The flickering oil lamp cast long, dancing shadows across the towering shelves, illuminating motes of ancient dust that swam in the still air. Bethan Roule traced the cold, wrought-iron bars of the archive cage with her gloved finger, the master key heavy in her other hand. The metallic tang of old parchment and dry ink hung thick, familiar and suffocating all at once. She clicked the lock, the sound sharp in the echoing silence. Behind her, the heavy oak door to the general Sanctorate library remained firmly shut, a silent guardian against intrusion. No one would expect her to be here, not after the long day, not after Marius’s chilling directive. Her boots made barely a sound on the stone floor as she moved deeper into the restricted section. The air grew colder here, a damp chill that seeped into her bones, ignoring the heavy wool of her inquisitor’s habit. She ignored it, her focus absolute. The 'Coven of the Silver Vein' was her assigned target, but the true hunt began now, within these walls. She navigated the labyrinthine aisles, her internal compass guiding her to the oldest, most tightly bound tomes. Her 'Taint-sense,' the inner hum that now felt less like a sickness and more like a suppressed current, thrummed low. It reacted to the sheer age of the records, to the whispers of forgotten truths held captive within the brittle pages. Bethan pulled a heavy, leather-bound ledger from a high shelf, the spine cracked and warped with centuries of neglect. Its title, hand-calligraphed in faded gold, read: 'Anomalous Manifestations & Unsubstantiated Heresies, Vol. VII.' She carried it to a scarred reading desk, the wood groaning beneath its weight. The lamp barely cut through the gloom around the desk. Bethan positioned the light, its weak glow reflecting off the tarnished brass of the binding. She began to turn the pages, each one stiff and reluctant, exhaling a puff of fine, grey dust. Her gaze swept across the cramped, spidery script, searching for any mention of 'silver,' 'vein,' or any unusual physical markers. For nearly an hour, she sifted through accounts of peasant superstitions, minor demonic possessions, and the occasional true Taint outbreak that ended with a familiar, gruesome precision. Nothing. The ache in her jaw tightened. Marius's words echoed in her mind: *'The Silver Vein. A new designation.'* He had lied. Or at least, withheld. Then, a marginal note. Small, almost missed in the shadow of a sprawling paragraph describing a particularly zealous exorcism. 'Subject displayed iridescent ocular glow, silver-white, during apprehension.' Her breath hitched. She leaned closer, her pulse quickening. The next entry, a few pages later, detailed a woman from the northern foothills. 'Witnesses reported unusual glinting in the subject's knuckles. Upon capture, subject's blood evinced faint silver flecks.' Bethan’s own knuckles, hidden beneath the thick leather of her glove, felt a sudden, familiar warmth. A silver glow, almost imperceptible. Just like her own. The descriptions continued, scattered through the volume. 'A child, barely six, found with strands of hair like spun moonlight, eyes like polished steel.' 'A man, accused of healing a fever with a touch, exhibited a distinct internal luminescence, like flowing mercury beneath the skin.' Each one resonated with the burgeoning power within Bethan, the sense of connection she had felt at the Ashwood well. The copper-ash taste in her mouth intensified, no longer sickening, but resonating. She found crude sketches accompanying some of the reports. A swirling, intricate symbol, drawn in charcoal or faded ink. It was unmistakable. The sigil from her vision, the one etched into the well's ancient stone, the one that had appeared on the obsidian door. It was depicted as a 'heretical mark' or an 'unholy glyph,' but it was undeniably the same. The sheer volume of these entries, spread across decades, centuries even, confirmed her horrifying suspicion. The Sanctorate had known. They had encountered this 'Silver Vein' phenomenon before. It wasn’t new. Marius’s 'new designation' was a lie, a carefully constructed deception. A cold dread mixed with a bitter vindication twisted in her gut. Bethan began to compare the outcomes. Standard Taint cases, even minor ones, usually ended with a clear pronouncement: branded, purified, executed. The ledger was filled with such terse, decisive entries. Yet, for the 'Silver Vein' subjects, the language shifted. It became evasive, vague. 'Subject X: apprehended, manifested power, subsequently vanished from holding cells.' 'Subject Y: secured by special detail of the Elder Inquisitors. Records sealed. Fate unknown.' 'The entire family of Subject Z was taken into custody by a contingent from the High Chapter. No further entry.' Not 'purified.' Not 'executed.' Not 'burned at the stake.' But 'vanished.' 'Records sealed.' 'Fate unknown.' The same patterns repeated, over and over again, for every single individual marked by the 'Silver Vein.' The absence of definitive records for these cases was deafening. The contrast was stark, chilling. Bethan ran her finger over the word 'vanished' in one entry, the ink dry and permanent, a lie etched in history. For twenty years, she had enforced the Order’s justice, presided over trials, witnessed the cleansing fire. She knew the process intimately. There were no 'vanished' witches. Not truly. Only those whose ends were too messy, too inconvenient, to be publicly displayed. Her jaw clenched, a knot of ice forming deep in her stomach. All her life, the Sanctorate’s narratives had been the absolute truth, the unyielding bedrock of her faith. Every parable, every pronouncement, every historical account of the Old Ways and the Taint – it was all gospel. Now, she held proof of a deliberate omission, a pattern of concealment that spanned centuries. She remembered her training, the stories of the First Inquisitor, the unwavering certainty preached by every Elder. Were those also fabrications? Were they carefully crafted fables designed to obscure a terrifying truth? The thought was a chisel striking the foundation of her entire existence. Her desperate need for unwavering certainty shattered under the weight of this revelation. The Order hadn't just misinterpreted the 'Taint' as a corruption; they had actively hidden the nature of this particular manifestation. They didn't eradicate it; they made it disappear. The 'Taint' she felt inside her wasn't just a part of her; it was a part of a history the Order had attempted to erase, a power they sought to control, not destroy. Bethan pushed the ledger aside, her hands trembling slightly despite her efforts to remain impassive. She needed more. This volume was old, but the accounts were still redacted, sanitized. She needed something closer to the source, something less… official. Her gaze swept across a lower shelf, filled with unbound folios and journals, clearly uncatalogued, perhaps deemed unimportant or too personal for formal archiving. These were the true forgotten corners, the places where minor inquisitors might have scrawled observations before the official narrative took hold. She pulled out a slim, leather-bound journal, its cover worn smooth from countless touches. It smelled faintly of pipe tobacco and something metallic, like old blood. The handwriting was loose, less formal than the ledger, prone to abbreviations and personal asides. It was the private record of an Inquisitor named Brother Silas, from nearly four hundred years ago. Bethan flipped through the brittle pages, her eyes scanning for the familiar keywords. Silas seemed preoccupied with local skirmishes, agricultural disputes, and the constant battle against common banditry. Then, buried within a rambling entry about an unusually harsh winter, she found it. A faded, marginal note, scrawled almost illegibly in the cramped space of the page's edge. It was barely visible, a whisper of a thought against the thick parchment. She held the journal closer to the lamp, squinting, tracing the loops of the ancient script with a trembling finger. '…the High Chapter issued a decree regarding the uncontainable. Special cases, it seems, are not always to be judged by the pyre. There are rumors of a facility, deep within the Forlorn Peaks, a place for those whose power defies conventional eradication…' The words blurred, then sharpened, coalescing into a terrifying clarity. A secret facility. Deep within the Forlorn Peaks. For 'special cases' of magic.

Shadows of the Past