," I muffle against the thick leather of his glove. I dig my nails into his wrists, not to push him away, but to hold him there. I need him to hear this. I need the poison to spread. "You know it is. I see it in your eyes. He isn’t saving the mountain. He’s just saving himself. You are murdering us for a dying old man’s vanity."

Tadeo’s jaw clenches so hard a muscle spasms violently beneath his skin. He wants to deny it. He wants to strike me for the blasphemy. But the blow never comes. Beneath the heavy layers of religious indoctrination and brutal violence, the fracture in his faith is already splitting wide open. The journal in his left hand trembles.

He knows. Deep down, the executioner knows his master is a fraud.

He slowly lowers his hand from my mouth, his chest rising and falling in harsh, ragged gasps. He stares at me, the air between us charged with a sudden, dangerous complicity. We are no longer just prisoner and jailer. We are two people standing on the trapdoor of a massive, bloody lie.

"You cannot save yourself with this," Tadeo whispers, his voice thick, sounding utterly exhausted. "Valerius controls the guard. He controls the gates. If he suspects you know the truth of the ritual, he will…"

BONG.

The sound is catastrophic. It is not the high, silver chime of the prayer bells. It is a deep, bone-rattling roar that shakes the very dust from the vaulted ceiling of the dungeon. It is the Great Iron Bell in the central tower.

BONG.

Tadeo freezes completely. The breath stops in his lungs. The journal slips from his fingers, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

BONG.

"Three chimes," Tadeo breathes, his dark eyes widening in absolute horror. He looks at me, and for the first time since he dragged a jade blade across my throat, I see true, unfiltered despair in his expression. "The mandate of the Abbot."

Before I can ask what it means, the heavy iron door of the cell block bursts open. The sound of a dozen marching boots echoes down the corridor, accompanied by the chaotic flicker of multiple torches.

"High Priest Escalante!" a sharp, fanatical voice shouts from the hallway.

Tadeo does not look at the door. He looks at me, his jaw setting into a rigid, desperate line. He kicks the rotting journal violently into the dark corner of the cell, hiding it in the shadows.

A senior acolyte appears in the doorway, breathless, clutching a scroll bearing the heavy red wax seal of the Abbot. Two armed templars stand behind him, their broadswords already drawn and glinting in the torchlight.

"The Holy Father has communed with the heavens," the acolyte declares, his eyes darting to me with sickening fervor. "The astrological charts were misaligned by the blizzard. The Blood Moon does not rise in three days."

Tadeo steps between me and the door, his broad shoulders shielding me from their view. "When?" he demands, his voice returning to the dead, abrasive scrape of the executioner.

The acolyte unrolls the scroll.

"The heavens demand the Tenth Tithe tonight. At the apex of dusk." The acolyte points a trembling, eager finger at me. "The Abbot orders her moved to the upper holding pens immediately. The preparation begins now."

The cold in the room suddenly drops to absolute zero.

Tonight. I have no time. The fragile leverage I just discovered is useless.

Tadeo stands perfectly still, a dark monolith blocking the doorway. His hands, hanging at his sides, slowly curl into fists. He turns his head just a fraction, looking back at me over his shoulder. The obsidian void of his eyes is gone, replaced by a trapped, cornered darkness.

Valerius has sprung the trap, and the executioner has run out of time to hesitate.