An Angel Called Eternity

To Bet on Losing Dogs - Cardinal Spyridon II: Saint's Fall

Cardinal Spyridon II: Saint's Fall

The Thirteenth Day of the Eleventh Moon, 873 AD.
Aegan Road, Aegan Hills, Western Dathan.

He rode on through the night, tears born of a dozen emotions stinging his eyes though never falling. Tears born of hurt, of anger, of frustration, all were kept inside. He couldn't afford to slow himself with such petty things as his emotions, not right now. Sin was dead, and Spyridon was still in the dark when it came to just how much his friend had worked on these last few years.

A part of him thought it might be the same as those wonderful few months in which he'd been able to reconnect with his friend, but that thought only made him curl up his lip in distaste. Nothing would be the same, and it was stupid of him to think otherwise. It was a childish and immature part of him that had brought that thought to the surface of his mind, and the rest of him understood the consequences of what had happened perfectly well.

Spyridon hadn't ever been one for politics any more than he had to, what with all the deal-making and backstabbing, but he did know that there would be ramifications for what had occurred in the senate building and, in a more broad sense, what had occurred in Aegos as a whole since the Cardinals had met each other once more. Two of their number were dead, and he was now fleeing south-west. The only Cardinal left in the capital with Adikos was Admeta, and she both wanted Adikos dead and for the Most Devout Church to flourish for an eternity. She was dangerous. Spyridon would be surprised if Adikos survived the next few months, for if there was ever a time for Admeta to strike then it would surely be now.

Let them kill each other, Spyridon thought bitterly, it was the two of them who killed Sin, and they deserve to be sent to all those they've killed for what they've done.

There was a brief moment of self-hatred with the thought that he'd been involved in that same system for a few years as well, but he forced such thoughts away; he had his own set of instructions to follow now, with no room for distractions. He was to travel to Athio and meet the late Sin's batman, a man apparently called 'Hawk', and go from there. He didn't know if there were plans in place for this occurrence happening, nor if Hawk had already heard the bad news, but either way it was Sin's insistence that he go to Athio and so to Athio he would go.

The road itself was much the same as Spyridon remembered it being when he's bumped into Sin whilst travelling to Aegos originally, only of course he was now on horseback instead of in a carriage and was speeding away from the city alone instead of heading towards it with his entourage.

He did hope that the friends he'd left behind in his entourage would be safe in Aegos. He hoped they wouldn't be blamed for what he was going to do.

There was one other minor difference between now and his journey heading to Aegos of course; he was heading straight to Athio instead of taking a shortcut to the coast. Whatever differences the trip itself may have held, the road was still straight and true, and was well maintained to boot. He had little trouble making his way to Athio alone, though even just the sight of the walls gave him pause.

When he'd been here before, Athio was a relatively normal city with some minor hints of a tradition steeped in gothic architecture and art. Now it was an edifice of black majesty, all dark spires and dark-grey walls. Gargoyles perched over battlements, and even the cathedral that sat at the city's heart seemed... foreboding. Dangerous, even. There was an air of stillness about the city, one that seemed entirely out of place given just how many thousands of people lived here. If memory served correctly some sixty-thousand people must have lived in Athio, and the city hadn't been hit that badly by the civil war, so what was it that meant it was so empty? Was this the air of fear that Sin had masterfully cultivated about this place, still maintained as though he were here out of a genuine belief that he was a twisted creature of the night?