Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, 16th day

Looking at the big, old grandfather clock that was situated on the wall, it was one in the morning, barely the sixteenth day of the month. Finally, my first big assignment ever since I became an illuminator of the Church, it felt like a dream. My senior, who for some reason wanted to wear some archaic piece of armor with a Sun in the center, looked at me. “What are you so excited about?”, he asked me, there were many things I was excited about. “How could you not be, my first big assignment, ahhh, it feels amazing to be entrusted to this.” Aelia looked at me, sighing under his helmet, and said, “Do you even know what assignment we have to do?” I nodded my head vigorously, we were given it an hour ago, and I had memorized it. “We have to go to a small town on the outskirts of Solaria, it's situated in the northwestern cornfields.”

Aelia didn’t need to hear anything else, he nodded and stood up, leaving the room; I followed after him promptly, we walked through the underground tunnels of the Church here. It was in the medium-sized city of Akino, and the Church here was relatively large, with an extensive network of underground tunnels. Walking through the corridor lit up by markings of the Sun on the walls, we reached a small room off to the side. Inside it was the Bishop that ran the Cathedral that governed this Church, Aelia didn’t even bother to knock and instead walked inside. I immediately started to kneel, the Bishop smiled and shook her head. “Why are you putting the newbie on this task?”, Aelia asked her in a voice, there was a small amount of malice hidden in it. I didn’t know why, and his actions did annoy me sometimes, he had almost no regard for the order of the Church and blatantly disrespected his superior — he never did get in trouble for it, though.

The Bishop, still smiling, said, “Why not? It’s been six months since he joined us, we should push him for the harder tasks.” Aelia sighed and looked at me for a second, and then back at the Bishop, “Don’t you think that we are pushing him into the deep end far too early? His hardest task before this was to exterminate some rodents in the sewers.” She sighed and sat down on her chair, “We did the same to you.”, Aelia said in response, “By the Sun, that experience was different, I had more things under my belt than exterminating rodents.” She smiled, “You will be there to guide him, now, I want no more questions.” She shut down the conversation, and Aelia simply sighed in response, he walked out the door. I bowed my head, and also left the room, he looked at me and said, “What do you think we are going to do the revolutionary there?”

I shrugged, “Capture him, interrogate him, maybe. I still don’t understand how anyone could even think to rebel against us.” He didn’t say anything as we started to walk up the stairs and into the actual Church. It’s still beyond my reasoning to fathom why anyone would even rebel.

There was food, water, and every resource was plentiful. The Church was great and gave us a great sense of unity, along with providing free food and water to the very poor and needy. Speaking of, there wasn’t even a lot of poor or needy, as far as I could see anyway. We made our way to Church and sat down, listening intently to the Priest talking at the lectern. He was talking about the origin of the Sun, “At the beginning of time, there was nothing, and then there was everything. Many Gods, many people, many worlds, our Sun, The Eternal Sun, was the strongest. He killed others, he slaughtered whole worlds, he unified many countries into one. Our country, built on that, can stand proud now, with no threats, no famines, no droughts. He watches over us every day, and one must always be thankful for that.”

He then started to ramble on about the Sun and his many good deeds to the people of Solaria, but after a few minutes, Aelia stood up and said, “It’s time, we have to get moving.” It was now one-thirty in the morning, and as we walked outside into the small city, we were greeted by a bustling nightlife and the moon in the sky. We looked out of place compared to others at night with my robes and his armor, and as we walked down the road, people made way and thanked us. We smiled at them, or at least, I did, Aelia’s face was hidden under his helmet; a girl ran past us quickly, weird, but I didn’t think too much of it. As we were going to the outskirts of the city, where he had parked his car, Aelia stopped and walked into a bar.

I didn’t much fancy bars or alcohol, but I walked in with him, and to my immediate regret, the place stank of booze. Aelia didn’t seem bothered and instead walked quickly to the bartender, “Give me your strongest drink.” The bartender quickly whipped up a 7 layered drink, with each layer alternating between different shades of blue. He picked it up, dropping a Solarian dollar on the table at the same time. He chugged the drink quickly, downing it in under a second, and then started to walk out, I heard him mutter “Damn.”, as we both left the establishment. “What was that all about?”, I asked him, we worked together for six months now, and I had never seen him do such a thing. Even if I didn’t know alcohol, that drink was famous and had enough to completely knock out a grown man in a sip.

He shook his head, not wanting to answer my question, and went to his car. “I’m driving, alright? You can’t drive drunk.” He didn’t seem drunk, but I didn’t want to take any chances, and he agreed. He sat in the passenger seat as I started up the car, “Don’t do something like that without telling me.”, I said. Aelia shrugged, “Fine.”, he curtly said and then proceeded to look out the window. With a sigh, I started to drive out of the city and into the countryside, it wasn’t a long drive in the slightest, just thirty minutes away. We saw some cornfields in the distance after ten minutes, and my stomach rumbled a bit, embarrassed, I asked him, “Do you have anything to eat.” He shook his head, by the Sun I was starving, how did I not notice? After another five minutes of driving, there were fields and fields of corn surrounding us. They looked mouthwatering this time of the year and didn’t help me with my hunger.

We reached the town, and to my pleasant surprise, there was a restaurant still open at two in the morning. It was a pasta place, pasta was more of a thing in Iabrun than here, but oh well, food is food. Aelia didn’t bother to follow me, opting to go to the hotel and rent two rooms for us, but I didn’t see why we had to do that. Inside, a demon greeted me and showed me to my table, I thanked her and sat down. Next, the waiter came up to me and asked what I wanted, “Just water and a large carbonara, that’s it.”, he thanked me and went on his way. Inside, I looked around the area and noticed a few families were there, along with two people that seemed to be on a date. Ah, love, I never did get too far into it, the Church took up too much of my time, and the magical studies. A certain threshold was needed to be reached to even become a candidate as an illuminator.

As I was waiting for my dishes, a young Naga child — which was weird, why was he up so late — came up to me and asked, “Mister, what’s with the robes?” I smiled at the young child, his scales weren’t fully developed yet and thus, had a milky-white color. “Me? I just work for the Church, that’s all.” He nodded and ran off to his family, where there was what I saw to be his older sister, mother, and father. My dish came a minute later, it looked extremely appetizing, and I ate it quickly. Paying the fee of a single Solarian dollar and six austral, I walked out of the establishment and made my way to the hotel. Outside it stood Aelia, he looked at me and said, “Get some sleep, I’ll go scout for the revolutionaries.”

What kind of person did he think I was? I vehemently shook my head, “I’m not tired, and I’ll search for the revolutionaries with you.” He didn’t say anything as he walked up to me, and then put his arm on my shoulder, “Are you sure?” I nodded at him, he sighed and stood up, “Ok then, follow me.” I did exactly that as we walked towards a small house, “What are we going to do?” He said, “Well, find some incriminating evidence first. We need to be sure before we do anything too bad.” With that, we walked towards the house, and under the cover of darkness, he quietly picked open the door. “There’s no one in here, try to find incriminating evidence.”, he told me. As he searched downstairs, I walked upstairs slowly, creeping around the corridor. It was hard to see, but my eyes quickly adjusted, and using the minuscule amount of moonlight present there, I reached what looked to be the master bedroom.

I walked inside slowly, making sure not to change a single thing in case they were to notice anything. Inside, there was the large bed, along with a few drawers and a mirror atop a large dark brown dresser. I went to the drawers first, checking if they had anything incriminating, and there looked to be nothing in them. A few books, which I made sure housed nothing, and some articles of clothing. Under the bed, there was a stack of money, but that wasn’t too weird, likely an emergency fund for them. I put everything back in its place and made sure that they didn’t look disturbed, on the dresser was a photo of the Naga family I saw earlier. Aelia silently crept behind me, and said, “I found something.” I nearly screamed, but I stopped at the last second.

“By the Sun, you scared me to bits. Could you not do that?”, he didn’t show any reaction to what I said. “Praise the Sun, we got something amazing.” He showed me a small booklet, and inside of it were the plans they had for an insurrection. “Look at this, names and all of everyone we know, this is great.” There was a plan for them to get the Church under control and go from there, branching out in a sweeping revolution. Aelia suddenly perked up, “They’re coming.”, he said and silently crept outback, I followed his lead and did so; my movements were extremely sloppy compared to his. He deposited the booklet back where we found it and left the building exactly the way it was. Outside, we could both see the family of four enter their home, they were smiling and acting happy. “We wait for an hour, and after that, we make sure that they’re asleep. Then we go inside.”

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I nodded and went back to the car, opting to sit inside until the time. Aelia went with me and did the same, he once again asked me, “Are you sure?” I nodded, feeling a bit annoyed by his constant questions asking for my affirmation. I already knew what to do, I wasn’t a small child anymore, it felt insulting. “Well, if that is really what you want. Then you can do the honors of disposing of the Naga.”, he said, and after that fell silent. He took off his armor step by step, and then removed his helmet, showing me his face. I had seen it before, so it wasn’t all that surprising, his handsome face glowed in the moonlight. This town probably had a few thousand people in it, at the most, and no one was out at this time. His robes were immaculate, much more than mine, they had nary a blemish or a mark on them. We waited for an hour, and as the time came, the two of us got out of the car.

It was now three-twenty in the morning, the Sun still wasn’t close to coming up, and as we slowly crept to the house, I asked, “What do we do if the others wake up?” Aelia opted not to answer, and instead gave me a gesture to turn silent. He quickly picked the door open again, and as we slinked upstairs to kill the revolutionary, silence permeated the area. It was extremely silent, with no noise being heard, from the house or outside. It felt like we were in our world now, and the outside couldn’t interfere with what we planned. Aelia slowly picked open the door to the master bedroom and then opened it the best he could to try and not make a sound. Inside, there laid the Naga husband and wife, sound asleep in their bed.

“Remember, only the Naga male, the others should have nothing to do with it.”, I reminded Aelia. He nodded and instead of aiming to capture the Naga, he pulled out an ornate knife and handed it over to me. “Kill him.”, he said coldly, my entire body froze over. “Ki-Kill?”, I asked, he nodded again, “Kill him.” He pushed me slowly to the side of the bed that the Naga was on, and the ornate knife was in my hand, its edge gleaming in the moonlight. I felt cold, chills rushed through my spine as I looked down at the knife, and with a gulp, slowly lifted it up. “Good. Kill him.”, Aelia said once again as reassurance, my hands shook wildly in the air. I was supposed to kill them? I just saw their faces smiling happily, the memory of the Naga child rushed back.

I couldn’t kill him, the father of that child, what would happen in the morning if that child were to see his dead father. “I… I can’t”, I told him. Is this what it meant to be an illuminator for the Church? “Do it, you know you must. He is a revolutionary, do your duty.”, Aelia pressured me again and grabbed my wrist, forcefully stopping my shaking hand. The Naga’s older sister…, she looked to be eighteen now. She would be starting college soon, what about her friends? What would I ruin if I plunged this knife into him? His wife would be devastated, his son would lose his father, his daughter would have her life ruined. What about all the people that they’re friends with? What about this Naga’s father, or mother? I can’t imagine the heartbreak they would feel if they find out their son died. Would his in-laws mourn him? I looked even closer at the Naga woman, she was… pregnant? What would happen to that new child? Would she suffer a miscarriage due to this? If I kill this man, what would happen?

Aelia looked at me even deeper now, my heart was lodged in my throat and I couldn’t say anything. “Do. It.”, he repeated to me, his voice morphed into something unrecognizable. I could feel his heartbeat, my heartbeat, the Naga’s heartbeat, the knife seemed to call to me, to plunge it in the Naga. The blood in me ran cold, as cold as the metal of the knife, and my hands couldn’t stop shaking. Even after he gripped my arms and wrists, I couldn’t stop the shaking I had. The clouds above moved and their light fell from a window onto the Naga woman, she was pretty, he was a lucky guy. I can’t kill him, I can’t… I looked up at Aelia, and said, “I really can’t kill them.” He didn’t say anything, but simply brought his face closer to mine, “You must do it.” The whole situation stressed me out even more, the knife craved blood, but I didn’t. This man, I couldn’t kill him like this, not when he was in bed and dreaming peacefully. While I started to talk to Aelia, “I really, really can’t.”, the shaking of my hands had weakened my grip over it. The knife fell, and it clattered on the floor loudly, Aelia looked at me, the knife, and then to the two in the bed that were slowly waking up.

The two didn’t fully wake up before Aelia, in a blur of light, picked up the knife and plunged it into the heart of the Naga husband. His wife screamed for but a moment and Aelia did the same to her, the knife was then removed from her chest. A spurt of blood came from the two of them, soaking my face and shirt with their blood. Some of it went into my mouth and the metallic flavor of their blood made me nauseous, Aelia didn’t say a word and instead kept his senses sharp. The door slowly opened, and outside of it were the two Naga siblings. The older sister held her younger brother in her arms, there wasn’t a great amount of light in the room; the two siblings only saw us standing over the motionless bodies of their parents. I wanted to say something, but before I could do anything, Aelia quickly moved and plunged the knife through the chest of the younger brother and into the older sister. Her eyes looked shocked for a second and then glazed over as her body crumpled onto the ground. “Let’s go, the other illuminators will handle the clean-up. You need to go and wash off.” I didn’t say anything, I was still standing in the exact same spot with surprised eyes. Was it really necessary to kill those two…?

Aelia took me by my hand and then led me outside the window, he carried me as he jumped out from it and then jumped into our hotel room. I didn’t do anything to resist, the shock of the situation was still permeating into my bones. Those four, a happy family I saw eating just a few hours ago, died… They were dead? Yes, they were dead by our hands. The pregnant wife, her husband, and her two children all died unceremoniously. The ornate knife in Aelia’s hands had its bloodlust sated and was sheathed by him. “Go clean up.”, he told me, and like a robot, I followed his orders. I quickly took a shower, cleaning off the blood on me, and as I was walking out, the metallic taste still lingered on my tongue.

Outside, he told me to give him all my clothes, and so I did just that. In a pile at the center were the bloody clothes we had, and he promptly lit a fire to burn them in the room. The fire was controlled by him, it was dim and unless one strained their eyes, there was no way for anyone to think a blazing fire was in the room. The fire burned and burned, destroying the evidence of the clothes we wore. He handed me a new set of clothes and I quickly put them on, at the same time, he put on his armor as well. “Let’s go.”, he said and jumped out the window, as did I. He walked into the car, I wasn’t in the mood to talk at the moment, so I just hopped into the passenger seat and stayed silent. Aelia also wasn’t in the mood to talk, and while he was on the road, tapped the Sun tattoo he had on his wrist, “Clean up target #3452C, there were three extra casualties.”

That was the only thing we said the entire trip back to Akino, and when we reached there, we still didn’t talk. It was now five in the morning, we took our time to get some gas earlier, and one could see the Sun start rising on the horizon. He parked the car on the outskirts, as he always has, and then we walked to the Church. There were still numerous people out and about at this time of day, whether they were still awake from the nightly activities or just waking up. I didn’t care for them, though, and so I ignored the smiles we got on our way to the Church. When we got there and started to walk downstairs, I stopped and said, “Was it really necessary to kill those children?” Aelia sighed and said, “Yes, yes it was.”, with a heavy heart. I knew that it was the answer he was going to say, and it didn’t help me in the slightest.

Those children, the memory of the young Naga coming up to me in the restaurant kept coming back to me. They were a young child, aged seven or so, and their life was then extinguished right in front of me by the man right in front of me. The older Naga child also kept coming back to me, I heard her say something about getting accepted into SHU, the Solarian Helios University. It was one of the most prestigious in the entire world, and she got into it, and then her life was extinguished in front of me by the man in front of me. The mother, who was smiling with warmth to her children, and had a third on the way, kept coming back to me. Her beautiful face in the moonlight was what I remembered, along with the image of her with shocked eyes and blood spurting out from the cavity left in her stomach; the cavity that was made in front of me by the man in front of me.

“We’re here.”, he said to me and I looked up, we were indeed right next to the room of the Bishop. We walked inside, and I didn’t try to kneel this time, she noticed that and asked me, “What’s wrong, young Aiken?” I shook my head, “It’s nothing, Your Holiness.” Aelia sighed and said, “The kid is a bit shocked because of what we did today, I told you that we pushed him into the deep end too quickly.” She shook her head, “It’s fine, I have your next assignment for you. Meet Archbishop Joan in a few minutes, she has come to visit and check on us. Be respectful, as she will meet you as the first illuminators, and you will get her next assignment from her.” Aelia nodded and didn’t say anything, the word Archbishop stirred inside me a bit.

We walked out and Aelia, who seemingly always knew the way, started walking upstairs once again. I followed him up the stairs and into the main area of the Church, which had no one there. We were there for a minute, and suddenly, Aelia got on one knee; him getting on one knee surprised me deeply, and I also followed his example. In a few seconds, Archbishop Joan with her ears, three tails, and sunset robes walked in gracefully. She was the most beautiful person I had ever met, and she was here right in front of me, a person that knows Her Holiness the Pope personally. I was surprised, and frankly, blown away by the way she walked and acted. “You may rise.”, she said, and her voice was divine, it felt heavenly to hear, I wanted even more of it now. “Your next task is to assassinate Parliament member Myanar.”, she said, and it instantly ruined my good mood.

She seemed to notice the changes I had and asked, “What’s wrong, child?” Normally, I would say it was nothing, but something about her appearance and voice forced me to say. “I… failed my first mission, I couldn’t kill someone.” She smiled and seemed to understand me immediately, with a gesture she motioned for me to come to her. I nodded and stood up from my position, slowly making my way to her, she was taller than me by a good few centimeters. “You failed, right? I don’t think you failed, you’re human, after all.” She then walked up to me and gave me a hug, I sucked in my breath at the unexpected action, “You just started, don’t worry. You’ll be fine with enough practice, and if you do this mission well, I’ll give you a reward myself.” Her intoxicating voice filled my ears, and suddenly, I didn’t feel like killing someone was that bad.