Chapter 26: Whispers Beneath the Cross

Chapter 26: Whispers Beneath the Cross

The candle burned low beside Volundr's desk, its flame bending beneath the weight of the room's silence.

Stacks of parchment lay scattered before him—some ancient, others freshly printed from enchanted type. Among them sat a folder, bound in black wax seal, its edges frayed from hasty handling.

He didn't need to open it again.

He had memorized every word.

The Holy Sword Project. A covert initiative buried in the most obscure channels of the Church's military wing.

Allegedly disbanded over a decade ago. Its existence, scrubbed from records and memory. Its victims, discarded in the shadows.

The intercepted dossier told a different story. One that sang of suffering. Of children selected, stolen, and subjected to a twisted doctrine: become the weapon, or become the sacrifice.

Volundr's fingers traced the spine of the folder. He saw not ink on paper, but wounds on skin. Screams echoed in the margins.

"How many more?" he whispered.

He stood and turned to the massive window that overlooked his estate's courtyard. The stars hung still in the heavens, uncaring.

A cold wind stirred the trees below, their branches clawing at the night.

Opportunity and responsibility. Two edges of the same blade.

He turned back, lit a second candle, and summoned Claudius and Lirien with a thought.

"We move before dawn," Volundr said,

spreading a map across the war table.

"The ruins lie beneath what once was Saint Aster's Cathedral. Officially condemned. Unofficially..."

Lirien's eyes narrowed. "A vault."

Claudius growled. "And a grave."

Volundr nodded. "Barrier traces remain. Enough to deter the curious. Not enough to stop us."

"Is it a trap?"

"If it is," Volundr replied, "we set it off. But quietly."

He outlined the plan: minimal magic, maximum stealth. Physical infiltration through ley line anomalies that once powered the cathedral's wards. A surgical strike, not a siege.

"This is reconnaissance," he reminded them.

"We extract nothing. We disturb nothing. We learn everything."

Hours later, beneath a sky painted with bruised purple clouds, the trio stood before the broken gates of Saint Aster's.

The church loomed above them, scarred by time and fire. Its bell tower leaned like a drunkard.

The great doors were sealed with rusted chains, but the earth itself whispered secrets.

Volundr touched the stone.

Pain, it said.

He led them around back, to a collapsed crypt entrance half-swallowed by ivy and frost.

With a breath, he released a strand of Senjutsu, threading it through the darkness like a needle.

The earth breathed in response.

They descended.

The catacombs stretched like a spider's web, winding deeper than any church should.

Walls wept moisture. Bones peeked through collapsed alcoves. Symbols both sacred and profane lined the archways—a history rewritten in blood and silence.

Claudius took point, his massive frame moving with ghostly precision. Lirien watched their flanks, her daggers silent in her palms.

Volundr's senses pulsed.

Echoes.

Not of life, but of memory.

He followed them.

The heart of the complex lay beneath seven locked doors. Each one inscribed with runes of obedience, purity, silence, pain. Not wards—vows.

Volundr read them aloud, voice low.

"'Through pain, the spirit is shaped.'"

"'Through silence, the soul is erased.'"

Claudius spat. "Monsters."

They breached the final door.

The chamber beyond was vast, circular, its walls lined with cells no larger than coffins. Each bore a sigil. Some bore scratch marks. Others—names.

Children's names.

Lirien knelt beside one. "This child prayed."

Volundr stood in the center of the room. "And no god answered."

He pulled out a small journal—his personal archive—and began recording.

Not just to document.

To remember.

The far end of the chamber held a platform. Upon it, the remnants of a ritual circle, long since scorched by holy fire.

Shackles hung from the ceiling. A training sword lay shattered across the dais.

Above it, carved into the stone, were the words:

Fiat Lux. Et parvuli ferrum facti sunt.

Volundr read it slowly.

"Let there be light. And the children were made into swords."

He closed his journal.

Then he knelt.

Not in worship.

In mourning.

"None shall remain forgotten in darkness,"

he vowed, voice barely above breath.

"Not while I walk the world."

Behind him, Claudius and Lirien bowed their heads.

They left nothing disturbed. No spell broken. No sigil cracked. Only shadows shifted in their wake.

By the time they emerged beneath the early light of dawn, the ruins stood still. But within Volundr, something moved.

A seed of resolve.

He would return.

Not to spy.

But to save.