Chapter Text
“ Be Holy, for He is Holy.” Morgan's voice echoed on the silent walls of the church.
He looks out towards the congregation, grinding his teeth together before speaking again.
“Holiness is not about pointing fingers outward. It begins with the mirror. Every believer is asked to surrender their whole self — heart, mind, body — to God. We are called to examine our desires, our habits, our relationships, and ask… Does this draw me closer to Christ, or pull me away?” The crowd's soft murmurs feed into his insecurity, but he pushes on.
“Every person carries burdens and temptations. Some struggle with pride, others with anger, others with lust, others with selfishness. Scripture never ranks sins by severity; it simply calls all of us to repentance, humility, and transformation.” Ironically, every word serves as a projection of Morgan's self-hatred. Knowing him, a man who should be closest to god is probably the farthest from him. With every service, he asks himself, “Am I living in a way that honors God? Am I showing Christlike love? Am I using scripture to heal, or to harm?”
“Jesus never compromised the truth; He never weaponized it. Instead, he met people where they were. He called them to transformation, but He did so with gentleness, dignity, and love.” With that statement, he brought back a fragment of his own past, one he’d rather forget.
“Beloved, temptation is not a sign or weakness; it is a sign of being human. Scripture never says that the righteous are those who are never tempted. Instead, it says the righteous are those who stand firm, who fight, who rise again when they stumble.” Mr.Hayes pauses before finishing his sentence
“Temptation is the battlefield where your vow to god is tested. The question is, will you trust in God as your shepherd, or will you allow your human urges to condemn you to a life of sin?” Mr. Hayes' eyes drifted towards his youngest son, Morgan.
“Temptation doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from the places where we long, ache, hunger, or feel empty. The enemy does not tempt us with what we do not want. He tempts us with what we want too much, or in the wrong way, or at the wrong time.” Mr.Hayes lets out a long sigh as his service comes to a close.
“Temptation is not about the object; it is about what the heart desires.”
Morgan's eyes glaze over before clearing his throat. His own sermon torments him with his father's beliefs. Reminding him day in and day out that no matter how far he runs, he can’t hide what his heart yearns for.
“Let me leave you with this verse for today, Corinthians 6:19. ‘Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.” He blankly stares out at the crowd before flashing a friendly smile, closing his Bible, and thanking them for their attendance. A faint whisper lingers in his ear as he cleans his podium.
“You are not the son of God, you bend and weaponize the truth like your father.” The voice is soft and almost alluring, as if it were a humiliation ritual. The owner of which is nowhere in sight. Morgan could feel his confusion and doubt swell up, almost drowning himself in his own shame. His hands tightly grip his podium as his anxieties consume his mind. “You are the son of a false prophet.”
The woman's voice grows louder with his doubts. “And yet you try to hide behind that mask you wear. Do you feel strongly hiding in your father's shadow?” Before she could continue her torment, Misandra appeared before Morgan.
“Father Hayes, I’m sorry to bother you after service. I understand you are tired, but we received a letter from the Cardinal. He urges you to come to his office as soon as possible.” Morgan nods, ignoring his thoughts of the woman's voice. As he makes his way to the cardinal's tower, he admires the beauty of the church's garden. He’d never admit it, but he trusts animals more than people. Cats especially — independent, quiet, affectionate on their own terms. Never needing the acceptance he longed for.
He makes his way up the cold steps, the torch flames dancing on the walls. His thoughts linger back to the woman's voice. Morgan’s hand hovered over the iron ring of the Cardinal’s door, but he didn’t knock. Not yet.
The cold stone corridor presses in around him, the torches crackling like they were whispering secrets. His pulse thundered in his ears. The woman’s voice, her voice, curled through his mind again, silk over a blade.
“You preach purity with a tongue covered in filth; it trembles at its own lies.”
He shut his eyes. Hard.
The air tasted like smoke and old incense.
For a moment, he wasn’t in the tower at all. He was sixteen again, standing in the back pew while his father thundered about righteousness. Ezera, beside him, jaw clenched, eyes already halfway out the door. Fiora’s shadow, though he didn’t know her name then, coiled behind his ribs like a serpent waiting for him to grow old enough to devour.
He forced a breath.
Then another.
He knocked. The door opened before he touched it a second time.
“Enter,” came the Cardinal’s voice. Low, aged, but sharp as a quill dipped in judgment.
Morgan stepped inside. The Cardinal’s office was dim, lit only by a single stained-glass window that painted the room in fractured reds and golds. Books towered in uneven stacks. A crucifix hung crookedly on the wall, as if even it had grown tired.
The Cardinal didn’t look up from the parchment on his desk.
“You’re late.”
Morgan bowed his head. “My apologies, Your Eminence.”
“Sit.”
He obeyed, though the chair felt like it was carved from ice. The Cardinal finally lifted his gaze, pale, assessing, too perceptive for Morgan's comfort.
“I’ve received a report,” he said, sliding a sealed letter across the desk. “About your sermon.” Morgan’s stomach dropped. “A report?”
“Yes.” The Cardinal folded his hands. “Some found your message… conflicted.”
Conflicted.
A polite word for dangerous.
Or suspicious.
Morgan swallowed. “I spoke on holiness, as requested.”
“You spoke on temptation,” the Cardinal corrected. “At length.”
Morgan’s throat tightened. “It was relevant to the scripture.”
“Was it?” The Cardinal leaned forward. “Or was it relevant to you?”
The room tilted. Fiora’s voice purred at the back of his skull.
“Tell him, Morgan. Tell him what you really desire.”
He gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles whitened.
“I preach what the Spirit leads me to preach,” he said carefully. The Cardinal’s eyes narrowed not in anger, but in curiosity. As if Morgan were a puzzle with one piece missing.
“Your father,” the Cardinal said slowly, “was a man of conviction. Unyielding. Uncompromising. You… are different.”
Morgan stiffened. “Is that a criticism?”
“A concern.”
Silence thickened between them.
Then the Cardinal slid another parchment forward — this one stamped with a wax seal Morgan didn’t recognize. A symbol like a blooming flower, petals curling inward.
“I received this anonymously,” the Cardinal said. “It mentions you by name.”
Morgan’s blood ran cold.
He reached for the letter, but the moment his fingers brushed the seal, a whisper slithered through his mind:
“Open it, beloved. I wrote it just for you.”
His breath hitched.
The Cardinal didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.
“Read it,” he instructed.
Morgan broke the seal. Inside, written in elegant, looping script, was a single sentence. “A shepherd cannot lead when he is starving for the very wolves he condemns.” His vision blurred. His heart hammered. Fiora’s laughter, soft, delighted, and cruel, echoed inside his skull.
The Cardinal watched him closely. “Do you know who sent this?” he asked. Morgan forced his expression into stillness. “No,” he lied.
The Cardinal leaned back, studying him like a man deciding whether to trust a cracked foundation. “Then we have a problem,” he said. “Someone is watching you. Someone who knows you well.”
Morgan’s pulse stuttered. Fiora’s voice brushed his ear like a kiss. “Better than you know yourself.”
Morgan was sixteen, standing barefoot in the church garden long after midnight. The funeral had ended hours ago, but the scent of lilies still clung to his clothes. His father’s sermon, the one preached over his mother’s coffin, replayed in his skull like a punishment.
“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be thy name.”
Morgan had wanted to scream.
Instead, he’d slipped out the back door, past the mourners, past Ezra’s hollow stare, past the elders who whispered about “God’s will.” He ended up here in the garden his mother used to tend. The moonlight washed the roses silver. The air was cold enough to sting. And then.
A soft rustle.
Not wind.
Not an animal.
Something aware.
He turned.
A woman stood between the hedges, her silhouette framed by moonlight. She wore a simple white dress, bare feet in the grass, dark hair falling over her shoulders like spilled ink. She looked no older than twenty.
But her eyes…Her eyes were ancient.
Morgan froze. “Who are you?”
The woman tilted her head, studying him with unsettling tenderness. “I heard you calling,” she said.
“I wasn’t-” He swallowed. “I wasn’t calling anyone.”
“Oh, but you were.” She stepped closer, her voice soft as a lullaby. “Your heart was screaming.” He backed up until his shoulders hit the stone wall.
She didn’t touch him. She didn’t need to. Her presence pressed against him like a confession he didn’t know he was making.
“You’re grieving,” she murmured. “You’re angry. You’re lost. And you’re so very alone.”
Morgan’s breath shook. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you.” She smiled. Not cruel, not seductive. Just… knowing. “But here we are.” He tried to look away, but her gaze held him. “What do you want?” he whispered.
Her smile deepened, sad and sweet and terrifying. “Nothing yet,” she said. “Tonight, I only wanted to see the boy who prays for strength but secretly begs to break.”
Morgan’s chest tightened. “I don’t-”
“You do.” She stepped close enough that he could feel her warmth. “And that’s why I came.” Her fingers brushed his cheek, feather-light, almost maternal. “You are a garden of forbidden things, Morgan Hayes.” His pulse thundered. “And I,” she whispered, “am very good at tending gardens.”
Before he could speak, before he could breathe, she dissolved into a swirl of petals, black, weightless, vanishing into the night. Morgan stumbled back, heart racing, unsure if he’d seen a demon, a dream, or the first crack in the faith he’d been raised to die for.
But he remembered one thing with perfect clarity:
Her voice.
The same voice that would haunt him for decades.
The same voice that now whispered in the Cardinal’s tower.
The same voice that knew him better than he knew himself.
Morgan rose from the chair with the stiffness of a man twice his age. The Cardinal’s pale eyes followed him, unreadable, as though weighing every breath he took.
“Goodnight, Your Eminence,” Morgan said, voice steady only because he forced it to be. The Cardinal gave a slow nod. “Rest, Father Hayes. Clarity comes to those who sleep with a clean conscience.”
Morgan wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a warning. He bowed and stepped out into the corridor, closing the heavy oak door behind him. The latch clicked like the final note of a hymn.
The tower hallway was colder than before, or maybe it was just him. The torches flickered along the stone walls, their flames bending as if something unseen passed by. He descended the spiral staircase, boots echoing in the hollow shaft. Halfway down, he paused. A faint scent drifted through the air, roses.
Out of place. Impossible. His fingers tightened on the railing. “Not now,” he muttered under his breath. But the scent lingered, warm and familiar, like the garden from his youth. Like her. He forced himself to keep walking.
When he stepped outside, the night air wrapped around him, humid and soft. The church garden rustled with the breeze, leaves whispering secrets he didn’t want to hear. A stray cat darted across the path, pausing just long enough to glance back at him with glowing eyes. Morgan exhaled, tension easing for a heartbeat.
“Wish I could trade places with you,” he murmured. “Simple life. No sermons. No shadows.” The cat blinked slowly, then trotted off into the bushes.
Morgan continued toward the clergy wing, the stone path familiar beneath his feet. The moon hung low, casting long, warped shadows across the courtyard. One of them didn’t move with the wind. He didn’t look at it. He refused to.
By the time he reached his door, exhaustion had settled into his bones. He pushed it open, stepping into the quiet of his room. Modest, tidy, lit only by the faint glow of a dying candle. He shut the door behind him. Locked it and leaned his forehead against the wood. For a moment, he allowed himself to breathe.
Suddenly, a whisper reached across the room, soft as silk: “Goodnight, beloved.”
Morgan’s eyes snapped open. The candle flickered violently. But the room was empty. Only the scent of roses remained. Morgan didn’t move at first. He stood there, back pressed to the door, breath shallow, staring into the dim room as if something might materialize from the shadows. The whisper still clung to the air. Soft, intimate, and mildly poisonous.
“Goodnight, beloved.” His pulse thudded painfully in his throat.
He pushed himself away from the door and staggered toward the small wooden table beside his bed. His hands shook as he lit the candle again, desperate for light, for something real, something human. The flame wavered. So did he.
Morgan braced both hands on the table, head bowed. His breath came in ragged bursts, the kind he used to hide from his father after sermons that cut too deep. “Not again,” he whispered. “Not tonight.” But the scent of roses lingered. The memory of her voice curled around his ribs.
And the letter… The one she’d written burned in his pocket like a brand. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why won’t you leave me alone?” No answer. Just silence. And somehow, that was worse.
He sank into the chair, elbows on his knees, fingers tangled in his hair. His shoulders trembled, not from fear, but from the unbearable weight of being known too well. He had spent decades building walls. Walls of scripture. Walls of discipline. Walls of duty. Fiora slipped through them like smoke.
“You’re not real,” he muttered. “You’re not real. You’re not-” A choked sound escaped him. Half laugh, half sob. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. Morgan pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until stars burst behind them. His breath hitched, then broke entirely. Tears spilled before he could stop them.
He folded forward, elbows sliding off his knees, hands covering his face as the sobs tore out of him, raw, silent, desperate. The kind of crying that came from a place deeper than grief, deeper than fear.
A place carved out by years of shame. He hated how familiar it felt. He hated how much relief came with it. He hated that Fiora always appeared when he was weakest — and that part of him wanted her to.
“Please,” he whispered into his hands. “Please… just let me be.” The candle flickered. The room stayed empty. But the roses smelled stronger.
When the sobs finally slowed, Morgan sat upright, wiping his face with the sleeve of his robe. His eyes were red, his breath uneven, but the storm inside him had quieted, not gone, but dulled. He looked toward the window. Moonlight spilled across the floor in a pale, fractured beam. He whispered, barely audible.
“I can’t keep doing this.” And for the first time in years, he wasn’t sure if he meant for the priesthood… or if he was strong enough to fight against her. Morgan didn’t fall asleep so much as he collapsed into it — exhaustion dragging him under like a riptide. And the moment his consciousness slipped, the dream took him.
Not a dream. A memory. One he had spent half his life trying to bury.
He was sixteen again, standing at the top of the staircase in the Hayes household. The house was too quiet — the kind of quiet that comes after a storm, not before one. His father’s study door was cracked open, light spilling into the hallway. Raised voices. Not shouting. Worse.
His father’s voice was low, shaking with a fury Morgan had only ever seen directed at sinners in the pulpit. And his mother’s soft, pleading, breaking. Morgan crept closer. He shouldn’t have. But he did. “How long?” his father hissed. His mother’s breath hitched. “Ezra was… he was born of love, not betrayal.”
“Love?” His father’s fist slammed against the desk. “You dare use that word? You lied to me. You lied to God.” Morgan’s stomach twisted. Ezra? His brother? His mother’s voice trembled. “I was young. I was scared. I thought”
“You thought you could hide sin under my roof,” his father snapped. “Raise another man’s child in my home. In God’s home.” Morgan pressed a hand to his mouth. He felt the world tilt. Ezra wasn’t his father’s son. His father had found out. And his mother, she sounded like she was dying already.
“I will repent,” she whispered. “I will do whatever God requires.” His father’s voice turned cold. “God requires truth. And truth demands consequence.”
Silence. Then the sound of something shattering, a sob, a gasp, Morgan couldn’t tell. His mother fled the study, skirt brushing the floor, tears streaking her face. She didn’t see Morgan hiding in the shadows. She ran down the hall. Past him. Past everything. Toward the garden. The same garden where Fiora would appear to him hours later. Morgan followed her. He didn’t know why. He just knew she shouldn’t be alone.
The moonlight washed the roses pale. His mother stood at the fountain, shoulders shaking, hands gripping the stone edge. “Mom?” Morgan whispered. She turned. Her eyes were red, swollen, terrified — but when she saw him, something inside her softened. “Oh, sweetheart,” she breathed. “You shouldn’t be awake.”
“You’re crying.” She cupped his face with trembling hands. “You are a good boy, Morgan. You always have been.” He swallowed. “What happened? What did Dad say?” Her expression cracked.
“He said… he said God will judge me.”
Morgan shook his head. “No. No, he’s wrong. You didn’t,” She pressed a finger to his lips. “Promise me something,” she whispered. “Promise me you will never let shame decide your worth. Promise me you will never let someone else tell you what God thinks of you.”
He nodded, tears burning his eyes. She kissed his forehead. “I love you,” she said. “More than my own life.” And then she stepped back. Too far. Too fast. Morgan reached for her “Mom!” But she was already climbing the fountain’s edge, already looking up at the sky as if begging it to open. “Forgive me,” she whispered. And she let herself fall.
Morgan jolted awake with a strangled gasp, sitting upright in his bed, drenched in sweat. His chest heaved, his throat tight, tears still wet on his face. The room was dark. Silent. Except for a cruel whisper that curled from the corner, soft as a caress, “You remember now.”
Morgan’s breath froze. Fiora’s silhouette lingered in the moonlight, half-formed, watching him with eyes that knew too much.
“Grief made you mine,” she murmured.
“And shame keeps you. For I will be your reckoning Father.”