Northbound Pilgrimage II

Chapter CXXXIX - Darkness Rises

Author's Note:

We're at the last two chapters before the final plotline and I'm so excited to share it all :) For these two chapters, we'll be taking another character's perspective again and I hope it will be an interesting one ;)

Again I wanna thank everyone who's still sticking around and reading. I'm so excited to share the rest of the book with you all and the following one as well. Almost there ;)

Enjoy the read <3

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He watched the darkness across the city illuminated only by the lanterns on the posts by the road.

His life had changed that day.

Ever since he heard that voice seeping into every fiber of his being, his whole existence was shaken to the core, stricken with a new purpose he could not have even imagined. The darkness called to him like it had been waiting for him all his life, looming, ready to envelop him in its embrace.

Gaius Maro, the Commander's son, was no more. He was something else now. Something more.

The Listener.

It scared him at first. Terrified him to the very core. But now, the memory just filled him with something else. A new sense of purpose. This was what he was here for. All the events that led to this just felt... cataclysmic.

He only came to say goodbye to his father that day. The father he had always strived to make proud, to follow in his footsteps. Now he knew that his path was going to be different. Filled with blood and death of those chosen as the Night Mother's victims. But that was alright. It took some time for him to wrap his mind around this, but he had accepted it. This was all for the greater good, for the greater purpose. This would all help restore something that had almost been lost. An order long forgotten. A balance long tipped to one side only.

He did not resent his father for leading him onto this path unwittingly. He was grateful to him. Grateful for the chance to prove his mettle in unexpected ways. And he would prove himself.

That day. He remembered it like it was yesterday, even though more than a month had passed since then. It started off so confusing, so chaotic before he could make sense of it.

He heard the voice when he interrupted his father's interrogation. The voice was whispering to him about darkness to come, about the role he was supposed to play in it. Cicero knew. He could tell instantly and Gaius was only more terrified by that realization. He opted to leave. He wanted to forget that anything like that had ever happened. He wanted to go on with his life. He wanted to forget it in sweet Faida's warm embrace. She may have been one of many on his travels, but her spunk and wit always enchanted him in a special way.

But that was the first night. It was the first time losing himself between her legs didn't erase the memories from his mind. Not like they managed to erase the memories of rough battles and of losing dear friends. Not like they managed to erase the memories of his mother's death, if even for a while. That night, all he could hear behind her lustful moans was that voice.

It was imprinted into his mind forever. He knew. Just then, he knew that he could never forget it.

And he didn't even want to.

He needed to know more. He needed to know why that voice spoke to him, what he had done to earn the attention of that... corpse.

He didn't leave the next morning. Instead, he waited for his father to lock himself in his office with all his investigation reports and he came back to the interrogation room.