The Sanctuary in Shadow

A strange tension lingered in the bowels of the palace as Constantine stood alone, the faint supernatural glow from the fragment of the Holy Cross flickering in its reliquary like the afterimage of a vanished star. The hush in the chamber was not reverence, nor even the weight of history, but the electric pressure that comes before a storm-an omen that somewhere, something fundamental was about to change.

He watched the radiance with a soldier's skepticism. In his long life, he had witnessed countless tricks of priests and prophets, had seen "miracles" unravel into sleight of hand and rumor. But this light was different. It seemed to exist against the grain of the world, refusing to be swallowed by shadow or explained by reason. It simply was, as real as the cold nail he kept locked in his desk, as present as the city breathing above him.