Prologue

An empire of outlaws and bloodshed remained, on the outskirts of mortality. The dwellers were what we call "diviants" forging and brass with wired beliefs struck to their hearts. The story of Hia and its diviants were known to many. Its immense power flickered and shone all the way through the cracks of the Rhaspody Abyss. One who dared to step on their motherland shall lay with lacerated heads feeding its rotten nation.

I was from a family of high priests, the ones who held the catalogue of sinners. Countless killing took place and thousands of malicious souls were erased off reality. Hia was fed on wills. The wills of those that desire to survive, at the cost of entrusting faith in our Lord. The feasted wills were conferred by the 'sirens', beastly humanoid-fish, those appearance were altered once the oath of faith was held.

My own mother was a siren, though I had never heard of her singing beautiful gales of mystic melodies as the legends foretold. She never spoke much about her 'sinful' past. Every day, I see mother by the hearth's fire, eyebrows too creased; fingers glued onto her quill pen. Occasionally, they found their way to the pearly white pendant that encircles her neck. I would get mine sooner; it frightens me how I would have to take her place.

"Faith to the Lord! The god of all prosperity!" A diviant yelled and prayed before slicing down a siren's head, the stinging ice shards of the sword's magic sunk into the siren's skin, popping its vessels like an inflated balloon. The tail still twitched for mere moments before a guard threw it to a large basket, heaped with many half-moving lacerated corpses. "Should we feel…remorse?" I muttered, watching helplessly, configuring one day, that I must become a devoted diviant without hesitation.

"It's all deserved, darling" Mother smiled, placing cold hands on my shoulder. I shuddered.

"They were lost. They couldn't find a light. A home. We helped them move—"

"No! We didn't! Lord wouldn't want this!"

Mother's face was stern. She peered over me and retracted her hand, a storm cloud hovering her face. "These sinners are meant to be banished. If not, the lives of all mortals are in danger." I fell silent. For a moment, the faint screams of sirens were all there is. My gaze found itself staring deep into my mother's indigo eyes. Lifeless and dull. Past her pupils, there laid a mark. The oath of faith had been ingrained in her.

"Madir Revina is waiting for us." Mother scurried away, not taking a look back at me. I stood alone, heartbeats drumming. There were so many things I wanted to say. Somehow none of them came into words. I glanced at mother, dressed in a white velvet cloak. It was the time to pray.