Chapter 615: Wavering Faith
The ring hall of the Tower of Babel had the kind of quiet that accumulated over centuries—thick, institutional, deeply satisfied with itself.
Tayfun set down his breakfast when he heard the hurried footsteps and felt the particular irritation of a man whose mornings had always been his own. The guard arrived at his side and leaned in close.
“Your Eminence. There is news from Coldwind Ridge.” A pause, then the rest of it, spoken low and fast.
Tayfun’s hand went to the guard’s collar without his deciding to move. “Our advance force lost more than half its men? And Soli was injured?” He tightened his grip. “Where is he now?”
“The hospital.”
“And the God’s Punishment Army?”
“Ordered to hold position and await instruction. They’re gathered in the cathedral.”
Tayfun released the guard and thought quickly. “Inform His Holiness and Lady El at once. Gather everyone who took part in the expedition and keep them together. Close the cathedral doors—no believers in, no believers out.” He was already turning. “I’ll go to the hospital myself.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
He walked fast.
How? A force of thirteen hundred soldiers, three hundred of them God’s Punishment Warriors, against a single mountain town. Soli Daal had been one of Bishop Mayne’s most capable men long before his elevation—a veteran chief justice, someone who had seen real combat. Even against demons, even against the worst the Months of Demons had ever sent, the God’s Punishment Army had never suffered losses like this.
And yet.
Tayfun understood what had to be done first: contain the information. If the believers learned what had happened at Coldwind Ridge before the hierarchy had time to prepare a response, the tremor in their faith would be felt in every town in every kingdom under church authority. The God’s Punishment Army had become, over years of careful management, an article of belief as much as a military asset. People did not merely trust that it could win—they believed it could not be defeated. Demonic beasts, the largest and most savage that the Months of Demons produced, fell before it. What could possibly hurt something that had broken the Fearful Beasts of Hell?
When he reached the hospital room, El was already there. She had her own sources. They looked at each other, said nothing, and walked together into Soli’s room.
Soli was sitting up against the pillows with the unfocused expression of a man who had lost too much blood. His left arm was missing below the shoulder. A pure witch had dressed the wound. When he saw Tayfun and El, something in his face sharpened—the effort of summoning coherence.
“Get me to the Pivotal Secret Area,” he said. “I need to see His Holiness.”
Tayfun urged the attending witch out of the room and helped Soli sit higher against the headboard. “Tell us what happened first.”
“We don’t cover for you in the dark,” El said, her voice clipped and cold. “Tell us now, or we decide whether to bring you to the pope or straight to a cell while the tribunal convenes.”
“Enough, El.” Soli ground his teeth. “Coldwind Ridge was a trap. Roland Wimbledon’s weapons are nothing like Timothy’s—not like anything I’d seen or heard of. The pope needs to know immediately—”
“I need to know immediately.” El’s voice climbed. “Do you understand what your return looked like? Half your army staggering through the city gate—anyone who looked could see it. I had the tribunal detain a handful of witnesses before the rumors had time to spread, but it’s already started.” She grabbed his collar, her knuckles pale. “By tomorrow this will be in every tavern in the holy city. Do you understand how serious this is?”
Tayfun believed she was right. The God’s Punishment Army had been held up for so long as the church’s undefeatable weapon—a symbol that God’s will expressed itself through their soldiers—that a credible report of its destruction would corrode something structural in the believers’ faith. More than a hundred warriors lost. More than the losses of the last two full years combined. Against a mountain town.
He was about to speak when the door opened.
Zero walked in, white-haired and unhurried, the way she always moved through rooms that weren’t hers.
“I’m not late, I hope.” She glanced at Soli, then at the other two bishops. “His Holiness wishes to see you, and asks that you refrain from discussing the specific details of the battle outside this room. Can you walk?”
El stepped forward. “Lady Zero, we have questions that need—”
“You’ll have answers.” Zero cut her off with the practiced ease of someone who had been managing other people’s urgency for a long time. “The pope is concerned about security around the God’s Punishment Army’s secrets. Once he’s finished questioning the archbishop, I’ll explain everything I can.”
“What secrets?” Tayfun asked.
“Forgive me. I genuinely don’t know.” She smiled. “That’s why he’s asking the archbishop, not me.”
“I can walk,” Soli said, and proved it by standing immediately and then sitting back down on the edge of the bed.
“There’s no need to perform.” Zero snapped her fingers. Two guards in blue cloaks entered and lifted the archbishop. “There’s a wheelchair in the Pivotal Secret Area.”
El watched them leave and then spat on the floor. She walked out of the room without a word.
Tayfun remained in the doorway watching until Zero’s white hair disappeared around the corner of the corridor, and stood there a long time after, thinking.
The stone steps descended to a darkness that smelled of old water and sealed air. Soli had never been below the cathedral before. The weight of the place pressed on him—the sense of history compacted into the rock above. He tried to calm his breathing and failed.
“How will you explain the losses to Pope Mayne?” Zero said, pushing the wheelchair along the tunnel in the God’s Stone lantern-light.
“The defeat was my fault,” Soli said. “I underestimated the enemy. I will accept whatever punishment His Holiness deems appropriate.” He paused, gathering the words. “And I wish to apply to become a God’s Punishment Warrior myself.”
Zero’s footsteps slowed almost imperceptibly.
“Give up your archbishop’s rank to become a soldier?” Her tone held nothing that could be called mockery—just inquiry.
“They are not soldiers.” He could not keep the heat from it. “Every God’s Punishment Warrior is a brave and steadfast person. They were willing to sacrifice their lives for the glory of the church. I led them into a trap and got them killed. The only meaningful compensation I can offer is to join them.”
“I suspect the pope won’t agree.”
“I’ll persuade him. He’ll understand that—”
“That’s not the reason I suspect he’ll refuse.” She stopped pushing. The tunnel ahead opened into the antechamber of the Pivotal Secret Temple—God’s Stone prisms cold and blue in the darkness. “The conversion requires witch blood, and every witch is difficult to replace. You’ve lost an arm. Even a successful conversion would leave you less capable than a healthy warrior. Will the pope waste witch blood on someone whose fighting capacity is already compromised?”
Soli went still.
“What are you saying? Wait—” He reached back to grab the wheelchair arm. “Stop.”
Zero stopped.
“The incarnation ceremony is a secret known only to the supreme pontiff.” His voice was very quiet now. “How do you know what it requires?” He turned his head to look at her, the implications arriving one by one. “His Holiness would never tell you.”
“You’re correct. He definitely wouldn’t.” She opened the cage at the end of the Trap Area and settled him inside with the same unhurried efficiency she brought to everything. “But I don’t need him to tell me.” She stepped back. The cage door’s latch caught. “Because I am the pope.”
“That’s—blasphemy—”
He turned, and saw the light.