Chapter 4: A Sermon of Lies

Chapter 4: A Sermon of Lies

The silver chalice was a dead weight in Kenneth’s hands. It was cold, unnaturally so, as if leeching the warmth from his very blood. He could feel the slight, viscous drag of the liquid within, a concoction of heresy and unknown poison. His own hands had picked the roses. His own knowledge had guided the distillation. But the thing in this cup was his sister’s creation, a sacrament for a god she had just declared dead.

Outside, the battering ram struck again. CRACK-BOOM. The doorframe splintered, showering the floor with wooden shards. The mob’s raw, collective voice poured through the widening gap, a single entity hungry for miracles.

Kenneth looked at Samantha. Her face, smudged with soot and illuminated by the fire under the still, was a mask of terrifying resolve. There was no escape in her eyes, only a command. Play the part.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a trapped bird trying to flee a cage of bone. For a moment, he thought of the cellar, of the dark, damp earth where he could hide. But he saw the image of his mother’s face in his mind—not the beatific sufferer his father had described, but the broken woman from Samantha’s memory, whispering ‘Make it stop.’ Something cold and hard settled in his gut. His father had made them swallow a lifetime of poison. What was one more cup?

With a deep, shuddering breath that tasted of blood and bitter roses, Kenneth set the chalice down on the workbench. He walked to the door. His hands, which had trembled holding the cup, were strangely steady as he reached for the heavy iron latch. He was no longer the devout heir. He wasn’t the terrified boy. He was something new, something hollowed out and filled with a terrible, desperate clarity.

He lifted the bar and pulled the door inward.

The world rushed in. A blast of cold night air, thick with the smell of pine torches, sweat, and the cloying odor of sickness. The noise was a physical blow—a chaotic symphony of shouts, moans, and fearful whispers that coalesced into a single, expectant silence as he appeared.

He stood on the threshold, a lone figure framed by the dark, bloody secrets of his home. Before him was a sea of faces, dozens of them, villagers he had known his entire life. But in the flickering, distorting torchlight, they were strangers. Their eyes were wide, pupils dilated with a mixture of fear and manic fervor. Their faces were pale, gaunt canvases for a faith that was eating them alive. He could see Elara, the sick child, held in her mother’s arms, her skin unnaturally pale and marked with dark, vein-like patterns. The blighted rot.

A man pushed through the front ranks, planting himself before Kenneth. It was Silas. He was a gaunt, wiry man with a beard that seemed to bristle with righteous energy and eyes that burned with the pure, unhinged light of the zealot. He was Abel Thorne’s most fervent disciple.

“Kenneth Thorne,” Silas’s voice was a low growl, a challenge. “The door to the Truth was barred. Your father is silent in our hour of need. The child suffers. She requires a Shearing.” He pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at Elara. “Fulfill your father’s duty. Give us the Gospel.”

The crowd murmured its assent, a hungry, rumbling sound. They pressed forward, their collective desperation a suffocating wave.

This was the moment. The precipice. Kenneth felt a strange calm descend. He was not his father. He couldn’t replicate the booming, charismatic certainty. But he had a different truth now, a darker one. He lifted his head, letting his gaze sweep across the manic faces, just as he’d seen his father do a thousand times. But when he spoke, the words were not Abel’s. They were his own, dredged up from the horrifying revelation in the goatskin book.

“The Truth is not silent,” Kenneth began, his voice surprisingly strong, carrying over the crowd. It didn’t boom; it sliced. “It has been… speaking. It has been speaking in ways the old Gospel could not prepare you for.”

A confused hush fell over the villagers. This was not the sermon they knew.

“You ask for a Shearing?” Kenneth continued, a wild, almost manic energy beginning to course through him. He was channeling something, but it wasn't divine. It was the raw terror of his new reality. “You ask to be cleansed by the thorn? The Devouring Truth finds your request… insufficient.”

Silas’s eyes narrowed. “In-sufficient?”

“The blighted rot is a sign!” Kenneth declared, his voice rising, cracking with a feigned ecstasy he did not feel. “The sickness is not a blight to be cut away! It is a calling! The Truth no longer wishes to sip from a single wound. It is thirsty! It demands a tribute not of blood, but of the soul! Not of the flesh, but of the mind!”

He was spewing madness, twisting the secret horror of his family’s curse into a new doctrine. Sanity shall be given as tribute. He was making it their doctrine, too.

The crowd stirred, a mixture of awe and confusion on their faces. They were used to fire and brimstone, but this was a new, unsettling scripture.

Silas, however, was not swayed. His faith was built on the bedrock of the old traditions, on the physical reality of the knife and the blood. “Words,” he spat, his suspicion hardening his face. “These are just words. The old Prophet gave us signs. Rituals. If the Gospel has changed, prove it. If there is a new sacrament, show us!” He stabbed a finger towards the dark interior of the shack. “The sacred rosewater! Let the new Prophet be the first to partake of this new truth! Drink from the holy chalice, Kenneth Thorne! Show us it is a blessing and not a curse!”

The demand hung in the air, a death sentence. The crowd stared at him, their eyes hungry for proof. He was trapped. Refusal meant he was a heretic. Acceptance meant drinking his sister’s poison. His throat went dry. He could feel sweat trickling down his spine. He had no move left to make.

Just as the silence stretched to a breaking point, a figure emerged from the darkness behind him.

It was Samantha.

She moved with an ethereal grace, stepping into the torchlight as if gliding onto a stage. Her face was serene, her expression one of beatific calm that was a thousand times more terrifying than her earlier fury. In her hands, she held the silver chalice.

She glided past Kenneth, taking the final step over the threshold to stand before Silas. She didn’t even glance at her brother. Her focus was entirely on the fanatic.

“The Prophet is the vessel,” Samantha said, her voice clear and carrying, yet soft as a prayer. It silenced the muttering crowd instantly. “He speaks the Truth that is given to him.”

She raised the chalice, the tainted liquid swirling with an oily sheen in the torchlight. The sweet, cloying scent of roses, laced with that bitter, earthy undertone, drifted into the night air.

“But the sacrament,” she continued, her eyes locking with Silas’s, “is a gift. And gifts are for the flock. Especially for the most devout.”

With a slow, deliberate movement, she extended the chalice, offering it not to Kenneth, but to Silas. A chilling, serene smile touched her lips.

“The Truth has found you worthy, Silas. It wishes to speak to you first. Drink, and receive its blessing.”