I watched as entire fields were bathed in holy fire. Void and human alike, purged. Even their own fallen, the Lightborne, aren’t spared the flames. A necessity, I know, for we cannot risk the corruption. Yet I mourn for those only wounded, sentenced to die for having fought as I had asked of them.

--A report from Highlord Oswald to the War Council, 2nd of Whitemoon, 454

ARC 4 - RADIANT

CHAPTER 6 - BEHOLDER OF JUSTICE

Raegn stood, clad in nothing more than the loose brown robe that reached halfway down his shins. He had been made to wait often in the past two seasons, but this close to the end his patience wore thin. The fabric was cheap and irritated skin that he had just finished scrubbing clean. The arches of his feet ached from the abuse of the sixty day trial and the cold stone on which he stood sank into his bones.

Cenric was a few steps ahead, his back to a simple wooden door. The two had entered the bowels of the Citadel some time ago and snaked their way through narrow halls until Raegn could no longer gather his bearings. They’d arrived here, the end to a hallway exactly like all the others, a few minutes ago. And here they’d waited.

Two measured raps from the other side of the door echoed off the stone.

“Are you ready?” Cenric asked.

Raegn still wasn’t sure what to expect on the other side of the door. The final trial, whatever that meant. He buried the urge to shrug.

“What will I have to do?”

“When the time comes, all that will be required is that you open yourself to the Light, just as you always have,” Cenric said. “The Light itself will judge you. Until that moment, your sponsor will guide you. Follow her directions.”

“And who is my sponsor?” Raegn questioned. He’d shifted his weight to the other foot, which probably made him look a touch nervous, but it was mainly to get the robe to slide off his shoulder some. The damned thing was so itchy!

“You will meet her momentarily,” Cenric replied. Then, after some small thought, added, “If you wish, when the time comes, you may bow your head and let her initiate the trial. A sign of respect and humility for choosing you.”

This time, Raegn couldn’t mask a scowl. “You said no one chose me.”.

The large Justicar pursed his lips and exhaled. “I suppose she didn’t.”

Cenric gripped the simple brass handle and pressed himself against the door. It creaked open beneath his weight and revealed a room much larger than Raegn would’ve imagined possible beneath the Citadel. It was circular, nearly three full stories tall and wide enough that twenty or so people could stand shoulder to shoulder across. The floor was immaculately clean and made of tiny white tiles, all placed with unmatched precision.

Raegn recognized a few sigils, symbols of the Archangels, etched into the wall of the first level, but the rest was a dizzying script of the Divine language that encircled the room. Above, beautiful white brick was laid and polished to form a balcony that spanned nearly the entire second level, the only gap immediately inside the doorway where two curved staircases hugged the wall and offered access. The room was sparsely lined with people, both on the ground level and above. Some leaned on the balcony wall as if to catch a better look, but most stood in a rigid posture, only their heads moving to watch the two enter.

The focal point of the room, Raegn surmised, was the circular font in the middle that took up around a third of the ground level. There were a few smooth steps that gave way from the floor down into the clear water and, standing at its center, a girl that sent Raegn’s heart racing the moment he glimpsed her.

The Angel? Is this what she had meant by finding him? He peered across the room at her to get a better look and his spirits sank like a leaky ship. She certainly looked like one of the Divine’s chosen, quite beautiful and built of muscle that gave her slight curves through her hips and shoulders, though she lacked the agelessness he’d seen in the two angels he’d met. This girl was only another Elysian, a fact made clear by the long blonde hair pulled back behind her shoulders and her bright blue eyes.

The pool was crystal clear and Raegn could easily see she was naked beneath the waterline that sat just below her breasts. Her eyes were fixed on him and he did his best to shift his thoughts, though her face held a certain familiarity to it that made it hard to avoid. With no small effort, he refocused on Cenric in an effort to prevent himself from staring and followed the High Justicar further into the room.

His mentor stopped halfway between the doorway they’d entered and the stairs that led into the font, then gestured slightly for Raegn to approach his side. Raegn complied, but allowed his eyes to subtlety scan the room. They were all Justicar, he reasoned. Several he recognized from his time training with for the Trial, namely his sparring partners, Margew and Tylen. Others he remembered from their brief appearances in the Trial itself.

Side-by-side with Cenric in the middle of the room, Raegn had little choice but to let his gaze fall back on the girl, his sponsor he assumed, and wait for whatever instruction she was supposed to give. Her eyes were fierce and gave the impression that she was mad at him - or at least agitated. He could hardly blame her. She hadn’t chosen him. And she most certainly wouldn’t want to be in the pool, exposed before her peers.

“This is a place of purity,” she said, her voice filling the room despite being spoken normally. “Enter this sacred water as you were when the Archangels created you in their own image.”

Raegn processed the words, hesitating briefly before pulling at the robe and letting it slide free of his shoulders. Cenric deftly reached over and took hold of the coarse fabric to prevent it from becoming a pile on the floor. The High Justicar folded the garment crisply, then stepped away to join those that encircled the room.

Raegn stood alone, he and the girl equally bare for all to see. There were slight murmurs from those that watched, whispers inaudible to those more than a step away. Raegn felt the heat rise in his cheeks as he imagined the comments and hushed tones that highlighted his scars. Did they expect him to be riddled with Void? Corrupted like his father? Or did they think of him as his people did - a bloodthirsty warrior, too rash and arrogant to be trusted?

Raegn pushed the speculation from his mind and renewed his focus on the girl before him, resigning himself to her harsh gaze. As he took a step forward, she began to speak, the rest of those in attendance joining her in unison:

I give myself unto the Light

An unyielding beacon in the sea of night

Let the Heavens alone carry my stride

For from me no evil shall hide

I am the dawn for the innocent, the dusk for the damned

I give myself to protect this land

Raegn continued forward as the spectators recited the words from the first page of the Code he had studied - and memorized - during his trial. This was the Oath of the Justicar.

The first step into the font revealed that the water was cool, though not cold. Still, he suppressed a shiver as he descended and the waterline crossed above his waist. A fear of sending ripples through the pool and splashing water up onto the pristine floor above bid him walk gracefully, gliding through the small font. He stopped no more than an arm's length from his sponsor, just as she and the others finished the oath.

This close he could see every detail of her body. She was in good shape, the faint curves on her arms and stomach revealing muscle lingering just beneath her ivory skin. Raegn was most of a head taller, but he dared not let his eyes wander; hers had not left his since he had entered the room. They still projected the same fervor that he had gleaned from afar, only now he could see it in the angle of her brow and tightened lips as well.

“You will now be judged,” she stated. “If you are worthy, you will be welcomed among our ranks.”

And if I’m not?

Raegn kept the thought to himself. Nothing about this gave the feeling that he was to speak. Instead, he looked deeper into those fierce blue eyes and found pride. He knew that pride - devout and unyielding. She would accept him as her candidate, reluctantly, but it was acceptance all the same despite whatever anger she had for it. It was the same bitter acceptance that Raegn had felt every time Ulrich chastised him.

He put one foot back and knelt slightly, bowing his head below hers while keeping his eyes cast downward so he could see nothing but her lower legs to avoid any poor appearances. A hesitant hand placed itself atop his head, letting his hair rest between its fingers. The touch was stiff at first, then relaxed and Raegn heard a soft sigh.

“I pray for your success, Raegn,” his sponsor whispered. “Be true to yourself.”

There was a gentle press against his head and Raegn allowed his knees to bend as he was guided beneath the surface. The immediacy of the silence was overwhelming. There were no faint sounds of sloshing water or distorted voices like the times he went swimming in the lakes in the East. Even the noises of his own body were absent. Nothing from the bit of escaped breath. No dull heartbeat.

Raegn pushed the oddity to the outskirts of his mind and opened himself to the aether. He found it, the warmth amidst the vast emptiness, but before he could willingly pull it from nothingness, the Light came to him. He felt it fill him, then press harder against the very limits of his soul. The feeling was so strong he couldn’t tell if it was pulling him against the bottom of the font or forcing him down from above. Either way, were he not already kneeling his legs surely would’ve have buckled.

And then the Light spoke.

The one they call Raegn, It said. You are familiar with this feeling. You do not wince or willingly prostrate yourself before the Divine.

It wasn’t a voice, not truly, yet Raegn understood. It was as if his own soul was speaking to him despite the words not being his own. There was heat, too, and he feared resisting for he recognized the feeling of helplessness before an almighty power. It had been Camael over a year ago, but this was not him - this voice was different. It was more pure and absent the fiery crackle that Camael’s words had.

The Code taught that the Justicar had been a creation of human design at first, an organization within the Order built for a singular purpose. That purpose had been altered, though, and become a sacred charge after the appearance and blessing of a certain Divine. The Code spoke of that Divine, the creator of the first true Justicar, and Raegn realized the adjudicator of his final trial.

He was before Justice itself.

“I have met your kind before, Raguel,” he answered, more a thought than actual speaking as he was still underwater.

I can feel the resentment you harbor for my brother. A fair feeling. Justified. You have strayed far from your home. What is it you seek?

Seek? Was it not obvious he wished to become a Justicar? Raegn took a moment’s pause to steady his mind. Camael had been quick to issue a decree and he had no reason to believe another of the Divine would be any different. He would not give the Aspect of Justice reason to label him unworthy.

“A purpose,” he replied, considering that his desire was born of something larger. “I lost my home, but I still wish to fight.”

Raegn found himself pulled outside his own body. In front of and below whatever ethereal form he had become he was able to see himself kneeling in a shallow pit, surrounded by blackness. The sky above swirled with clouds that broke apart to reveal a blurry version of the world. Through the haze he saw himself battling the Void in the valley of Bastion. He was bore witness to the blast that nearly killed him and the Voidborne he’d overwhelmed. Though now he could see so many of Bastion’s warriors dying around him as the chaos raged.

For what is it, that you would fight? The Archangel’s booming voice sounded from the sky.

Raegn thought of his life after Bastion’s fall and the memories appeared in the sky above his lifeless form below. He watched himself tumble down the mountainside, fleeing in a futile attempt to save Raelle. There were flashes of the moments when he had fought to rescue Joyce. He was able to relive his days spent with Kai and his nights spent with Tera. His heart stirred at Kai’s words of devotion for Nalani’s heart and at the memory of Tera’s warm embrace.

“I would fight to protect the ones I love,” he answered.

The memories vanished as quickly as they’d come.

You tried to tell my brother the same. He did not believe you. Why should I?

Lightning burst across the sky and the blank canvas was replaced with one of Aerich on the mountainside. Raegn was made to watch as he drove his own sword into his father’s chest. Another flash and Ulrich was buried beneath falling stone, still blowing mightily into the Defender’s horn.

If this form had teeth to grind, Raegn would have worn them smooth. The Archangel was controlling what he saw and this is what was chosen to show him? He felt anger well up inside him, then threw it aside with the foolish thought of fury. It had born him no benefit last time he’d spoken with the Divine. He’d accepted his mistakes. True failure was not learning from them.

“I may have had a desire for glory and a hatred of the Void, but neither were misplaced!” he declared. “I know now that true glory comes from selfless intent. I would fight to protect the Realm. If history chooses to remember me favorably, then so be it.”

You believe this to be your purpose?

“My people are born to fight!”

Bastion’s valley reappeared, its warriors standing in proud formations. Shields were raised and from above they looked like segments of scales, guarding the soft flesh of the world from the fangs and claws of the Void.

Are all humans not?

Raegn nearly scoffed. “Maybe once,” he said, “but the world has grown complacent with the protection my people offer. Few know to truly fear the darkness.”

Visions of the Void swarming through villages filled the sky. Fields normally filled with crops or green grasses were tainted by its touch. Armies were overwhelmed and massacred. Mangled corpses littered battlefields and villages alike. Entire cities turned to ruin, the people starved. The Realm, gone.

Raegn recoiled in horror. These visions weren’t like the rest - they weren’t his memories. He’d seen the havoc the Void could sow, but not like this. Nothing on this scale. These visions seemed older, or perhaps something yet to come. Perhaps…both?

The meaning to life you seek is not yours alone, Raguel told him. You are our creation. We bestowed the same purpose upon you all.

“If all you wanted was for us to fight, you could’ve made us mindless like the Void.”

We could have. We did not.

“Why?”

The Archangel laughed, a sound like a thousand hammers striking steel.

Few have tolerated the trial so long. Fewer have asked of me for anything but the power to right the injustices of the world. I accept you, Raegn Edelgard. Rise. Be my hand in your world.

Lightning cracked through the sky once more and split the darkness. From its wake an Archangel stood, raising his sword above his head before ramming it into the ground on the side of the mountain. The shrouded memory gave way to the strike and a massive downpour of golden water appeared from the clouds.

It washed over the version of Raegn in the empty pit with such force that it should have worn away stone, but his body gave no reaction. Within moments the hole was filled and his other self was buried beneath its depth, the surface settling into a still disc of gold. Raegn watched from above, waiting for himself to surface, but the water remained like glass. There weren’t even any bubbles. Did he not need to breath?

It was at that moment that the out-of-body experience vanished and reality came rushing back. His body felt like fire, his muscles deprived of air and screaming. Raegn swung his feet under him and surged upward, launching himself into a standing position and taking a huge breath from beneath the water draining off him. Shoulders heaving, he watched the font slowly fade from a pure white back to its original state.

The girl gave him a small smile. “May the Light guide you, Justicar,” she said.

The others repeated the phrase and the chorus echoed through the room like a clap of thunder.

“May the Light guide you, Justicar!”