Waverider Expedition - Para Omros
The air in Sanctum Omros burned before it touched the skin. White walls. White streets. White-robed faithful walking in rows beneath a white sun. Even the shadows seemed afraid to linger.
Eira had seen battlefields, slaughter, famine, but never a place so clean, so empty of color that it felt holy in the wrong way.
They came ashore at midday: the Captain, Rahim, Severin, and her. The others stayed aboard, uneasy about the rumors. But supplies were needed, and the priests had granted them passage.
The streets were nearly silent. The only sound was the bell that tolled every few breaths, slow, rhythmic, final.
Then they heard the crowd.
At first, Eira thought it was a festival. The sound had that kind of weight, the murmur of hundreds moving as one. But as they turned a corner, the smell hit her. Pitch. Smoke. Flesh.
The square was packed shoulder to shoulder. Thousands filled it, heads bowed toward a platform at the center. There, twelve people stood bound to iron stakes, men, women, children. Two families.
Priests in gray surrounded them, torches raised.
One of them cried out, voice booming across the square:
“They sang of false gods! They read unholy books! But Omros, in His mercy, welcomes them to His flame!”
The crowd answered in unison:
“The flame purifies. The pure shall burn brightest.”
Eira’s stomach turned. “They’re going to...”
The first torch touched kindling. Fire leapt.
The screams came only for a moment before the chanting drowned them. “The flame purifies. The pure shall burn brightest.”
The others watched, knowing what waited for them, and screamed.
She moved before she knew she’d moved, pushing through the press of bodies. Rahim followed, hand on his sword. But Severin’s voice stopped them, low, sharp, cutting through the chant.
“Look at their faces,” he said.
Eira froze.
They weren’t angry. They weren’t horrified. They were smiling. Mothers lifted their children so they could see better. Men wept openly, not in pity, but in joy. A woman beside her whispered prayers of gratitude, her hands trembling with ecstasy.
“This is faith to them,” Severin said quietly. “They think this is salvation.”
Rahim’s voice was rough. “They’re butchers.”
“Misled,” Severin replied. “But convinced. You could kill a hundred, a thousand, it wouldn’t matter. They’d die believing themselves righteous.”
Eira’s hand shook on the hilt of her blade. She wanted to move, to do something, but the weight of all those eyes, all that certainty, pressed down on her like heat from the sun.
"An army could kill them," Severin added, "but an army couldn't change how they think."
The Captain stepped forward, his face gray with ashen fury. Then he stopped. For a long time he stared at the fire, the first victim still squirming, jaw tight. When he turned away, his voice was hollow.
“Enough,” he said. “We leave. We’ll not come here again.”
They pushed through the crowd in silence. No one stopped them. No one even noticed. The faithful were still singing as the smoke rose higher, thin and white against the burning sky.
Back aboard the Waverider, the sea wind carried the smell of fire far out to them.
Eira leaned on the rail, watching the city gleam on the horizon, pure, blinding, untouched.
“They think that’s holiness,” she said softly. “They think they’re saved.”
Severin adjusted his gloves, eyes on the smoke. “No,” he said. “They think they’re right. It’s worse.”