The Madman's Guide to Miracles

The smoldering pile of ash hit the floor with a dull thud.

Aurelia dropped to her knees, gasping for air, her broadsword clattering against the blood-soaked slate. She clutched her shoulder where the ritual dagger had bitten deep, the white-hot fire on her blade dying out until only smoke rose from the charred iron.

"My lady!" Richard dragged himself across the stone, his face gray with shock and pain. "My lady, are you—"

"I’m fine," Aurelia wheezed, wiping blood from her mouth. "He’s gone. It’s over."

Behind them, the heavy double-beat from Aseren’s chest suddenly stopped.

Aurelia whipped her head around. On the slate table, Aseren’s body went completely limp. The black, root-like veins crawling up his throat turned a dull, lifeless gray, but he wasn’t breathing.

Then, Richard stiffened.

The guard captain stopped crawling. His jaw went slack. The pain, the exhaustion, the terror, all of it, melted from his face in a single second, replaced by a smooth, terrifying emptiness.

Slowly, Richard stood up. He didn’t favor his broken ribs. He didn’t limp. He turned around, his movements fluid and completely unnatural, and looked down at Aurelia with pale, vacant eyes.

"A noble effort, child," Richard said.

The voice came from Richard’s throat, but the tone, the rhythm, the cold detachment—it was Aldren.

Aurelia’s breath hitched in her throat, her blood running cold. "Richard...?"

"He was always so loyal to your family," Aldren murmured, using Richard’s hand to casually flex his fingers, testing the grip. "A strong frame. Trained muscle. I didn’t even need a full ritual—his mind was already breaking under the pressure of the room. A desperate soul is so easy to slip into."

"No..." Aurelia scrambled backward, her hands blindly searching the stone floor for her sword. "Get out of him! Get out of his body!"

"Why?" Aldren asked softly. He reached down and smoothly picked up the heavy broadsword Aurelia had dropped, lifting it with one hand as if it weighed nothing. "This body belongs to House Astoria, doesn’t it? It seems fitting that it completes the sacrifice."

He stepped over the ash of his old skin and pointed the steel straight at her chest.

"Now," Aldren said. "Let us finish this."

Aurelia barely had time to touch her sword’s wrap before Richard’s boot slammed square into her face.

The blow snapped her head back, sending her skidding sideways across the slick slate floor. Her vision exploded into starbursts. Before she could push herself up, Aldren, wearing Richard’s body, was already on top of her.

He didn’t fight like a knight anymore. He dropped the broadsword and grabbed her by the hair, slamming her head down hard onto the stone floor.

"Useless girl," he growled through Richard’s mouth.

Aurelia shrieked, driving her knee upward into his side, but he didn’t even flinch. His left hand clamped around her throat like an iron vice, cutting off her air instantly. Her legs thrashed, her boots scraping uselessly against the blood-soaked floor as he pinned her down, leaning his full weight onto her crushed ribs.

"Gah—!"

Pain tore through her side, sharp and blinding. She clawed at his wrist, her nails tearing his skin, but his grip didn’t loosen an inch.

Out from the dark corners of the vault, three surviving monks—skin cracked gray, eyes completely bloodshot—scrambled forward like starved dogs. They didn’t use weapons. They threw themselves onto her legs and her good arm, pinning her limbs to the freezing floor.

One monk slammed his knee directly onto her left shoulder, right where the ritual dagger had stabbed her.

Aurelia screamed, a raw, ragged sound that broke in her throat.

"Hold her," Aldren commanded calmly, his eyes cold as he leaned down close to her face. "She burned my old skin. Let’s see how much fire she has left when I carve her eyes out."

Aurelia thrashed against the weight, her teeth bared, blood spraying from her lips as she fought for every scrap of movement. One monk dug his thumbs hard into her wrists, trying to snap her bones against the slate.

"Get off me!" she choked out, her vision darkening at the edges as her oxygen ran dry. "GET OFF ME!"

Aldren reached down, his fingers locking around the ritual dagger lying in the dust. He raised the rusty blade right over her open, terrified eye.

"Your house ends here, Aurelia."

The rusty tip of the blade hovered inches from her pupil, cold metal catching the faint red light of the dead candles.

"You think I’m a monster," Aldren murmured. "Perhaps I am. But you have no idea what I had to become to keep this land alive."

Aurelia couldn’t breathe. Black spots danced across her vision.

"For four hundred years, I’ve smelled it," he whispered, his face inches from hers. His breath smelled like wet grave dirt and rancid fat.

"Every crop that turned to black sludge. Every child born with gray, peeling skin. Every corpse that refused to stay in the earth. It was just the bleeding heart of the Vengeful Old Father, buried like trash by the very beings you worship."

The monks pinned her arms tighter, their gray, cracked hands digging into her open wounds.

"I took that rot into my own soul," Aldren said, a sudden, terrifying warmth creeping into his voice.

"I made myself a vessel for the decay so the valley could survive another generation. My children died so I could wear them. Their mothers wept so I could stand here today. And you... a spoiled girl from a broken house... you dare call me a monster?"

He pressed the point of the dagger against her eyelid.

A sharp spike of pain cut through the numbness in her face. A tiny bead of blood ran down her cheek.

"I am the only saint this ruined dirt has left," he hissed. "And when I put that heart inside the boy, the rot will finally have a home. It will stop spreading. It will stop killing. All it costs... is you."

Aurelia’s jaw locked. Through the dark haze smothering her mind, through the agony of her crushed ribs and the iron grip on her throat, her chest burned.

It wasn’t just panic anymore. It was pure, unfiltered rage.

"You’re not a saint..." she choked out, blood bubbling over her lips as she stared straight up into Richard’s stolen eyes. "...you’re just an old man... afraid to die."

Aldren’s face went completely blank.

"Then let us end the debate," he said quietly, and drove the dagger down.

He then paused.

"Once you are beneath the dirt, I will finish what the Old Father began beside his true vessel and bleed every remaining god until the heavens burn down to ash."

There was no madness in his voice anymore. Only hatred. It seeped through every word, cold and bitter, as though he had spent centuries feeding it until nothing else remained.

But then Aldren stopped.

Something had changed.

A pressure settled against the back of his neck, cold enough to make his fingers tighten around the dagger. Slowly, a shadow spread across the stone behind him.

Something was standing there.

"AHH! MY LORD! YOU—"

Relief flashed across Aldren’s face.

"The assimilation worked!"

A breathless laugh escaped him. "HA... HAHAHA! I knew it!"

The smile faded.

The shadow behind Richard had nothing to do with the candles. It stretched far beyond their reach, crawling across the floor and climbing the walls, swallowing the light wherever it touched. The air thickened beneath its presence, pressing against the lungs and filling the chamber with a weight that made even the monks hesitate.

Aldren’s excitement faltered.

"...My Lord?"

Aurelia felt it too.

The moment the monks holding her shifted their attention, Aurelia twisted free. One arm slipped loose, then the other, and an elbow crashed into the nearest monk’s jaw. She stumbled away and caught herself against the altar, breathing hard as her gaze remained fixed on the darkness.

THUMP.

The altar trembled.

A deep, metallic beat rolled through the stone.

THUMP.

Another followed.

Aurelia’s breath caught. Her eyes widened as the killing intent washed over her as well.

Aurelia’s breath caught as the killing intent washed over her. Her eyes widened, fear tightening across her face when she realized it wasn’t aimed solely at Aldren. She was being targeted too. Why? Confusion flashed through the panic as her mind struggled to piece together what had happened. Whatever Aldren had done to Aseren, something had gone horribly wrong.

"...Aseren?"

Then the laughter erupted.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Aurelia flinched.

The voice was unmistakable, yet the sound carried something that didn’t belong. It was rough and breathless, overflowing with an almost delirious exhilaration as the laughter echoed through the chamber.

"HAHAHA... HAHAHAHA!"

Aldren’s expression slowly fell apart.

Something was wrong.

***

Author’s note

Okay, I lied. Expect the academy arc to start around Chapter 40 or later. Don’t worry, I’m gonna try to do 2 Chapters, or even 3, a day.

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