He stood guard outside of the ward tower of the Basilica. The Knights were busy keeping people back at the main doors. More and more were getting sick. He'd been in the Veil a lot lately. He'd seen how their population was growing thinner but even he hadn't expected it to be like this. There was a group of them, maybe ten or more, trying to push back the Knights to get into the Basilica. They were demanding healing, spouting the Doctrine back at those who wrote it, screaming that they were just as worthy of being healed as those in the Mid and the Center. They wanted to know why they were being denied.

  Lucien knew they didn't actually want the truth. At least not what he assumed the truth was. Logically, it made sense to let the weak cull themselves by getting infected and dying. Those who were left would be more indebted to the Light, they'd be more faithful, give all they had to the Aureate and more. Yet, as he stood there, he wondered if that really was the truth of why they were turning away the sick. Healing them would be a mercy and perhaps with Lustration looming on the horizon, the Archons saw no need to deem anything holy. That also made sense to him as well.

  After all, the Lustration was going to purify Caelora as it had done before.

  Rolling his neck, he thought back to the last Lustration. It had been about eight years ago. It was just a few days after his encounter with Solenne. Those few days after were mostly a blur but he did remember that the ritual came out of nowhere. One day he was recovering and the next he was being dragged to the Basilica with Calen at his side and the two of them were told to go and kidnap a young woman from her home. He had wanted to protest. Why kidnap someone? There were plenty of criminals that could be used for Lustration but Calen had stopped him from talking back.

  They'd argued on their way out. Lucien didn't understand why this girl was the Archons choice. Calen pinned him against a wall at one point, knife to his throat, threatening to truly end his life if he didn't just shut up and listen like he was trained to. He had stopped talking after that. Calen wouldn't leave him alive like he had been just a few nights before. Not to mention he was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he had been given a second chance at life and he didn't want to squander it.

  Thinking that made Lucien scoff. He'd squandered this second chance at life anyway. Instead of running from the Candescent Order and giving up being a Pale assassin, Lucien had just got straight back to it. He'd continued to spill blood when it had been blood that returned his life to him. For awhile he had said it was for the Aureate. He still spilled blood in their name. Then, as time went on, he was true to himself and admitted to no one but himself that he really spilled it all for Solenne and he would bleed this entire city dry if she just asked. Choir knew he'd do it without her asking. A single look, a silent command, and they'd all die. He wondered if she would press her cheek into his bloody palm while looking up at him, smiling, thanking him for it all.

  His mind wandered again to the woman they'd kidnapped. He remembered having to do a double take. She looked similar to Solenne; same dark hair, same pale skin, but the build was wrong and her eyes were blue. Lucien didn't like it. He didn't like how she started to cry, to beg, to bargain with them as if they were able to save her. She tried to fight. Nails hurt when they dug in deep but nothing hurt worse than the fire in his chest as he spoke a prayer aloud while dragging her to the streets. His vision had blurred more than once. Calen had taken on most of the woman's weight. At some point he had ended up knocking her out as well.

  Lucien absently rubbed at the scar. He wondered how badly Solenne burned when she prayed. Did she pray? Had she ever? As he stood there, staring at the limestone wall across from him, he realized he knew so little about the healer who saved him. A blend of hurt and desire coiled around his ribs; the hurt came from such a realization while the desire was a burning need to learn all those things about her. Then again, to learn such things he would have to speak to her, and well... He sighed heavily while rubbing his face with his hands. This all just needed to end.

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  He'd thought the same eight years ago as he stood in the shadows of the nave in the Basilica. Lucien watched as the girl was bent over the alter, her head pulled back by her hair, a knife at her exposed neck. The Archon at the time - Lucien couldn't remember his name anymore - chanted in humanized Seraphic. This was the first time he'd heard a chant since the incident. It sounded wrong. His upper lip twitched. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. The words were too sharp? Could a word be sharp? It was as if someone was trying to carve a sphere yet made a cube. The words should flow off the tongue. The Archons were being shoved off, falling like hail when it should be soft rain.

  They'd never go back to sounding “normal” after that. Neither would his view of the Archons. This one's hand shook while he pulled the blade. The girl choked when she should have just bled out. It took another two swipes of the ceremonial blade before she died. He watched her blood as it poured down the altar, filling the rivulets of the patterned floor. It started to glow faintly.

  Then nothing. He wasn't sure what to expect but he assumed something was going to happen. Lucien had rolled his eyes and left the nave. A Knight could clean up the body.

  Would that happen again? Would he be forced to kidnap someone to watch them die? Lucien was about to chastise himself when a loud thud caught his attention. A scream cut through the quiet he was just starting to notice. Rushing forward, Lucien turned a corner to see Calen with a mask over his lower face, dragging a body from the crowd. He quickly moved to help. Grabbing the body's legs, Lucien followed Calen's lead to wherever it was they were going.

  Confusion covered his face when he realized that they weren't going in the direction of the crematorium. He looked at the body closer now. Lucien lost his grip on her legs, dropping her in a way that made Calen stumble and almost fall.

  "Lucien!" Calen snarled his name, glaring daggers at him. "We need to get the body out of here. Now."

  He couldn't move. He felt like he couldn't breathe despite the way his lungs filled and emptied quicker and quicker the longer he stared wide eyed at her. It was the woman who attacked Emrys. She was freshly dead. Her body was still warm to his touch. He looked up at Calen.

  "We should be taking her to the crematorium. She is infected."

  "Was. She was infected." Calen corrected him. "And we aren't going to the crematorium. She wasn't in the Light when she was breathing. She doesn't get to be purified by the Choir's fire in death."

  "What? No. Everyone who is infected gets cremated. Its how they stop it from spreading."

  Calen dropped the corpse. He stood up straighter, looked at Lucien, and tilted his head. It was almost as if he was trying to see if Lucien was being serious. The look unnerved the white haired assassin. That wasn't an easy thing to do. He'd stood toe to toe with death yet this look of pity - was that pity? - had him taking a half step backwards. Lucien watched as Calen's eyes flicked down his form and back up again. Was Calen sizing him up?

  "Pick her up and help me take her where she needs to go. Don't question. Just do as your told." Calen's voice held an edge that Lucien rarely heard. Something about it had him wary to fight back on this.

  Instead of speaking, Lucien picked up the dead woman's legs again while Calen grabbed her arms. Neither of them spoke as they carried her off to wherever it was that Calen was leading them.