“They smile too much,” Vespera murmured, her voice low. “And too often.”

Charles nodded faintly. His gaze continued to scan the town—every face, every movement. Something was being hidden. He could feel it. A truth buried under soft voices and forced cheer.

At a small intersection, his attention shifted.

A young woman stood silently in front of a bread stall, cradling something tightly against her chest beneath a gray, frayed shawl. Her eyes were sunken, her hair hung loose, and her body leaned forward—fragile, like a stalk of wheat bowing beneath the weight of a cruel wind.

A baby.

Charles approached, his voice steady, gentle, but firm.

“That’s a sweet child,” he said, bending slightly to meet her eyes.

The woman looked up, startled. Her face was pale, drained. Shadows clung beneath her eyes. She clutched the baby tighter, as if time itself would steal him from her if she let go for even a breath.

“How old?” Charles asked softly.

She hesitated. Her lips parted as though to answer, but no words came. Finally, in a voice like the rustle of dead leaves, she whispered:

“Three months.”

Charles looked at the child wrapped in the worn cloth. The infant’s breath was shallow. His skin, pale with a bluish tinge. But he was alive—for now.

“He’s very quiet,” Charles said.

The woman looked down again. Her voice cracked.

“He... he’s scheduled for the Trial next month.”

Time stopped.

Behind him, Vespera turned sharply, eyes narrowing. Charles stared at the woman, calm but unblinking.

“Trial?”

She gave a tiny nod. Then bowed politely, almost automatically, and walked away—like a wisp of smoke carried off by wind. The child remained silent in her arms.

Charles stood still, his gaze following them until they disappeared around a corner.

“Three months…” he murmured.

He turned without another word and walked back toward the inn. Vespera followed close behind, silent. The air between them now felt heavier, thick with questions neither had answers for yet.

---

The dim light of the inn room flickered as Charles spread out documents, village maps, and notes across the table. A candle on the desk shivered in the draft from a half-open window.

“The Trial. Three months old. That means... it’s done at four,” Charles said quietly, as if putting the pieces together aloud.

“And it’s not just any ritual,” Vespera replied, seated at the edge of the bed, watching him. “You saw her face. That wasn’t a mother preparing for a baptism.”

Charles clenched his fist.

“We can’t act yet. I still don’t know enough. But next month…”

He looked up at her.

“I’ll go undercover. As a villager. No name, no title. I need to see what this ‘trial’ really is.”

Vespera offered a faint smile, though her dark eyes held no amusement.

“You’ll be alone among believers who cling to their illusion.”

“I’ve been alone for a long time,” Charles said. “And I don’t believe in their Light.”

---

One month later

The night sky was cloaked in heavy clouds. No stars. No moon. Only the faint glow of hundreds of torches flickering in the hands of Eastreach villagers.

Charles stood among them, wrapped in a coarse fur cloak. His hood covered most of his face. He had spent the last two weeks living among the people, assuming the role of a quiet man from the far end of the village—blending in with the hollow smiles and forced tranquility.

Now he was part of their procession.

Men, women, and young girls walked in solemn silence behind the priests of the church. Their white robes shimmered faintly in the torchlight, and from their lips came a hymn in an ancient tongue Charles couldn’t decipher.

Near the back, he saw her.

The same woman from a month ago. Her face was even more gaunt now, her eyes red from sleepless nights. She held the baby boy in her arms—wrapped in pure white cloth, far too quiet… far too still.

Charles clenched his fists.

The night air carried a strange blend of scents—incense, damp soil, and something else... something metallic, like blood mingled with wilted flowers.

“Vespera,” he whispered in his mind, though he knew the demoness was watching from somewhere in the dark.

The procession marched on.

Ahead, past a bend in the forest path, stood a building. Stone walls, a rounded roof. Sacred-looking, yet grim.

And beyond it… a towering tree.

Its leaves were black in the dark, its limbs twisted like the fingers of a giant corpse. A shadow loomed beneath it—ominous, waiting.

But Charles did not yet know the truth behind that tree.

Not yet.

And the night was far from over.

---