My second-in-command recommended keeping a journal to better organise my thoughts, so I thought I'd give it a go. I never used to be able to write as a kid, but the church taught me well. It taught me many things, actually, but of them all I think that writing was the best. The most useful, surely; there can be no priest of an organised faith who cannot read and write, for the breadth of religious law they would be required to know by memory would surely mean that all bar only the smallest number of people would be able to spread the words of the faith.

  I learned to read, as my classmates did, in the Cathedral of Saint Mikah. Not only there, you understand, for our lessons were scattered in classrooms all across Aegos, but it was there that the bulk of the hard work was done. My favourite of all the places we used to stay was the Church of Lycaon, for tales of King Harald II of house Whiteshield were legendary even to little boys such as myself at the farthest fringes of his old kingdom's influence.

  Saint Mikah's Cathedral overshadows it by an order of magnitude, however. It is a truly gargantuan building, imposing and towering in equal measure. It is a testament to how deeply rooted the Church of the First Saint is in Aegos, for even if the city of Tilda is the political heart of the church it is Aegos that remains it's spiritual heart. It is Aegos that holds the words of the church at the highest regard, even when it shouldn't. It is Aegos that decided to celebrate their piety by building such a monument to the Saints. To the First Saint.

  It was cursed from the start. The site that had been selected for its building had once housed a great temple to the pagan gods that once held sway over Dathan, a temple that had stood long before even the Kliran people sought refuge in Aegos after being forced from their homelands. After that temple fell it was replaced by another, this time worshipping the seven black-feathered gods of the Kliran and Skraeling peoples which they called their 'Corvid Gods', before that too was burned to ash by dragonfire sometime after the Age of Silence.

  It was there that the Cathedral of Saint Mikah was built. On the bones of dozens of other temples, other faiths, that had came before it. The lands had been cursed by foul magics from the armies of the Silence, torched time and time again by rioting mobs and invading armies, and was even scorched by dragonfire, but it was still there that the temple was built.

  Saints, what fools they must all have been.

  I can't say I don't understand why they chose that spot, however foolish I may think their decision to be. The cathedral was supposed to be a symbol of hope, you understand. It was never meant to be what it is now. It was supposed to stand where the false gods had failed, to showcase the resilience of the faith to all when compared to the old pagan religions that had come before it.

  They didn't think that thousands would die in its construction. They didn't think it'd drive the young republic to the brink of bankruptcy and lead to the chaos of the Third Aegan Civil War. It feels strange to write that now, knowing that we've just ended the forth such war, but then I suppose these habits never really go away; civil war is just a way of life in this city. It had happened to most of the temples that stood before it, though I never was really able to look into the faiths they preached as much as I would have liked.

  The Church of the First Saint thought that their temple here would be different. They were certain that it would stand forever, and be a beacon of piety and progress to light the way for those who had not yet given themselves fully to the faith.

  They genuinely believed that all the issues that the old religions had faced when building their gargantuan temples would pass them by, that they wouldn't be subjected to those same happenings.

  No one thinks the misfortunes they read about will happen to them. No one thinks that they're at risk of falling to the same maladies as those less fortunate that they have heard about.

  Nobody ever thinks it's going to happen to them. But it does, and it did. Oh, how it did.

  See, a wonder so grandiose was always going to need more men, more money, and more resources to build. In the days of the old Aegan Empire the city of Aegos might have had enough of each of those things, as well as the authoritarianism required to finish the construction with some measure of speed at the cost of expedited human suffering, but the republic? A republic that had only stood for one or two centuries and had already become famed for its corruption, a republic that had already lost all of its Klironomean territories and more than half of its Dathanian lands and tributary-cities, a republic still left scarred by the Age of Silence and the leaving of the Klironomoi?

  They were never going to be able to build such a grand design without a myriad of issues. It just wouldn't ever have been possible.

  The endless delays and failures must have dampened their spirits somewhat, but then what did we expect? What did our forefathers think would happen? To build the largest, the grandest, the greatest house of worship in all Saintdom, they needed blood. Oh, how they needed blood.

  Every carved grey stone from the Drakespine, every block of marble from Kortheros, every statue hewn from basalt in the Wasteland Hills of Drakefyre and bronze-lined leaden window from far Sothettar; all of it needed labour, needed bodies, needed cruelty to extract and build. How many lives were cut short to build the greatest monument Saintdom had ever seen?

  The work was dangerous, even for the time. Such huge blocks of stone were hardly safe to transport over such distances, and the worst of the work tended to happen on-site; though cranes had been built to assist with the construction and lift the blocks up to the higher level of the cathedral site there were no Klironomean engineers hired to assist with their creation, and as such many of them buckled under the weight of the leviathan blocks of stone each twice as tall as a man and five times as long.

  Countless. Surely, the numbers were countless.

  Even putting such construction-related deaths to the side, the numbers would still have been staggering. How many men and women starved because money that could have been sent to importing food or assisting with the renewal of the lacklustre farming going on in the Aegan hills was instead earmarked for use to hire Aegan-born sculptors? How many children went without alms because the church instead donated vast sums of wealth to purchase the finest marble from abroad?

  Too many. Even one would have been too many.

  Every spire was one less village fed. Every antechamber was another city block left to fester and rot. Every single fucking residence in that place was a prince's ransom in silver, capable of tearing down the slums of Athio or Chytos and rebuilding them into something more worthwhile. I'm going to tear those slums in Athio down myself now that I'm going there, but it doesn't change the fact that it could of and should have happened centuries ago.

  Saint Mikah's Cathedral was built on blood and bones. I knew all of this, even as a child. I'd been taught my histories surrounding this place, truly I had.

  But none of those things made me hate that cathedral. It wasn't any of them.

  It was the fucking cells. Those fucking cells, I swear to you, I didn't-

  I didn't believe in the hells when I was a child. Not at first. But when they put me in those cells, I started believing.

  When they forced me into the oubliette, I realised that this world had been hell all along.

  The oubliette was the worst thing I've ever gone through. Nothing in my life has come close. It didn't matter what else they did to me in those cells, the things they put me through. That oubliette was the worst.

  It seemed almost laughably simple, at first. It was nothing more than a small hole in the ground covered by a grate, perhaps half a metre by half a metre, some five or six metres deep. That was it. The walls were sheer stone, without a single handhold to speak of. It wouldn't have mattered if there were, for you wouldn't have been able to move your arms around to grasp them.

  You couldn't move at all. You couldn't even sit, for there wasn't the room. You just had to stand there, still, in place, for days on end. You could feel your legs buckle and give way, but there was nowhere to rest them or even to collapse when your muscles failed. You were stuck like that, until someone did you the mercy of pulling you out or killing you.

  If you went in at the wrong angle you could easily miss the water drip that was your only source of sustenance for as long as you were in there, and there were hardly any voices to keep you company save only the odd chittering sounds from above where the rats were waiting for you to be weak enough to eat alive.

  I think that was the cruelty of it, in truth; your tormentors would not even give you the dignity of killing you themselves, of being the ones to cause you pain. They would simply leave you there, and let your own atrophying body take care of the rest.

  When I was hauled out I couldn't walk properly for days, and I was one of the lucky ones. Some people I knew couldn't walk for weeks afterwards, and needed dedicated care before they gave up the use of their cane afterwards. The oubliette was hell, in its purest and most distilled form. No flashy, gaudy punishments. No glamorous and creative method by which to make the sinners pay. Just an uncaring box with sheer walls built into the floor, silent save the chittering of rats and the dripping of water.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Still, as awful as the oubliette was, the cells weren't much better. The only real differences were that you could sit down and, if your punisher was so inclined, you might find yourself with one or two cellmates rather than wallowing in loneliness. It was preferable, if you got on with them that is. I know I did with the two I was always stuck with. Lovely people, at the time at least. I suppose the cells left their scars on them just the same as I. None of us were ever the same after that, but I thank the First Saint that I had them through it.

  Is that selfish of me? To be glad they went through such horrors along my side so I didn't have to suffer through them alone? Does that make me sinful?

  Sinful. Heh. Sin. Strange name for a Cardinal of the church, don't you think?

  But yes, those cells were the reason I hated that cathedral so much. They're the reason I can't stand to look at the place if I don't have a weapon to hand, as though a weapon might stop the memories and the cruelty that still takes place even now within my mind.

  It was dark down there, blindingly so. After a few days you start hearing things around you, and you're never certain whether what you're hearing is actually there or not. After a week or so you learn that screaming for help is futile, both because nobody is listening and your voice is too hoarse to continue. It's hardly like you have the water to keep your throat dry, after all.

  As for the rest of the cathedral, it's mostly silent these days. Always was, in truth. Most people were turned away by the intimidating nature of the structure, opting instead for more traditional places of worship. The pews are almost always empty, the lamps rarely lit, and the books within the library still pristine even now thanks to their lack of use.

  I think some of them are probably still brand-new and unopened, their bindings pristine and spines unmarred. A strange thought for a place that our forefathers thought would be the centre of the faith for centuries to come.

  I can complain endlessly about their stupidity, about their apparent lack of self-reflection, but then it's far easier to say that now with the benefit of hundreds of years of hindsight. It's far easier to get caught up in the fervour of those around you when you're being told it's the greatest thing you'll ever do by those who are supposed to see you to the heavens.

  I know I got caught up in it these last few years. I hate our ancestors for building that church, but I hate myself more for knowing full well that I'd have been one of those people who genuinely believed that it was the single greatest way to show our dedication to the First Saint, he who died after bringing us the dawn.

  I think about that, sometimes. About how his life's mission was a success, and he'd defied all the expectations and prophecies that he would martyr himself in battle to bring about the end of the silence. Of how he was killed soon after not by the daemons everyone had been so certain would kill him, but by jealous men and women who believed he was besmirching their gods.

  Was he scared? Had he only just reconciled with the fact that he would be able to continue his life and spread his gospel, would be able to feel love and joy and heartbreak? Was he at peace, given that by all accounts he'd been expected to die anyway?

  Would he have wanted thousands to perish in the building of a series of empty halls everyone was promised would preach his word? Would he have wanted them to die even if it did?

  I don't know. I can't claim to ever know the divine, for in my head lives Sin. It's why they named me, I think. Maybe this was my name all along, but I'm almost sure I had a different name when I was with the travelling actors. Whatever that name was, it's gone for good now. Everyone who might have known it is dead, and I cannot remember it. If Adikos knows, then he will not tell me. I do not believe I will ask again, not after last time.

  I despise that man. He is, in many ways, a human version of the Cathedral of Saint Mikah; he is overbearing and intimidating, thousands are tormented and have died at his hands, and most of all where piety should echo there are merely empty halls and untouched scriptures.

  The man is a monster, and the cathedral is silent.

  Oh, damn it all. Did they think they were being clever, building such a monument? Did they think it would make us, make mankind, better? Well it didn't. All it did was show us exactly how bad the worst of our people can be. All it did was show us that there was a reason the Angels are gone. How, when we make use of so evil a place, can we claim moral superiority? Even myself and my friends, who thought we were here to help usher in a new age of righteous charity and peace...

  Did we ever think that? I'm fairly certain I did, at least. Before I was wounded at Thermanthus at the end of the civil war that was.

  I can't believe you left me behind after Thermanthus. You two were the only people I had in the world, the only people that mattered to me at the time, and you left me after promising you'd always be there for me. Did you think you were being kind, leaving me there? Did you tell yourself it was the right thing to do as you both rode away from each other never to reconcile, leaving me behind in my unconscious and injured state?

  Why did you leave me? I refuse to believe it was my fault. Not this time. I spent so much of my life certain that it would be my actions, my voices, that drove you away from me, but it wasn't. In the end you two hated each other so much it overpowered your care for me. You cared more about spiting each other than you did upholding your promises to me. That's not my fault, not this time. I won't take the blame for what happened to me there. Not anymore.

  I'm done with being the guilty party here. I'm done with standing idly by. I've only just recovered from my wounds, and I'm now being told to go to Athio. Well, go I will. I'll go there, and I'll make sure you never want to set foot in that city. I'm going to make you terrified of me, to push you so far away that you'll never get a chance to get close enough to abandon me again. I'm not going to let you do that to me again.

  I fought and killed and bled to ensure our victory, but now I wished I'd fought to uphold the republic instead. That ship sailed a long time ago however, and now all that's left to do is to try and right some of the wrongs that have already begun to crop up in the wake of our victory.

  If the 'Archcardinal' wants to rule over a land of ashes and pyres, then that's fine. I'll let him turn every man, woman, and child in Aegos to ash. If my former friends want to follow down that path, then they can do the same in their own cities as well.

  But they will not have Athio. They will not have the city that has been given to me. I'm going to terrify everyone, to ensure that everyone is so afraid of me that there is no need for Adikos' new watchdogs to maintain a presence in the city. I'm going to ensure that there's never the need for an investigation into my conduct, and that everyone beyond the walls of this city chooses to not so much as breath my name for fear of what might be done to them with my appearance.

  Because you all left me behind here. You were all I ever had in this world, we were all that each other had, and you promised me that you'd always be there for me. You promised me that you'd wait for me. Well, you've taught me a valuable lesson here today; if I am to embark on this path, then it will be years before either of you are capable of earning enough trust from me to even hold a cordial conversation. It will take more than one act of good faith for any sort of rapport to be rebuilt between us. Before waking up here I would have given anything at just a word from one of you two, but that wasn't enough for either of you. It wasn't enough for me to give everything, for I had to despise that which you despised as well.

  And when the two of you grew to despise each other, how could that possibly be fair? To turn my own devotion towards the two of you against itself, leaving my mind and heart to consume themselves endlessly.

  Maybe you got your wish in the end. Both of you. Admeta, for you I give the knowledge that I hate Spyridon. Spyridon, for you I give the knowledge that I hate Admeta. I hope both of you are happy with this, because for all the damage Adikos did to us I do not believe even for a moment that it could possibly amount to the betrayal I felt from the two of you.

  I think this entry was supposed to be writing down my thoughts about the Cathedral of Saint Mikah at first. Guess I got off track, but then with all that's happened at the moment I think I can be forgiven a few moments of unfettered emotion.

  We never left each other behind before. We never used to sell each other out, or plot and scheme against each other, in the hopes of avoiding a punishment. We all cowered, yes, but we cowered together. We hid together, and when we were found we helped each other recover from our punishments. We were inseperable, the three of us, and despite how I'd seen that same devotion fall apart in others I never thought it would happen to the three of us.

  No one thinks it will happen to them. Not until they learn otherwise, one way or another.

  I hope that we're able to meet again as friends, one day. I hope that the two of you come to your senses and realise what you've done to me, what your abandonment meant. That you didn't intend for it to be abandonment matters not, not when it was hatred for each other that ensured that the two of you left me in my moment of greatest need. I hope so much that we can grow past this and connect as we once did with each other.

  Most of all, I hope you choke on your guilt. I hope you see me, bloodied and injured, behind you every time you use a mirror. I hope your dreams are haunted by the sounds of men and women dying on the battlefield, just as mine are, for it isn't fair that I should be left alone to deal with such torment when it was all of you who abandoned me, and not the other way around.

  I want you to come before me and grovel and beg for forgiveness. I want you to come here and wordlessly embrace me, to tell me everything's going to be alright. I want you to tell me that the love you both held for me overrode your jealousy and hatred of each other.

  I want all of that and so much more. My feelings towards the two of you are a self-contradictory mess, positives and negatives and neutrals flying about my skull with reckless abandon. The voice claims that I was never enough for either of you, but in this I know he is either lying or wrong. I remember the way you both looked at me, the way we all looked at each other, and I know that we were always enough for each other. The three of us could have done so much and healed so many scars, if only we'd stayed together.

  That's the strangest part, I think; I know that we were enough, and yet we fell apart anyway. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

  If nothing else, I know that I'm glad to have had both of you with me in the cells under Saint Mikah's Cathedral. I'm glad I had you there with me to soften the blows, and because it made a start on the penance you must be undergoing right now. I'm glad that I was there with you, to help make things easier for the both of you as well. I loved you both so much back then, and I still don't know where it went wrong.

  Actually, that's a lie. I don't know when it went wrong, but I know where it went wrong all to well.

  It all went wrong in a little cell beneath the greatest cathedral that man has ever built.

  It all went wrong in a cathedral that would have horrified Saint Mikah to the centre of his soul, if only he could have survived to see it.

  It all went wrong with three scared children, forced to grow up too fast in a dark cell beneath the Cathedral of Saint Mikah.

  -Cardinal Sin, First Cardinal of the Holy City of Athio, faithful servant of Archcardinal Adikos of the Saintliest City of Aegos.