Flames of Doubt - Chapter 1: The Commission

The summons arrived on a cold morning in late autumn.

Petro Marok stood in the courtyard of Westminster's knight barracks, watching two younger knights spar with wooden swords. Their technique was sloppy, all enthusiasm and no discipline—footwork too wide, sword arms extended past the point of balance, leaving ribs exposed. He resisted the urge to correct them. Training squires wasn't his responsibility anymore. He had more important work.

The clash of wood echoed off stone walls as frost crunched beneath shifting boots. One of the squires—a boy of perhaps sixteen with the eager eyes of someone who'd never killed—overextended on a lunge. His partner's counter-strike caught him solidly across the forearm, and the boy yelped, dropping his weapon.

"You're dead." The words left Petro's mouth before he could stop them, his voice devoid of inflection.

Both squires turned, faces flushing when they recognized him. The witch hunter. The one who'd executed eighteen heretics. The one the other knights spoke about in hushed, reverent tones.

"Sir Petro," the injured one stammered, rubbing his arm. "I didn't see you—"

"If you'd extended that far in real combat, you wouldn't have seen anything ever again." Petro kept his voice level, but something in his chest tightened. They looked at him like he was a hero. Like he was something to aspire to. "Keep your sword closer to your body. Create openings through footwork, not reach."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

They resumed their spar with marginally better form. Petro turned away, tasting something bitter at the back of his throat. Hero worship. As if what he did was glorious. As if the faces of the dead didn't visit him in the dark hours before dawn.

A messenger approached, boots crunching on frost-covered stones. "Sir Petro? The High Council requests your presence. Immediately."

Petro nodded, dismissing the man with a gesture. He ran a hand through his dark hair, now threaded with early gray despite being barely past thirty winters. The years of hunting had aged him. Or perhaps the weight—the faces, the screams, the absolute certainty that drove him through sleepless nights when doubt crept in at the edges.

The young witch from three months past surfaced in his memory. Her pleading eyes. Her insistence that the fire had been an accident, that she'd only been defending herself from a man who'd attacked her. He'd executed her anyway. The law was clear. Magic was corruption, regardless of circumstance.

He pushed the memory down, as he always did, and forced his pulse to slow.

He made his way through Westminster's sprawling complex of stone buildings, past the chapel where he'd taken his vows as a knight, past the armory where he'd trained under Sir Martin's watchful eye. Morning light cut through gaps between towers, cold and thin. The place held memories of his transformation—from the broken, grief-stricken boy Martin had rescued to the zealous witch hunter he'd become.

The route took him past the Church's orphanage, a low stone building with smoke curling from multiple chimneys. Through the windows, he could see children at morning lessons—reading, writing, learning trades. The Church took in children orphaned by war, disease, or disaster. Fed them. Educated them. Gave them futures they wouldn't have otherwise had.

The chapel bells began to toll, deep and resonant, calling the faithful to morning prayer. Petro didn't stop. He'd prayed enough over the years—for strength, for certainty, for the conviction that his work was righteous. The True God had never answered in words, only in the steady hand that never wavered when his sword fell. That was answer enough.

Or so he told himself.

The High Council chamber was located in the tallest tower, a deliberate choice meant to remind petitioners of the Church's authority. Petro climbed the winding stairs without effort, his boots finding familiar grooves worn into the stone by centuries of supplicants. He'd made this journey many times over the years, always to receive new assignments. Always to hunt.

The scent of incense grew stronger as he climbed—sandalwood and something sharper, almost medicinal. The Church burned it constantly in the upper chambers, claiming it purified the air of demonic influence. Petro had never been certain whether the councilors actually believed that or simply liked the effect it had on visitors. The smell was overwhelming, impossible to ignore. It made you feel small. Watched.

Two guards flanked the heavy oak doors. They opened without a word as Petro approached. Inside, the circular chamber was dominated by a large table where five men sat—the High Council of the Church of the Lord of Light. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, casting long shadows across detailed maps spread before them.

"Sir Petro Marok," Inquisitor Aldric spoke first. He was a thin man with hawkish features and cold eyes. "Your timing is fortunate. We have need of your particular talents."

Petro bowed. "I serve the True God and His Church."

"Indeed you do," Bishop Ferris said, his voice warm where Aldric's was ice. Ferris was older, gray-bearded, with a grandfather's face that concealed a mind sharp as any blade. "Your service has been exemplary. Seventeen magic users apprehended and executed in the past three years alone."

"Eighteen," Petro corrected quietly. The young witch three months past. He remembered every one.

"Eighteen, then." Ferris nodded. "The True God's will, carried out with dedication and precision. Your reputation has grown considerably."

Petro said nothing. Reputation meant nothing. Only the work mattered. Only preventing another massacre like the one that had destroyed his childhood. Each execution was a town that wouldn't burn. Each magic user eliminated was hundreds of innocent lives spared.

That was the calculus. That was what made the nightmares worth enduring.

He noticed the other two councilors—Bishop Harmon, corpulent and perpetually perspiring despite the cold chamber, and Father Clement, ancient and nearly blind but with a mind still sharp as broken glass. Both watched him with the appraising look of men evaluating a weapon. He'd seen that look before. Many times.

Sir Martin sat at the far end of the table, and their eyes met briefly. Martin was older now too, his beard gone completely gray, lines deeper around his eyes. The hands that had once guided Petro through sword forms now showed the tremor of age. The man who'd saved Petro's life. The man who'd trained him, raised him, given him purpose.

Martin's expression was carefully neutral, but Petro caught something beneath it. Concern? Doubt? A slight tightening around the mouth that might have been disapproval. He pushed the thought away. Martin was sixty-three now. Perhaps the weight of years was making him soft.

"We have a situation," Aldric continued, gesturing to the maps. One showed the entire kingdom, but Aldric's finger came to rest on a location far to the east. "The Citadel of Light."

Petro's jaw tightened at the name. He knew of the Citadel, as all knights did. An ancient fortress from before the Collapse, supposedly abandoned for centuries. A monument to magic's evil, empty and crumbling.

"We have intelligence," Bishop Ferris said, leaning forward, "that magic users have been gathering there. Not just a handful—dozens, perhaps more. They've been disappearing from villages across the realm, fleeing our justice. We believe they're organizing some form of resistance."

"The Citadel was thought to be uninhabitable," Sir Martin interjected, his voice measured. "The records suggest it was heavily damaged during the Collapse."

Aldric's jaw tightened. "Clearly our records were incomplete. The fact remains that heretics are gathering in force. They must be investigated and dealt with."

Petro studied the map, tracing the route with his eyes. Through the eastern farmlands, past the border towns, into the wild territories where the Church's authority grew thin. The Citadel was remote, weeks of travel through difficult terrain—forests that hadn't been logged in generations, mountains that served as natural fortifications. If magic users were truly gathering there in numbers, it represented a threat unlike anything he'd faced. His hunts had always been of individuals or small groups, isolated and vulnerable. This was different.

This was organized. This was a stronghold.

"What do you require of me?" he asked.

"We need someone to investigate," Ferris said. "Determine the scope of the threat. The number of magic users, their capabilities, their intentions. Whether they're truly organizing or simply hiding."

"And then?" Petro asked, though he already knew the answer.

Aldric's expression didn't change. "If they pose a threat to the realm, they must be eliminated. All of them. We cannot allow another Collapse. We cannot allow magic to take root again."

"How they've survived this long undetected troubles me," Bishop Harmon spoke for the first time, dabbing at his forehead with a silk cloth despite the chill in the chamber. "The Citadel was believed destroyed during the wars following the Collapse. Our records indicate Church forces razed it two centuries ago."

"Clearly our records were incomplete," Aldric repeated, his tone suggesting that such incompleteness was an affront to be punished. "Or our predecessors were deceived. Either way, we must correct the error. Permanently."

Father Clement stirred, his clouded eyes somehow finding Petro despite his blindness. "The boy who witnessed the massacre at Millbrook," the old priest said, voice thin as parchment. "I remember when Martin brought you here. Covered in ash. Barely speaking. Now look at you. The Church's finest hunter." His papery lips curled into something that might have been a smile. "Perhaps the True God prepared you for this from the beginning."

Petro's stomach turned, but he kept his expression neutral. He didn't like thinking about Millbrook. Didn't like being reminded that his entire purpose had been forged in grief and suffering. But Clement wasn't wrong. The massacre had made him into what he was. Every execution was an answer to that day.

The burning priest flashed through Petro's mind. The hundreds dead in the riot that followed. Hank's defiant face as Mithras's power burst from him. The flames, the screaming, the blood.

"I'll go," Petro said immediately. "I volunteer to lead the investigation."

The councilors exchanged glances. Sir Martin's frown deepened.

"We hoped you would say that," Ferris said with satisfaction. "You understand the stakes better than most. You've seen firsthand what magic can do when left unchecked."

"I have," Petro agreed. The young witch's terrified face surfaced in his memory, but he forced it down. She would have grown more powerful. Would have hurt people. He'd done what was necessary.

"You'll take a small team," Aldric said. "Knights you trust. This must be handled with discretion initially. We don't want to provoke open war until we understand what we're dealing with."

"I'll need Brother Marcus," Petro said. Marcus was a fellow witch hunter, zealous and effective—perhaps even more so than Petro himself. The man had a cold fire in him that never wavered, never questioned. "And Knight Thomas. He's young but reliable."

He chose Thomas deliberately. The young knight had potential but also a tendency to ask questions, to wonder aloud whether every execution was strictly necessary. A few weeks in the field, seeing the reality of magic's corrupting influence, would burn that softness out of him. Would make him into a proper hunter.

The way Martin had made Petro.

"Granted," Ferris nodded. "Sir Martin will provide additional support personnel. Provisions, horses, supplies for an extended mission."

"When do I leave?"

"As soon as you can be ready. Days, not weeks. The longer they gather, the more dangerous they become."

"I can leave within three days," Petro said. "Sooner if pressed."

"Three days will suffice," Aldric replied, a glint of approval in his cold eyes. "I want thorough preparation, not haste. When you return with intelligence, we'll need it to be complete and accurate. The Council will need to decide on the appropriate response."

The appropriate response. Petro knew what that meant. If his report confirmed significant numbers, the Church would assemble an army. Would march east and purge the Citadel like they'd purged heretics before. Fire and sword and righteous conviction.

"Excellent." Aldric stood, the meeting clearly concluded. "The Church thanks you for your service, Sir Petro. May the True God guide your path and strengthen your sword arm."

The other councilors rose and began filing out. Father Clement lingered for a moment, his blind eyes seeming to see more than they should. He placed a trembling hand on Petro's arm as he passed.

"Walk with an old man a moment, Sir Petro." Clement's voice dropped low, meant only for him. "My chambers are just below. There's something I'd like to discuss."

Petro glanced at Sir Martin, who remained seated, watching. Martin gave a slight nod—permission, or perhaps warning. Petro couldn't tell which.

He followed Father Clement down one flight of stairs to a smaller chamber. The old priest moved slowly but with practiced confidence despite his blindness, his hand trailing along the stone wall.

Inside, Clement's room was sparse—a narrow bed, a prayer desk, shelves lined with books transcribed in the raised script the blind could read by touch. The only luxury was a window that faced the orphanage.

"Do you know what I do, besides counsel the High Council?" Clement asked, settling into a chair by the window.

"No, Father."

"I oversee the Church's charitable works. The orphanages. The hospitals. The almshouses for the poor." Clement's clouded eyes turned toward the window, though he couldn't see through it. "Last week, I held a little girl—six years old—while the physicians amputated her infected leg. She'd stepped on a rusty nail. Her parents were too poor for proper treatment. The Church physicians saved her life."

Petro said nothing, unsure where this was leading.

"She screamed for her mother," Clement continued, his voice soft. "Screamed and screamed until the poppy milk finally took her into sleep. But we saved her. The Church saved her. That's what we do, you know. We save people. Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. Take in orphans who'd otherwise starve in gutters."

"I know the Church does good work, Father."

"Do you?" Clement's hand trembled as he reached for a cup of water on the table beside him. "Or do you only know the hunting? The executions? The purity maintained through blood?"

Petro felt his jaw tighten. "Both are necessary. The Church's charity means nothing if magic users burn the world again."

"Perhaps." Clement took a slow sip of water. "I'm old, Petro. So old I remember when witch hunts were rare. When magic users who lived quietly were... quietly tolerated. Oh, we didn't approve, understand. But we didn't hunt them systematically. Only when there was actual harm."

"That was before the Collapse was fully understood—"

"The Collapse happened three hundred years ago," Clement interrupted gently. "I've read the histories. All of them, not just the Church's approved versions. Back when I could still see, I read everything I could find. And the truth is... we don't really know what caused it. We've decided it was magic. Built our entire doctrine on that decision. But what if we're wrong?"

The words were dangerous. Bordering on heresy. Petro glanced at the door, suddenly nervous.

"No one can hear us," Clement assured him. "And I'm too old and too useful for them to execute for asking questions. One of the few privileges of age." He set down his cup with a slight tremor. "I helped write some of our current doctrine, you know. Fifty years ago, when the hunts intensified. I was younger then. Certain. Convinced that we were saving humanity."

"You were," Petro said. "You are."

"Am I?" Clement's blind eyes somehow found Petro's face. "I've spent the last decade counting. Do you know how many people we've executed for magic in the past fifty years? Just in our diocese?"

Petro shook his head, then realized the old man couldn't see the gesture. "No."

"Three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two." Clement's voice was hollow. "I keep the records. Someone should remember their names. And do you know how many of those had actually harmed anyone?"

Petro didn't answer.

"Less than a hundred," Clement said. "The rest were... children who manifested during moments of terror. Healers who eased pain. Farmers with crop charms. People who'd lived their entire lives without incident until someone reported them." He paused. "People like that little girl I held last week. Except with magic instead of an infected leg. And we killed them instead of saving them."

"Magic corrupts," Petro said, but the words felt automatic. Hollow.

"Does it? Or do we corrupt people by hunting them? By giving them no choice except to hide or die? By ensuring that any magic user who seeks help is executed instead?" Clement leaned forward. "What if we created the very threat we claim to prevent? What if our fear made monsters out of people who could have been... just people?"

The old priest's words echoed Martin's doubts. Echoed the questions Petro pushed down in the dark hours before dawn.

"Why are you telling me this?" Petro asked.

"Because you're about to lead a mission that could result in hundreds of deaths. And I want you to see with clear eyes, not through the lens of certainty we've imposed." Clement reached out, his trembling hand finding Petro's arm with surprising accuracy. "I'm not saying magic isn't dangerous. I'm saying people are complicated. And perhaps... perhaps mercy isn't weakness. Perhaps it's the harder choice."

"The Church's law—"

"The Church's law was written by frightened men trying to prevent catastrophe," Clement interrupted. "Including me. And perhaps we were right. Or perhaps we let fear make us into the very evil we fought against." He released Petro's arm. "I don't know anymore. I'm too old, and I've seen too much, and the certainty I once had has... crumbled."

He turned toward the window again, toward the orphanage he couldn't see but knew was there. "The Church does genuine good, Petro. We feed thousands. Heal thousands more. Educate children who'd otherwise remain ignorant. But that good doesn't erase the bad. And I fear... I fear we've become so focused on the hunting that we've forgotten the healing."

Petro stood, unsettled. "I should go. I have preparations—"

"Of course." Clement waved a dismissive hand. "Thank you for indulging an old man's doubts. Perhaps they're nothing more than the confused thoughts of someone whose mind is going. But..." He paused. "But if you find that these magic users at the Citadel are simply people seeking safety... remember that the Church also saves people. Remember that we're supposed to be healers, not just executioners."

Petro left the chamber, heart pounding. Two members of the Church's leadership—Martin and now Clement—expressing doubt. Questioning the very foundation of the work Petro had built his life upon.

Was the corruption spreading even within Westminster's walls? Or were they seeing something he refused to see?

He pushed the questions away and continued down the stairs. He had a mission. He had orders. Doubt was the enemy.

But Clement's words lingered: Perhaps mercy isn't weakness. Perhaps it's the harder choice.

Sir Martin remained in the council chamber, waiting. When Petro returned, Martin stood.

"Are you certain about this?" Martin kept his voice low, his brow furrowed.

"Of course," Petro said, approaching the table to study the map more closely. "This is what I do."

Martin's hand found the edge of the table, gripping it. "This isn't hunting a single magic user hiding in some village. If the reports are accurate, you could be walking into a fortress full of them. Dozens, maybe more. You could be killed."

"Then I'll die serving the True God," Petro said simply. "Better than living in a world where magic spreads unchecked."

Martin leaned forward, hands clasped on the table. The tremor was more pronounced now, Petro noticed. Age eating away at the strength that had once seemed inexhaustible. "Petro. You're not just a weapon to be pointed at targets. You're a man. A husband. Suzanne—"

"Suzanne understands the importance of my work."

"Does she? Or does she simply accept it because you've given her no choice?"

The words stung more than they should have. Petro's jaw tightened. "I didn't come here to discuss my marriage."

"No. You came here to accept another mission. Another hunt. More deaths." Martin's voice was heavy. "When does it end, Petro? How many more before you've killed enough?"

"When the threat is eliminated."

"And if the threat can't be eliminated? If magic users are simply... people? Born with abilities they didn't ask for, fleeing persecution?"

The young witch's face again. Her explanation that the fire had been an accident. Her tears.

Petro's hands curled into fists at his sides. "Magic is the threat. Not the people—the power. It corrupts. It destroys. I've seen it."

Martin was silent for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, older. "Do you remember when I found you? After the massacre? You were just a boy, hiding in that alley. Covered in blood and ash."

"I remember," Petro said, his voice flat. He didn't like thinking about that day, that version of himself. Weak. Helpless. Crying in a corner while the world burned around him. The smell of charred flesh. The screams that seemed to go on forever.

"You asked me why," Martin continued. "Why the priest burned. Why so many people had to die. Do you remember what I told you?"

"You said the world is complicated. That sometimes evil wears a pleasant face, and good requires hard choices."

"I did say that," Martin nodded slowly. "I wonder now if I was right."

Petro looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"

Martin stood, moving to the window. For a long moment he just stared out over Westminster's walls. "I've served the Church for forty years, Petro. I've fought in wars, hunted heretics, done terrible things in the name of the True God. I told myself it was necessary. That we were protecting people."

Petro's chin lifted. "We are protecting people."

"Are we?" Martin turned back to face him. "Or are we just... afraid? So afraid of magic that we kill anyone who has even a touch of it, regardless of whether they've done anything wrong?"

The young witch surfaced again in Petro's mind. Her pleading. Her explanation that it was an accident, that she'd only defended herself.

"Magic itself is the crime," Petro said, more harshly than he intended. "You taught me that. Magic is corruption. It leads only to more evil, more death."

Martin's shoulders sagged, and something in his eyes dimmed. "I know what I taught you. I'm just not sure anymore if I was teaching truth or... fear masquerading as truth."

"The Collapse happened," Petro insisted. "Magic users nearly destroyed the world. We saw what happened in my town—one boy with power killed hundreds. How can you doubt?"

"I don't doubt that magic is dangerous," Martin said. "I doubt whether killing everyone who has it is justice or just... extermination."

The word hung in the air between them like a blade.

Extermination. The same word used for vermin. For pests. For things that didn't deserve to live.

"You're tired," Petro said finally. "You've seen too much. But the mission is clear. The True God's law is absolute."

Martin turned to face the window again. "Yes. It is absolute. That's what worries me."

He turned from the window, and Petro saw something in his mentor's eyes he'd never seen before. Not doubt—something deeper. Grief. The kind of grief that came from realizing you'd spent your life serving something that might not deserve service.

"Be careful, Petro," Martin said. "Not just physically. Be careful of what you become. The Church needs weapons, but the world needs men who can still recognize when they're wrong." He paused. "I raised you to be a knight. I fear I made you into something else."

"You made me into what I needed to be," Petro said. "What the world needs me to be."

"The world. Or the Church?"

Petro had no answer.

Petro left the council chamber deeply unsettled. Martin's doubts were troubling enough, but now Father Clement too? The man who'd helped write the Church's doctrine on magic was questioning it?

Perhaps Martin was simply getting old. Soft. Unable to do what was necessary anymore. It happened to soldiers sometimes, Petro had heard. They saw too much death and started questioning whether it was justified. Their resolve crumbled. Their certainty wavered.

But Clement was different. The old priest had admitted to keeping records—three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two executions in fifty years. Less than a hundred had actually harmed anyone.

Petro pushed the thought away. Statistics could be twisted. And even if most magic users hadn't harmed anyone yet, that didn't mean they wouldn't. Prevention was the point. Stop them before they became dangerous.

But the numbers haunted him. Three thousand. Four hundred. Seventy-two.

He knew the truth. He'd lived it. Magic was evil. Mercy toward it led to massacre. The only way to prevent another Collapse was to root out every trace of it, no matter how painful the work. No matter how many faces haunted his sleep.

The Citadel of Light. If magic users were gathering there, it was his sacred duty to stop them.

He made his way through Westminster's streets toward the residential quarter where he and Suzanne had a small home. The route took him past the hospital—another Church institution, where physicians treated the sick regardless of their ability to pay. A woman emerged carrying a child, her face relieved. The child's arm was bandaged, but the boy was smiling, alive.

The Church saved lives. Petro reminded himself of this. They weren't only about hunting. They fed the poor, healed the sick, educated orphans. Real good, not just the prevention of evil.

But that good didn't make the hunting wrong. Both could be true. The Church could heal thousands and still need to eliminate magic users. One didn't negate the other.

Did it?

The sun was high now, warming the frost-covered cobblestones. Market vendors called out their wares. Children played in alleyways, laughing. A dog barked at something only it could see. A woman hung laundry on lines strung between buildings, humming tunelessly.

Normal people. Innocent people. The people he protected by doing what others couldn't stomach.

That was why he did it. For them. For this. For cobblestones and market vendors and children laughing in alleyways, oblivious to the darkness that would consume them if men like Petro stopped hunting.

He passed the bakery where he sometimes bought Suzanne's favorite pastries—honey and almond, a weakness she'd had since childhood. Passed the smithy where his sword had been forged, where the smith had blessed the steel with prayers to the True God. Passed the square where he'd first kissed Suzanne, both of them teenagers too shy to speak their feelings aloud.

All of it fragile. All of it threatened by magic's corruption. All of it depending on men willing to do the necessary evil.

Suzanne was home when he arrived, kneading bread dough at their kitchen table. She looked up as he entered, flour dusting her hands and apron. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a simple braid, green eyes bright in the afternoon light streaming through the window. There were new lines around those eyes, Petro noticed. Worry lines. The kind you got when your husband disappeared for weeks at a time and came home with blood on his soul.

She was still beautiful. Still the girl who'd saved him by being kind when no one else was. Still the girl he'd hidden with in that alley while the town burned, both of them too terrified to speak. The girl he'd sworn to protect, even though protecting her meant doing things he could never tell her about.

The girl he'd saved in return.

"You're back early," she said, smiling. "I thought the council meetings always lasted until evening."

"Not today," Petro said. He hung his sword belt by the door—he never wore it inside their home—and moved to wash his hands in the basin. "I've been given a new assignment."

"Another hunt?" Her smile faded slightly. She never liked when he left, though she didn't complain. She understood his work was important.

"Yes. But a longer one. I'll be gone for weeks, possibly months."

Suzanne set down her dough, wiping her hands. "Months? Where are they sending you?"

"East. To investigate reports of magic users gathering at the old Citadel of Light."

"That's so far," she said, concern creeping into her voice. "Is it dangerous?"

He crossed to her, taking her hands in his. They were warm from the bread dough, strong from years of work. "No more dangerous than any other hunt. I'll have good men with me. And you know I'm careful."

She studied his face, and for a moment he wondered if she could see through him. If she knew about the doubts that sometimes crept in during the dark hours before dawn. About the faces that haunted his dreams.

But she only nodded. "When do you leave?"

"Three days. I need to gather supplies, brief the team, make preparations."

"Then we have three days," she said, squeezing his hands. "I'll make your favorite meals. Mend your traveling cloak. Pack extra socks—you always forget extra socks."

He smiled despite himself. "I never forget. You just think I don't pack enough."

"Because you don't," she said, the worry fading from her eyes as she focused on practical matters. "Last time you were gone for a month and came back with holes in three pairs."

"That was one time."

"It was twice." She returned to her bread dough, but her movements were less certain now. Her hands worked the dough mechanically, pressing and folding without the rhythm she usually had. "Petro... be careful. I know you believe in your work, but... just be careful."

"I always am," he assured her.

"Are you?" She didn't look up. "Sometimes I wonder if you want to come back at all."

The words hit harder than they should have. "Suzanne—"

"You come home and you're here, but you're not really here." Her hands stilled on the dough. "You stare at walls. You barely sleep. When you do sleep, you have nightmares. And then you leave again for the next hunt, and I..." She pressed her lips together. "I worry that one day you won't come back. And I don't know if it's because something killed you or because you stopped caring whether you lived."

"I care," Petro said, and heard the hollowness in his own voice.

Suzanne finally looked up, and her eyes were wet. "Do you? Sometimes I think the boy I married died in that massacre, and what came back was just... a weapon wearing his face."

The words were like a blade. And worse—they echoed what Martin had said. What he'd been afraid to say to himself.

"I'm still me," Petro said. "I do this work because it matters. Because if I don't, other families end up like ours did. Other children watch their towns burn. Other survivors spend their lives running from what they saw."

"And the people you execute? The ones who beg for mercy?"

His throat tightened. "They're not people. They're threats. What looks like a person is just the vessel for corruption."

Suzanne held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Then I hope you never have to question that. I hope you never have to wonder if you were wrong."

She returned to her bread. Petro watched her, wanting to say something—to explain, to justify, to make her understand. But he didn't have words that wouldn't sound like excuses.

"I always am," he said finally. "Careful. I always am."

She didn't answer.

That night, lying beside Suzanne in their bed, Petro stared at the ceiling and thought about the mission ahead. The Citadel of Light. A name that was meant to mock, he'd been told—magic users claiming light while serving darkness.

But what if they were simply... people? People with abilities they didn't choose, fleeing persecution?

No. He crushed that thought immediately. That was Martin's doubt infecting him. Magic was evil. The law was clear. The massacre in his childhood proved it beyond question.

He reached for the golden sun amulet on his bedside table. He'd kept it all these years, the priest's holy symbol. A reminder of what happened when magic was tolerated. When mercy was shown to those who should be executed.

Hundreds dead. A town destroyed. His childhood shattered.

But Father Clement's words surfaced: Less than a hundred had actually harmed anyone.

What if the priest in Millbrook had been the exception, not the rule? What if Hank's power manifesting had been a tragedy, not proof that all magic was evil?

Never again.

Beside him, Suzanne shifted in her sleep, murmuring something indistinct. He looked at her peaceful face, illuminated by moonlight through the window. She trusted him. Believed in him. Had no idea about the things he'd done, the people he'd killed in the name of protecting innocents like her.

Better she never knew. Better she could sleep peacefully while he carried the burden of necessary evil.

Three days later, Petro rode out of Westminster's gates with four knights at his side. Brother Marcus, zealous and sharp-eyed, sat his horse with the rigid posture of a man who'd never known doubt. Knight Thomas, young and eager to prove himself, looked around with barely contained excitement. Two others—Gareth and William—rode behind. Good fighters, loyal to the Church, the kind of men who followed orders without needing to understand them.

The morning was cold, frost still clinging to the cobblestones. A crowd had gathered to watch them go—knights riding on Church business always drew attention. Petro kept his eyes forward, ignoring the whispered conversations. He knew what they were saying. The witch hunter. The one who killed eighteen heretics. The one the demons feared.

Sir Martin came to see them off. He clasped Petro's arm in the warrior's grip, and his hands were cold.

Martin leaned close, his breath misting in the cold air. "Remember that you were once a frightened child who deserved mercy. Remember that others might deserve the same."

"I remember that I became this," Petro replied, "so that no other children have to watch their towns burn."

Martin's expression was pained—deeper than pain, closer to grief. But he said nothing more. He released Petro's arm and stepped back, and something in the movement felt like surrender. Like giving up.

Suzanne had said her goodbyes earlier, pressing a cloth-wrapped package of her bread into his hands along with a kiss. "Come home safe," she'd whispered. "Come home yourself."

He intended to. He always intended to. But Suzanne's words from their conversation echoed in his mind. Sometimes I think the boy I married died in that massacre.

Maybe he had. Maybe what remained was just the weapon she'd described. Just the instrument of Church justice, pointed at targets and released.

If so, was that really so terrible? The world needed weapons. Needed men willing to do what soft people couldn't. Needed certainty to hold back the chaos.

Petro spurred his horse forward, and the small company rode east toward the rising sun. Behind them, Westminster's walls grew smaller—gray stone fading into morning mist. Ahead, somewhere beyond the horizon, lay the Citadel of Light and whatever evil it harbored.

He was ready.

He had to be.

But as they rode, Petro found himself thinking of Martin's doubt. Of Clement's confession. Of Suzanne's tears. Of the young witch's pleading face.

What if they were right? What if somewhere along the way, the work had changed him into something that needed to be stopped rather than supported?

He crushed the thought. Doubt was the enemy. Doubt led to hesitation. Hesitation led to mercy. And mercy toward magic users led to massacre.

Never again.

The road stretched before them, long and uncertain. Petro rode toward the Citadel of Light with certainty wrapped around him like armor.

He refused to consider that armor could also be a cage.