Ciril was sixty years old when his health failed him. After performing the funeral rites one evening - he had been forced to join due to the 9th wall falling making the clergy overly busy - he tripped over the step when leaving. It did not take long for him to be found and brought to a hospital where he found he had fractured his left ankle and wrist in a clumsy fall.

After that he was consigned to a bed to recover. Yet by the time his leg was healed two months later, everything else began to fail. Janus paid him several visits during those times, both during recovery and afterwards. He was there when Ciril first coughed out blood along the phlegm and was kind enough to drive his older fried to the hospital.

There he was diagnosed with lung cancer. A disease with few survivors and no cure, prognosis of one to five years. When he first heard the news Ciril could scarcely gather disappointment anymore.

“It seems the Three plan to meet me sooner rather than later,” he told Janus in the waiting room afterwards.

“You will get worse,” The cardinal was so very grim. “Require constant attention.”

“Perhaps,” Ciril nodded. The doctor had explained as much. “And yet I have spent my whole life within the walls of that church. It would dishonor it to die anywhere else.”

And so changes happened. Ciril would have been fine curling up and succumbing to the sin within the familiar walls of his chambers. Janus decided it would be quickly renovated with medical equipment, a nurse hired just to care for the elderly bishop.

Ciril never lost his rank, nor technically his leadership. And yet before he knew it the church was no longer run by him. Soon enough even major decisions passed without his knowledge and - frankly - care. For all he noticed his voice begin to rasp he lived as comfortably as someone sick could. Plentiful medicine and personal attention he had never noticed he had started to lack. He thought that perhaps his last few years would pass calmly, with no further upsets. It was not to be.

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“I have some unfortunate news,” Janus came to tell him one day. The cardinal was busy with his service to the Three thought tried to visit at least once a week. Usually

“Good to see you as well,” Ciril grumbled. “I have not seen you in half a month yet those are your first words.”

“Events at the Holy See have been particularly demanding: A new pontiff for the Philosopher-Unsatiable has risen to the triumvirate,” Janus explained. “They are rather… radical.”

“I have been too detached from such politics to know what that means,” Ciril said.

“They have rashly decided for many reforms against the recommendation of all advisors,” Janus continued. “And they have stripped many titles of their importance. Removed them from the list that the Church endorses along the scriptures themselves.”

“Including my book,” Ciril understood. His mark on the world.

“Yes,” Janus confirmed grimly. “I have tried to reason with them the best I could. But they are adamant that some text are simply ‘out of sync with the times’.”

“So it is just gone,” Ciril smiled bitterly.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“It's not like the book is banned,” Janus tried to soften to blow. “It is merely that it is no longer officially recommended. Many of my peers have been attempting for a reversion though it seems unlikely.”

“I see, thank you for telling me,” Ciril said. He did not talk again for the rest of the day.

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Less than a year later Ciril was visited by a stranger. One so insistent on meeting him the clergy that operated the church’s operation were unable to refute her. Not that Ciril would deny it. Every visitor was welcome, they were already plenty scarce.

“You are Ciril,” the young woman assessed - whereabout of twenty-five years of age. She wore a soldier’s uniform along her auburn hair, features so familiar Ciril felt a long-forgotten agonizing ache in his chest.

“That would be me,” Ciril nodded. “You have insisted so strongly to meet me. What may the matter be?”

“Perhaps I should have come a long time ago,” she shook her head. “I just never quite had the courage, father.”

“There is no shame in fear,” Ciril assured. “What is your name, child.”

“Cirila,” she grunted with a stare.

“What a coincidence,” Ciril mused.

“Not as such,” she spat with hostility the old priest had not realized. “Or have you perhaps gone blind in your age?”

“Blind to what?” Ciril questioned with surprise.

“You want me to say it, don’t you?” she looked away, a shiver passing through you. “I am not going to. It hurts too much to mutter, much less admit.”

“What are you talking about?” Ciril asked, confused, yet disturbed by the young woman’s apparent distress.

“Needless to say, I despise you Ciril,” she said, poison in those words. “I considered when coming here whether to end it. Perhaps with a pillow, smothering would be difficult to prove. Or perhaps with a bullet, just to be sure. But then I heard of your disease and thought that perhaps that is a crueler end than any I could offer.”

“Surely such hostility is unwarranted,” Ciril paused. “For all I have my flaws I have never wronged anyone as a man of cloth.”

“You say that with such conviction that I think you believe that,” she scoffed. “On behalf of my mother, I disagree.”

“I am not aware who your mother might be,” Ciril carefully replied. “But I assure if y

“Why, pray tell, would intentions matter?” she inclined her head, eyes still burning.

“Perhaps they do not matter to you,” Ciril denied. “But I can see your hate is true. If I had truly wronged your mother in such a way I am willing to make amends. Tell me the nature of what I had done and perhaps some of it

“I will never forgive you,”

“Forgiveness is not necessary for repentance,” Ciril smiled sadly as he spoke. “Faith does not guarantee reward, yet still we pray.”

“There is nothing you can do anyway,” Cirila shook her head then stood up. “Nothing I would want you to. I am probably going to regret ever meeting you anyway, I already am. But not going would have been worse.”

“Will you really not tell me at least who you are?” Ciril asked

“No, you are not worth that pain,” she shook her head again, then paused. “But perhaps this will. A piece of inheritance I never wanted nor understood.”

She took out a book from an inner pocket, then placed it on the table before leaving. It was a piece yellow with age, a few drops of blood had stained the soft cover and wetness had most likely eroded the contents that had not been preserved. It was an antique after all, made with a printing press before those had become obsolete and their ink smudged when not properly preserved. From the very first edition of that book that had laid claim to some fame.

Ciril stared at the title. So very familiar. And the name of the author below was his own. That would have been fine. That would not have cut. What had was that below that the book was signed. A signature from almost thirty years ago. And right under that he saw the blurred outline of a little heart he had once drawn.

“Cirila!” he yelled. His daughter was long gone.