The cell was a hollow cube of matte obsidian steel, unadorned and suffocating. There was no bed, no table—only a low stone slab protruding from one wall, and a single drain carved into the center of the floor. The walls bore etched scripture, not for comfort, but containment—ancient lines from Saint Azarius, burned in with sanctified plasma to ward off corruption.
The air smelled sterile and cold, constantly recycled by the humming grates along the upper corners. A single lumen strip overhead offered pale light, pulsing once every ten seconds—a built-in rhythm, designed to subtly erode a man's sense of time.
Caelin sat cross-legged on the slab, armor removed, tunic soaked with dried sweat and blood. Though his name had been restored to him, though the Codex of the Redeemed now bore the word Caelin once more, he remained what he was: Forsaken. One act completed. Two yet required.
The chamber had no door, only a shimmering hex-barrier of golden energy—emblazoned with the sigil of Saint Heraclus, patron of punishment. Forsaken had no quarters. No bunks. No reprieve. Between missions, they were held like the weapons they had become—sheathed, but not trusted.
Caelin leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed. There was no comfort in the stillness. Only waiting.
Caelin's eyes drifted toward the figures beyond the shimmering cell wall.
Two stood at rigid attention, one on either side of the archway—a silent reminder that even now, even with his name restored, he was still only tolerated.
The guards wore mirror-black plate, segmented and ceremonial yet clearly functional. Robes of crimson and ash grey flowed from their shoulders, marked with gold-threaded hexagrams and the seal of the Throne Apostolic. Their helms were visored and angular, their eyes hidden behind lenses that flickered faintly with neural data streams.
They bore halberds still—an echo of tradition—but these were no simple polearms. The hafts were layered with sanctified circuitry, the blades humming faintly with the power of embedded micro-reactors. A cruciform emitter nestled just below the axe head, projecting a radiant edge of pure energy capable of severing even a demon's hide.
These were no longer the Swiss Guard of ancient Earth. They were the Custodes Caelestis—the Celestial Wardens. Chosen from the gene-cloisters of Terra, surgically enhanced, liturgically trained, and sworn for life. Men turned relics. Their oaths were absolute: defend the Pontifex, obey the Lex Vitae, and offer no mercy to the impure.
They did not speak. Did not shift. One could live a hundred lifetimes and never earn a single word from them. Their silence wasn't out of disdain. It was doctrine.
Caelin knew that if he so much as moved too quickly, they'd be inside the cell in seconds. He turned away.
It was strange. Once, he'd dreamed of wearing armor like that. Once, he'd believed the world above the altar was righteous.
Now, his reality was a cell. A name returned. A mission survived. And two more paths yet unwalked.
In the quiet of the cell, his mind drifts to memories pushed aside for duty. Memories of Maeria, the day they had met.
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She had been fifteen. He, sixteen. Still in training—disciplined, silent, carved into a sword the Templari would one day wield. Emotions were to be repressed, attachments cauterized. But that morning in the chapel garden… something had shifted.
Maeria had invited him to kneel beside her. Without words. Just a look, soft but firm, and a pat on the dirt beside her knees.
"You'll tear your robes," he said.
She glanced at him with a smirk. "That's not a 'no.'"
He sat. Awkwardly, legs too long, armor creaking against the stone edging. He felt like a weapon placed on a windowsill.
"You really talk to them, the flowers?" he asked.
She cupped another bloom, her fingers tracing its fragile edges. "No. I listen. Sometimes the garden says more than the sermons do."
He frowned at that. "Blasphemous."
"Is it?" she said, tilting her head. "Or is it just unheard?"
There was no sarcasm in her voice. Just… sincerity. The kind Caelin wasn't trained to recognize. The kind that made the drills, the chants, the endless hours of silence feel suddenly… hollow.
"You don't act like the others," he finally said.
She shrugged. "I wasn't raised in the spires. I was taken from the outer colonies. I know what it means to have dirt under my nails, to wake up hungry. The Church gave me safety—but I don't think that's all God wants from us."
That struck him. Deeper than he'd admit. There was clarity in her—not defiance, but conviction. The kind of faith that questioned, not because it doubted, but because it wanted truth more than comfort.
They sat in silence then, the kind that didn't ache to be filled.
Before leaving, she looked at him—not through him, but into him.
"What's your name?"
"Caelin."
She smiled again. "It suits you."
She never gave her own. Not that day. And still, it was the first time he felt seen.
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The memory of her smile faded slowly, like incense smoke trailing upward and away, until all that remained was the cold silence of the brig. Caelin exhaled through his nose and opened his eyes. The cell was still dark, lit only by the sterile, holy-blue strip of light along the ceiling. The air tasted of ionized steel and sanctified oil.
Outside the reinforced bars of his cell still stood two of the Custodes Caelestis, silent as ever—robes of ash and crimson draped over segmented black plate. Each carried the signature halberd, its sanctified circuitry glowing with dormant wrath. They hadn't moved in hours. They never did, unless commanded.
But then the chamber's entrance hissed open, and bootsteps broke the stillness—measured, heavy, confident. Another knight entered, but not one of the Custodes.
His armor was less ceremonial and more utilitarian: gunmetal grey trimmed in deep violet, marked with a vertical sigil of a candle burning at both ends. On his shoulder pauldron, a cruciform star enclosed in a circle of scripture identified him instantly.
A Knight Confessor.
Caelin had only seen one before in passing—never this close.
They were inquisitors of a sort, but not purely ecclesiastical. The Ordo Vocaris, they were called. Knights tasked with the confession and assessment of those who walked the razored path between salvation and damnation. Forsaken, redeemed, even Cardinals under suspicion—none were beyond their reach.
This one was tall, older, his face marked with wrinkles carved by judgment rather than time. His eyes, however, were clear and cold. Calculating.
He approached the Custodes. "Has the prisoner spoken?"
One of the guards responded with a low, gravel-edged voice like tectonic plates grinding: "Only to himself."
The Confessor nodded once. "He's earned back his name. But not yet his soul."
He stepped forward and met Caelin's eyes through the bars.
"You'll speak with me soon," the knight said. "We must weigh your heart before the Church can weigh your deeds."
Caelin stood slowly, gaze steady. "I already spoke with the Pontifex."
The Confessor smirked faintly. "The Pontifex grants redemption. We test it."
He turned without waiting for a response and left as quickly as he had come, robes trailing behind him like a judge departing from a sealed verdict.
Caelin sat again, slowly. The silence returned—but it no longer felt empty. Something was coming. And it wore the seal of judgment.
Hours passed.
Silent. Measured. Slow.
Time was marked only by the cold flickering of the lumen strip above and the soft thrum of Sanctum Caligar's eternal engines. The Custodes Caelestis never moved, never spoke. They watched, unreadable and unblinking behind their visors—living relics of obedience.
Caelin sat unmoving in the gloom, arms resting on his knees, fingers curled together. He was no stranger to waiting. Forsaken did not beg for passage. They were summoned.
Eventually, summoned he was.
The sound of mag-locks disengaging echoed like a thunderclap in the small chamber. The cell door opened with a hiss. One Custodes stepped forward and motioned without a word. Caelin rose.
The walk through the inner halls of Sanctum Caligar was lined with scripture-etched steel and archways illuminated by violet sanctum light. Every twenty paces they passed shrines embedded into the walls—each bearing relics sealed in crystal and attended by kneeling scribes who barely looked up from their prayers.
He was taken deeper, where few went.
Finally, he stood before an obsidian door inlaid with silver thread that formed the symbol of the burning candle crossed by a sword—the mark of the Ordo Vocaris.
The Confessional.
One of the Custodes pressed a palm to the reader. The doors opened slowly with a low mechanical groan, revealing the chamber within.
It was dimly lit, circular, and austere. No furniture except a single black chair bolted to the center of the floor and another across from it. The walls were inscribed with scripture—burned into the stone with a laser-etcher, each verse of judgment and absolution illuminated softly by flickering candelabras.
The Confessor was already there, seated. His hands were clasped over his knees, a worn codex resting at his side.
Caelin was gestured to sit. He obeyed, settling into the chair as the Custodes retreated and the doors sealed behind him.
A long silence.
Then the Confessor spoke.
"State your name."
Caelin's voice was dry but unwavering.
"Caelin. Once Forsaken. Now Redeemed of One."
The Confessor nodded, noting it down in his codex.
"Your redemption is recognized by the Pontifex—but not yet weighed by this Order. You are permitted to speak, but know that falsehood is a stain even fire cannot burn clean."
Caelin said nothing.
The Confessor studied him. "You retrieved the sword and crest of Marshal Dareth. Tell me… was his death honorable?"
Caelin's jaw tensed, but he spoke low. "He died fighting what he was sworn to fight. Possessed by a demon. I freed him."
The Confessor nodded once. "The records say he baptized you. Took you under his mantle."
"He did."
"And Maeria?"
A silence like a blade drawn in slow motion. Caelin's hands curled slightly. The Confessor was watching his reaction, not waiting for a reply.
"Your emotional ties will be evaluated later," the knight continued, unphased. "Today, I am not here to judge your past failures. I am here to weigh your clarity."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Now, Caelin. Tell me everything about the Nephilim."
Caelin spoke as commanded. Again.
There was no fire in his voice now—only the weariness of repetition. What he had spoken before the Pontifex, he spoke again. The descent. The wound. The nests. The Guardian. Karaziel. The survivor. The light. All of it rendered with precision, as if it were a battlefield report rather than a living memory. The Confessors did not interrupt. They recorded, observed, and made no judgment—not yet.
When he finished, two of them stepped forward wordlessly, their hoods casting long shadows over their gaunt faces. The center Confessor nodded.
"This way, Forsaken," one intoned.
Caelin followed.
They moved through the stonework halls of the Sanctum Caligar—quiet but always humming with hidden life. Past reliquaries and shrines, past cathedrals built into the hull itself, until they arrived at a sealed archway guarded by golden circuitry etched in ancient sigils. A Confessor laid his hand to the panel. The door opened with a hiss.
Inside was a Virtual Sanctum. A testing chamber of the Confessorial Order.
Unlike the rest of the ship, the VR chamber was sterile and cold—white-paneled walls lined with neural scaffolding and altar nodes. Caelin said nothing as the Confessors locked him into the throne-like restraint at the chamber's center. His pulse was read. His mind indexed.
"To test the integrity of faith," one Confessor said as the crown came down upon his head, "we must test the fractures within it."
There was a bright flash. Then, the garden. It was her garden. Maeria's. He knew it instantly, though he had not seen it in years. The olive trees she'd raised from seed. The violets clustered beneath the chapel wall. The scent of mint, rosemary, and candle wax drifted together on the wind.
She was there. Maeria. Not spectral, not demonic—just her. Her simple robes, her dirt-stained hands from tending the soil, her hair pulled back with a ribbon she had once said reminded her of the sky above Old Jerusalem. She looked up from her work.
"Caelin?" she asked softly.
The simulation was perfect, and the Confessors watched. Silent. Waiting to see if he would kneel. If he would touch her face. If he would fall. Caelin stood motionless, his eyes locked with hers. His breath caught. But he did not move closer. Not yet.
The olive trees whispered in the breeze. Soil clung to Maeria's fingers as she knelt by the roots, just as she had in the garden beneath the Monastery of Saint Elarian. The very same garden she had once tended with a smile and humming lips. But this was not the monastery. This was not memory. It was the weaponization of remembrance.
Caelin stood still, as if carved from stone.
She looked up from her work, sunlight painting her face golden.
"Caelin," she said softly. "You came back."
He didn't answer. He didn't move.
She rose, wiping her hands on the sides of her dress—her old dress, the one with the faded blue stitching along the hem. A pointless detail that shouldn't have been remembered by anyone but him. And yet here it was.
"It's been so long," she continued, stepping forward. "Do you remember that summer? When you broke your fasting and I brought you figs from the garden?"
He said nothing.
She reached out and touched his arm—gently. Tenderly. Her fingers were warm. Too warm. It was almost perfect.
"I still have the ribbon you tied in my hair that day. You were afraid someone would see, but you did it anyway." Her hand drifted down to his wrist. "You were always bold with me."
Not her, he thought. Not her voice. Not her soul.
He didn't look at her. If he did, he wasn't sure what would happen. The VR chamber had taken his memories, his love, his shame, and fashioned a mirror of all he'd lost.
She stepped in closer.
"We laughed. We cried. We prayed." Her voice was trembling now. "Do you remember when we watched the stars and you asked me if I ever thought heaven looked back?"
He closed his eyes—briefly. A mistake. The image burned brighter behind his lids.
"You said I was beautiful when I prayed," she whispered. Her hand was at his chest now, just above his heart. "You said we were known, only to each other. That our love was covenant, not sin. Don't you remember, Caelin?"
His breath came slow, but steady. His hands did not clench. His eyes did not water.
"Yes," he said quietly, "I remember."
She looked up at him then. There was no manipulation in the eyes—not the kind visible. Only the impossibly delicate echo of a girl long gone.
"Then why won't you speak to me?" she asked.
"Because you're not her."
Her hand pressed a little harder against his chest, almost in protest.
"Would it be so wrong… to believe?" she asked. "Just for a moment? That I'm real. That we could sit. That we could walk again through this place. No sins. No swords. Just a garden."
He stepped back—not out of fear, but out of refusal.
"Faith is not fantasy," he said.
Her lips parted, a tremble in them. She followed him with her eyes, not moving now. Watching, measuring.
He said nothing. He turned away, the wind through the olive trees sounded like the turning of pages in a closed book.
The simulation held. The test was not over.
Behind the glass of the observation sanctum, three Confessors watched in silence. Their robes bore the crimson trim of the Ordo Vocaris, each hood draped low to veil the eyes. Only their mouths moved, thin lines of judgment shaped by years of doctrine and doctrinal enforcement.
"He didn't engage," said the first, his voice even. "He didn't falter. The memory was pure, and he rejected it."
"His posture held. No shift in pulse or tone," said the second, consulting the scrolling vitals on his dataslate. "His spirit resists temptation."
The third didn't speak right away. She stepped forward, her veil fluttering in the recycled air of the sanctum. Her fingers tightened on the rim of the console.
"No," she said at last. "He buried it. He compartmentalized. He has not yet forsaken the past—he merely endures it."
The first turned. "His faith endured the illusion."
"But it did not break it," she replied. "You saw it—he remembered. He answered. He let it speak. He let it touch him."
"Emotional response is not disloyalty."
"Not yet," she admitted. "But the line is narrow. He must be tested again. The garden was mercy. Let us see his faith beneath flame."
The others hesitated. Then gave assent with slight nods. She tapped the command into the terminal.
Then, the garden was gone. Now came the scent of smoke and old blood.
Caelin knelt on cold stone, wrists bound behind his back in sanctified iron chains. The simulation did not pretend this was real. He knew—and still, it gripped him like truth. The heat. The chants. The stake and her...Maeria.
Strapped to the pillar. Hair shorn. Robes torn. Bruised, but dignified. The firewood crackled at her feet, the executioners forming a ring around her like vultures in clerical robes.
He clenched his jaw. His chains groaned. This wasn't a lie. It was memory. A memory turned into a cage. He had lived this day—but now the Confessors forced him to kneel in it again, not free in the crowd, not restrained by law or duty, but shackled like an animal. Forced to watch.
Not once—not ever—had he turned his eyes from her.
Now he could not to look away a second time. Could the church be so cruel?
The lead Inquisitor, draped in gold-trimmed crimson, raised his torch and declared the charges in a voice like a blade:
"For the sins of fornication, seduction, and heresy against holy order… Maeria, once of the Convent of Saint Elarian, is condemned to flame. May fire cleanse her and God judge what remains."
Caelin's teeth ground together.
"You cowards."
Torches passed from hand to hand. Chanting filled the air, righteous and hollow. A holy dirge. A sacrament of death. Maeria's eyes found his—no tears, no fear. Just knowing.
She knew he was there. She always knew.
"Caelin."
His name, spoken only once—but the sound tore through his composure like a blade.
He wanted to scream. To rip the chains from his wrists. To drive his fists through the false priests. To cast down the tower and stop what was already burned into the marrow of his bones.
But he couldn't. He wouldn't. He knew this was not real, but his fury was.
As the flames climbed and she began to scream, he closed his eyes. Not to hide. Not to run. To pray.
"Deliver her, O Lord, from this evil, though memory it be. Let not the sins of men be writ upon the innocent. Let justice rise above law, and mercy above justice."
He would not look away, he would not break. His jaw trembled, his breath came like fire.
And the chains bit deeper into his flesh.