The drowned chapel exhales cold mist as the survivors gather beneath its broken arch. Mara stands beside Beetz, while the plague doctor keeps the child behind them and Elias bound to the post.
Elias Vane
Ring it, then. Let the dead name their betrayer. But do not pretend your hands are clean, armored thing.
The suspended bell moves without wind. Its surface beads with black water, and each drop striking the stones forms a brief, pale letter before vanishing.
Mara Vane
Beetz, the names are coming. I can smell the old grief in the chapel. Elias is not the only one the bell remembers.
A deep note rolls through the flooded threshold. The oath-mark flares in Beetz’s gauntlet, projecting a procession of names across the chapel wall, each followed by a date and a final breath.
The Plague Doctor
There. The ledger begins before Elias was born. He inherited the rite, but someone taught him where to aim it.
Among the names, one remains unfinished. The letters crawl into the shape of Beetz’s forgotten dead name, then stop, as though the bell waits for their judgment before revealing the final line.