There was no nice way for Lucius to present the ashes of Ethan's arm to the others, as much as there was no nice way to react to the sight and implication for the others.

"It's just his arm," Lucius hurried to say, wishing he'd explained as much before he held the ashes forward, but no option would elicit a positive reaction anyway.

"Where is he now?" Eliza asked, eyes wide as they darted between Lucius and the bowl in his hands. "How— What— How is he? Is he alright?"

"Of course he's not alright, he's lost an arm." Richard looked more disgusted than panicked. "And with Lucius' condition he's had nothing to eat either."

"Yeah, I'll..." Lucius' voice was thick, and he averted his gaze. "... I'll try to make it up to him... Somehow... Assuming I make it."

They were then joined by Aldrik, whose presence seemed to have done a complete shift from rough chamberlain to authoritative figure rivalring that of a priest, if not winning. His white rhenelis was exquisite, with silvery symbols Lucius couldn't quite recognize from any sanctuaries he'd been to, which usually was the case for priests with rhenelises of The Unity. His face had been shaved clean, and his previously tousled hair was smooth and pulled back into a ponytail. He looked down at the unholy remains with a pleased smile Lucius found highly inappropriate, and proceeded to say something to Tom, who looked paler than usual as he stood close to Richard. Of course, after an encounter like the one they had with the grim, no one could be blamed for looking a little pale.

Tom replied to Aldrik's words, barely so anyone could hear while his attention flickered towards the ashes as well.

"They're ready to begin if we are," he relayed to the others with a voice as frail as his appearance, and Lucius swallowed. It felt so rushed despite all the terrible things they'd gone through to get there. They'd been travelling and facing obstacles for more than a week, but the fact that the ritual was finally happening couldn't feel more sudden.

"I'll take Frey to Ethan." Richard's lip curled. "Not feeling great about offering a kid, but it's all he can eat."

Lucius grimaced.

"Just... Keep him safe, alright?"

"Brat as he may be, I don't think Frey would hurt Ethan that mu—"

"Richard, is now the time?"

"I'll make sure Ethan doesn't hurt him." Richard rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't let him close if I thought it was dangerous."

Lucius nodded, slightly reassured that the smooth talking horror would have a werewolf as protection.

A sharp pain stabbed his chest, keeping his legs from moving as the others began to follow Aldrik. It was a similar feeling to when he'd tried to chase after Anthony. His body didn't want to go. His mind didn't want to do it anymore. Something bad would happen and he'd be lost for certain. Whatever was inside him would break free, or the monks would seal him along with them as a precaution.

But that was what his mind wanted him to think, not what he actually thought.

Isn't that right, Wrinkleface?

No reply came, so while Lucius' head ached in protest, he tried to stay confident he was making the right choice. Of course the scourge wouldn't want him to seal away the evil it had planted in there, so why wouldn't it try to make him change his mind?

"Lucius?" Eliza looked over her shoulder with a troubled frown, almost like the one Anthony always used to have. "Are you—"

"I'm alright." Lucius shook the thoughts away, forcing his legs forward to catch up.

They were led into a large, circular room, resembling a smaller kind of sanctuary with pillars instead of towers and the formation of platforms and bridges mere symbols on the floor. The stained glass windows adorning the walls were no less impressive however, bathing them all in vividly coloured light provided by the moon outside.

Looking over his shoulder, Lucius flinched as more people entered the room. Counting them as they passed by was near impossible but in the end he concluded that there had to be eight of them, with Father Runar's acolytes being part of four who were dressed in rhenelises of the different archons, all of them carrying tall staffs of a dark grey metal with the same symbols as the ones on Aldrik's rhenelis. The other four were dressed in white, plain versions of the garment, and one carried something of similar size to the staffs, though wrapped in burlap. They were all armed to the teeth with harmonias of various kinds, and the sheer atmosphere weighed Lucius down further as the previously spacious room seemed to shrink from the crowd.

Disoriented, Lucius wasn't sure where to go as the archon clad men spread out across the room, but since no one else was moving he decided to stay put.

"I know three of them." Eliza bumped his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble forward, voice near hostile as she glanced to the side at the men in white garments. "They're the ones who've been following me. I saw them several times while I was outside."

Lucius stifled a grimace. With all that had happened during the grim incident, he'd figured someone had been waiting in the shadows to make sure things went according to plan. Someone to make sure Father Runar wouldn't be around to disturb their goals.

"I'm... Sure they had their reasons," he tried, not lying but not telling the whole truth either. "Maybe they were just making sure we didn't have ulterior motives or something."

"Right, because we would be the ones with ulterior motives," Eliza muttered while Lucius tried to disregard her suspicions. They were holy people, all of them. They wanted what was best for their cause, and ridding the world of blights was as valid of a purpose as any.

Focusing back on the others, he noticed the four archon representatives had stopped by the corresponding pillars to slide their staffs into small cavities near the carved depictions of each archon.

Lucius found the scene lacklustre, as if pointing staffs towards the middle would symbolise anything, but as the men pushed the staff-handles forward to begin turning the pillars, causing a low rumble to echo against the walls, he had to change his mind.

They all backed away as part of the floor began to sink, stone slabs symbolising the water and bridges of a sanctuary giving way at different speeds to reveal a spiralling staircase stretching down into the dark.

"This feels... Unnecessarily sneaky for a holy ritual, huh." Lucius tried to laugh it off as one of the monks dressed in white locked the door behind them, but his nervosity showed for miles.

Aldrik said something to him with a calming voice, holding out his hand to gesture for them all to follow him. Lucius would have expected Eliza to object to it all, what with the poorly lit passage into a possible abyss and Aldrik's insistence to bring Lucius first, but she remained quiet. They all did. They let Aldrik lead them down without a word.

Another stab in his chest caused Lucius to lean his hand against the cold stone during his descent, knees trembling and making every uneven step a trial of balance as his mind pleaded for him to turn back.

Thinking at first that his eyes were playing tricks on him, Lucius blinked to make sure he was seeing things right as the path got brighter the further down they got.

"Just what the Waste is this place?" Eliza finally had to break her silence as they reached the end of the stairs, entering a wide passage with torches already lit to illuminate looming pillars and large double doors on the other side. "I thought this whole ritual was a small, secret thing that's only happened a few times before? But they've got a whole underground sanctum going on?"

Lucius had to agree with her, staring straight ahead not to look past the pillars where anything could be lurking in the dark, doing his best to stay confident in his beliefs but the fact that things seemed much bigger than initially suggested made him waver. What the Waste was that place, indeed?

He examined the door as they got closer. While some words felt familiar to him, many of them did not. He assumed it was old Traquian and that he recognised it from sanctuaries, but some words he was certain he'd never seen before, nor the depictions of animals. Archons were usually represented by animals, and much like the ones on the door they had an abnormal amount of body parts compared to their human plane counterparts, but none of the ones he could spot on there.

The veins tore and twisted over themselves inside Lucius' chest as Aldrik pushed the doors open and they entered a dimly lit hall, larger than the sanctuary upstairs but resembling it all the same. Unlike the smaller one, this room had proper bridges with water running beneath them. The structures resembling towers were platforms instead of pillars, and the altar in the middle was of equal size to a real sanctuary's.

"You're not doing yourselves any favours," Lucius whispered to his parasitic cluster while taking a big step over what he considered to be a quite fragile looking bridge. Unlike the scourge he reckoned the thing inside him had no mind of its own and only reacted to instincts, and its reaction to the atmosphere was promising.

Being brought forward to the altar along with Eliza and Tom, Lucius looked around the room to see the four archon representatives being handed an accessory each to put on, and Lucius could conclude from Aldrik only wearing his one obsidian necklace that they were the matching rings and bracelet he'd worn before.

The more obsidian the better, he supposed, if the stone really did have blight suppressing properties.

The four of them then walked over to their archon's platforms to place their staffs down in front of them, seemingly waiting for a signal while the four dressed in white surrounded the outer part of the altar.

"Well, I guess this is it," Lucius tried to say casually, or at least less quietly, but the others would have to make do with a mumble before Aldrik helped him lie down.

Memories disturbed his mind. The priest trying to purge him on the altar when he was young. The time Lucius had entered the scourge's pact to begin with, and look at him now. In a similar place, to get rid of at least a part of that scourge's clutches on him.

But he had to trust Aldrik, so he only turned his head slightly to watch as the four white clad men began trailing a powdery substance along the platforms and bridges, presumably a blend of bone meal, vampire ashes and Dyris knows what else. To bind the unhallowed web inside him. To prevent it from escaping.

Eliza obediently got out of the way to let them spread the powder past her as well, but she still scowled at them while pulling her skirts away to keep them clean.

"What's our escape plan if things go south?" she whispered to Tom, who'd tried to arrange his supplies for the incision as best as he could beside Lucius, and he sighed.

"I don't know... Run? Grab Lucius and run?"

"That's the best you got?"

"Pretty much."

Lucius tried not to listen to their poor options, instead sending a cautious look at the monk walking up to them, handing Aldrik the item wrapped in fabric with a light bow before joining his fellow brethren who'd taken their places on each side of the bridges.

Veins aside, Lucius felt the urge to run away but he had to have faith in Aldrik. He had to trust that he didn't want his death, unlike so many other priests in his life.

If a chamberlain could be called a priest, but the moment seemed to call for it.

As if Aldrik understood his worries, he proceeded by extending the item over to Lucius, who received it with a furrowed brow. Aldrik urged him to unwrap it and Lucius sat up to oblige, removing the fabric to uncover a long sword, blade black of a material Lucius could make an educated guess on, and a beautiful handle decorated with gleaming, white stones.

His lungs suddenly failed him as the veins sank deeper into his chest, writhing and digging their way into the core of his body.

Throw it away.

"It's... A good thing he— he handed it to me." Lucius tried to ignore the pleas, taking painful, shallow breaths while examining the heavy blade, careful not to cut himself on what looked to be a frightfully sharp edge. "I... Would've dashed... Out of here in an instant... If he revealed it while s—standing over me."

Throw it away. Throw it away. Throw it away.

"I still would have," Eliza muttered with a grim expression where she stood next to the altar, still sending her apparent stalkers a glare on occasion.

Her gaze softened as she turned back to Lucius.

"Have you... Really thought this through?" She ran a hand through Lucius' hair. "You're barely breathing anymore. I know you've gone through a lot, but—"

"I don't... Think I can afford to... To think this through for a second anymore." Lucius' voice trembled at that, and he fought the veins to suck in a deep breath before glancing to the side at the powder. To the bones of the grim's victims. To Ethan's ashes. "Even a slightest reflection on what all this means... What I've done to get here and what— what may or may not happen to me... I can't do it."

Eliza scrunched up her face.

"Lucius... You're barely breathing..."

"It'll be over soon," Lucius whispered, meant to be comforting but his body shivered with dread and unholy crawling as he lay down again, clutching the sword hard against his chest while the pressure on his lungs increased further. "Just gotta... Relax, and n—not think about... It."

It will hurt you. It will kill you. Throw it away now!

"I think you will, actually," Tom said as he looked around, and the other two turned to watch as one of the men dressed in white had lit some kind of incense to bring close to Lucius' face. "I think you're meant to be asleep."

"Oh..." Lucius was half relieved by the fact, and half unnerved. He'd have no way of defending himself. It would all be up to the other two if something went wrong, and they were just two people against nine. "Well, good... I think."

"I'll keep the root ready too," Tom assured him, raising his hand to show the root from the rå's tree. "So I'm— I'm sure it'll be fine."

"You're s—still a bad liar." Lucius attempted an amused smile, eye twitching as his chest convulsed. "But I hope you're right."

The last thing he could hear before the smoke lulled him into a pleasant daze was not Tom's voice, nor Eliza's. It was something aching to the scourge's voice, but not quite. It was something otherworldly, but new, and it didn't sound like words.

It sounded like screams.

***

AUTHOR'S NOTE

We're really getting close now! What are your predictions on the ritual? Will it work? Are Aldrik and the monks trustworthy despite their shadiness? What's going to happen to Lucius? Please let me hear your thoughts!