Dawn in Xaweth was quieter than a prayer. The city slept under a pale shroud of mist, its spires reaching like skeletal fingers toward a sky the colour of ash. 

Inside the Cathedral of Saint Lirien, Gabriel knelt before the altar, head bowed, lips moving soundlessly. The marble beneath him was cold enough to sting through his trousers, but he didn’t shift. He’d stopped expecting to find warmth in God’s house a long time ago. 

“Forgive me,” he whispered to no one in particular. 

He clasped his hands together and recited what he remembered of prayer, the way a dying man might repeat a song he no longer believes in, only for the comfort of its rhythm. 

The stained glass window above him was cracked. Once, it had shown a radiant angel casting light over a kneeling mortal. But now, a sharp fracture ran through its face, distorting the image so that the light fell warped on Gabriel’s shoulders.

He stared up at it for a long time. 

He remembered the sermons from his youth. Rows of children knelt on the stone floors, their heads bowed while Father Issareth’s voice rolled like thunder through the chamber: 

“Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no one regarded it; because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.”

He remembered the smell: incense and sweat—a sanctified rot. He remembered the sound of weeping echoes beyond the chapel walls, muffled beneath hymns. He remembered being told that the executions were necessary. That the screams were the sounds of souls being saved. 

At thirteen, Gabriel had believed it. 

At fifteen, he began to question. 

At sixteen, he ran. 

By the time the bells tolled for morning mass, Gabriel was already gone, his coat pulled close, his boots echoing against the cobblestone paths.

He met Eli Maelmi in the ruins of an old library, its shelves stripped bare, dust curling like ghosts in the thin morning light.

Eli was older, although his exact age was difficult to determine, perhaps in his mid-forties. An old, rugged scar ran from his temple down the right side of his face, and his dark brown eyes held the weight of too much witnessed, offering neither pity nor remorse.

“Where were you? Off trying to find your God again?” he asked dryly.

Gabriel ignored him, brushing past to examine a map spread across the table between them. “You said you had something.”

“I always have something,” Eli replied, moving closer. “The church’s little projects are becoming harder to hide. They’ve recommenced their experiments. Children, again.”

Gabriel’s jaw tensed. “Where?”

“Here, in Xaweth. But the assignment isn’t here.” Eli tapped a gloved finger on the map, just south of the city’s borders. “Seviel. There’s a merchant funnelling funds to the Arch Cleric. He frequents the pleasure house there. Praecia Veil. You’ll find him easily enough.”

Gabriel said nothing.

Eli’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll do it quietly. No witnesses. And if you happen to discover who else the church keeps in their pocket…” He shrugged. “You know what to do.”

༻𐫱༺

Gabriel walked the narrow streets like a ghost, the shadows draping over him as he moved through the noise until he reached the Praecia Veil. Laughter, too thick and sweet, spilled through the open doorway. 

Gabriel slipped through the press of bodies, the din of laughter and clinking glasses fading as he found a shadowed booth in the corner. Two courtesans approached, their voices soft, their faces painted, their movements marked by the faint rustle of silk. They giggled as they leaned in, offering to pour his drink. He didn’t refuse, though his gaze slid past them with cold disinterest. Their hands found his thigh, perfume cloying in the candlelight, words dissolving into meaningless murmurs.

Gabriel lit a cigarette and exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke.

And there, in the centre of it all, he saw him.

The merchant Gabriel was sent to kill sat on a red velvet couch, his cheeks flushed, his mouth glossy from drink. But Gabriel’s eyes only lingered for a moment before they were pulled elsewhere.

They caught instead on the figure beside him: black hair, pale skin like moonlight through smoke, lips painted with restraint and sin in equal measure.

The male courtesan leaned close to the merchant, whispering something that made the man laugh too loudly. Gabriel watched the exchange in silence, his jaw tightening imperceptibly.

The merchant’s hand moved slowly, sliding a ring onto the boy’s slender finger. He couldn’t hear what was being said over the din of laughter and clinking glasses, but words weren’t needed. The exchange itself was intimate and almost ritualistic. Still, even from a distance, Gabriel could tell who held the power. The boy smiled gently, head tilted in a picture of obedience. Yet, every motion carried the precision of a trap being set.

He was toying with the man.

Gabriel had seen liars, manipulators, and false charmers in every corner of his world, but never someone like this. There was a poise to the boy. Graceful, yes, but dangerous in its softness. The others here were easy to read, but the boy burned differently.

There was something alive in him. Something that refused to be tamed by silk sheets or hushed promises. His smile served as a deadly weapon, and when he leaned in toward the merchant, brushing the man’s hand so effortlessly, Gabriel saw the spark flicker in his eyes. It was defiance disguised as allure.

He shouldn’t have been looking at him. He never came to places like this since he had no patience for indulgence or performance. And yet he found himself watching longer than he should have, drawn to that quiet, calculated rebellion.

Gabriel shifted in his seat, the tension in his lower body betraying his discipline.

He gently brushed the courtesans’ hands from his thighs and rose to his feet. The air still clung to him. Perfume, smoke, and something else he couldn’t name. He straightened his coat, adjusting the folds as though the ritual could smooth out the sensation beneath his skin.

His composure returned piece by piece, settling over him like cold iron. Yet beneath the surface, something stirred. A pulse, a hunger he hadn’t felt in years. The boy’s face remained in his mind: green eyes catching the light, mouth curved in quiet defiance.

Gabriel exhaled slowly, the sound barely audible over the murmur of the room.

He should have looked away sooner.

This boy, he thought, would be trouble.

༻𐫱༺

Night had silenced the city. Gabriel found Eli waiting in the alley where the fog hugged the bricks like a shawl. Eli’s silhouette was all elbows and gilt, a grin that never quite reached his eyes.

“Nothing to report,” Gabriel said. “The merchant was at the pleasure house. He was occupied. Predictable in motion, predictable in habit.”

Eli’s eyebrow lifted. “And yet he’s still breathing.”

Gabriel’s voice remained even. “How exactly do you expect me to ‘report’ when he’s wrapped around another person like a blanket?”

Get involved," Eli said with a hint of amusement in his tone. "Share a bed if you must. Make whatever theatre you need. Just make sure you get the information. You have three nights. Make it count."

Gabriel’s mouth hardened. “You make it sound so simple. I need time to—”

“Time is a luxury,” Eli interrupted. “One we don’t have.”

His smile sharpened into something thinner. “While you wasted your night sitting in the corner, something else came up. A courtesan. Young, clever, and dangerous if whispered to the right ears. My sources say he knows things worth listening to. Find what he’s hiding. And when you’re done… dispose of him too.”

The command wasn’t offered—it landed, cold and absolute. Gabriel felt the muscles along his jaw tighten, not with fury, but with the precise twist of a man measuring risk.

“I’ll handle it.”

“See that you do,” Eli replied, stepping forward. “Debts are paid in blood. Make sure it isn’t yours.”

Gabriel watched Eli disappear into the mist, the echo of his footsteps swallowed by the alley. In that moment, he felt the creeping shadows of doubt and purpose intertwining, obscuring the clear lines between duty and morality.

He had a mission.
He had a target.
And a face he could not afford to remember.

༻𐫱༺

Eros & The Serpent: Inspired by Eros, the Greek god of desire, and the Serpent of Eden. Eros embodies divine longing, a creative and instinctive force that blurs the boundaries between the sacred and the sensual. The Serpent, conversely, symbolises forbidden knowledge: temptation that leads not merely to sin, but to awakening (Genesis 3:1-7)

"Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no one regarded it; because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh." (Proverbs 1:24-26)