01-01-2025, 01:50 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-03-2025, 02:33 AM by Nora Saint-Clair.)
Nora was born in 2022. Her mother had hoped for a home birth in the Saint-Clair family’s ancestral chateau near Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in Normandy, but the estate was too far removed from the comforts of modern medical technology. When the labor took a sudden and dangerous turn, an emergency helicopter rushed her to a private hospital in Paris. Both mother and baby survived the ordeal, and Nora was born healthy and strong. However, the scare left the family shaken, and their protective instincts shaped Nora’s carefully contained childhood.
That protectiveness backfired spectacularly. Nora’s adventurous nature thrived despite their restrictions, or perhaps because of them. She shirked her lessons whenever possible, escaping to the outdoors where she climbed trees, splashed in creeks, and caught all manner of insects and critters. Her aristocratic family, aghast at her wild streak, tried in vain to curb her tomboyish tendencies, but Nora was utterly undeterred.
She had one younger sibling and little interest in her cousins, who were too polished and reserved for her liking. Instead, Nora bonded with Tanis Peregrym, a member of a family who had loyally served the Saint-Clairs for centuries. With Nora’s knack for recklessness, Tanis—older by nearly two decades—was assigned to act as her minder. Somewhere between nanny, older sister, tutor, and bodyguard, Tanis became an unshakable presence in Nora’s life. Despite her strict, no-nonsense demeanor, which earned her the nickname "Grym," Nora adored her.
Nora’s 13th birthday was supposed to be a Parisian party with friends, or so she thought. Instead, the family arranged a celebration at their ancestral home in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. Extended relatives arrived from Switzerland and Scotland, turning the day into something closer to a grand family reunion than a child’s birthday. Even the family’s priest attended. Nora was disappointed at first, but curiosity overtook her frustration.
It was on this day that Nora was brought into the Saint-Clair family’s confidence. They shared the secrets of their heritage: the family’s ties to the Knights Templar, the legend of Jean de Saint-Clair and the demon in the woods, and their sacred alliance with the Atharim. Surrounded by her family, Nora was shown the dagger of Benedictus, the silver blade her ancestor used to slay the Loup Garou. The gravity of their revelations, coupled with the solemnity of the occasion, left no room for doubt in her mind. This was no elaborate prank. It was her legacy.
From that moment, her training began under Grym’s guidance. Tanis was an Atharim Hunter, descended from a knight who had been saved by Jean de Saint-Clair and the mysterious monk Benedictus centuries ago. That knight, along with his descendants, had sworn eternal loyalty to the Saint-Clairs. Grym now took it upon herself to prepare Nora for the family’s sacred mission.
At 16, after years of relentless training, Nora convinced her family to allow her on a hunt. It was meant to prove her bravery, but the experience went horribly wrong. Nora was wounded, though she suffered no lasting damage. Grym, however, was held responsible and banished from service. The loss devastated Nora. Grym obeyed her dismissal without question, disappearing into eastern Europe, leaving behind an empty void in Nora’s life.
For Nora, hunting was forbidden from then on. She was confined to studying Atharim lore, a task she found tedious and suffocating. Still, she begrudgingly complied, though she secretly kept up with her combat skills. Over time, she threw herself into exercise, weightlifting, and running, becoming disciplined in her physical health. She vowed to return to hunting someday, even if it had to wait until she came of age.
When Nora finished her formal schooling, she spent her evenings studying Atharim lore and restoring and digitizing the family’s collection of artifacts. Their ancestral basement was piled high with ancient books, relics, and oddities in need of care. In 2040, when she was 18, one particular discovery changed everything.
She found a wooden box whose boards were near to crumbling with age and moisture. She easily pried the old nails out, careful to avoid cutting herself on rust easily 100 years old. On the lid was carved the word levante. She simply shrugged and tossed the lid aside.
She immediately recoiled as a foul stench hit her—a mix of rotted hay and moldy paper. Grimacing, she dug out the upper layer until she spied something solid. It was a thin piece of ivory carved into the shape of a human tongue, etched with intricate foreign script. The anatomical detail was disturbingly lifelike, and Nora couldn’t suppress a shiver as she snapped a picture for analysis. Using an AI translator, she uncovered the meaning of the first inscription:
![[Image: Nora-text-black-2.jpg]](https://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Nora-text-black-2.jpg)
It turned out to be ancient Phoenician, that according to the language model read:
This relic was unlike anything else she had cataloged: no pottery shard, statue, or weapon fragment had ever made her skin crawl the way this tongue did. Intrigued and unsettled, she touched the tongue, and her breath caught in her throat. A faint whisper tickled her ears, growing louder the longer she held it. Warmth bloomed across her body, startling and unnatural, and as she stared, new script began glowing faintly across the tongue’s surface as if glowing from within.
![[Image: Nora-black-text-2.jpg]](https://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Nora-black-text-2.jpg)
She fumbled for her Wallet and take another picture, but as soon as she let go, the script and warmth disappeared. Eyes wide, hand uncertain, she touched it once more, and the script returned. With her other hand she quickly took a picture, and had the language translated.
There was a god, Ba’al in ancient Mesopotamia, but she recognized none of the other words. “Ba’al Hadad…” she said to herself, questioning the name. As soon as she spoke his name, the whispers returned, this time louder than before. She couldn’t understand their language, but the warmth grew to heat, as if she was standing before a furnace. Then, without warning, her hair rose with the static, and a flash of light shot across her vision. Startled, she dropped the tongue.
All the sensations vanished instantly: the warmth, the light, the whispers. Shaking and surprised, she stared at the tongue now lying askew in the box. Trembling, she hurried to cover the box, jamming the lid back into place. This must be an actual weapon, she thought. The word, levante, was upside down now, and an ominous feeling spread over her mind.
She buried it deep in the storage room, tossing a canvas over it and stacking stones to keep it out of sight. That night, although vowing to never think of the tongue again, she couldn’t get the words out of her mind. She asked the wallet to translate the rest of the phrase, and what she read gave her goosebumps.
They haunted her dreams—terrible storms with a man at their center. The words replayed in her mind, and within a week, she came down with a high fever, and she had the feeling that the tongue somehow caused it.
The tongue didn’t return to the forefront of her attention until 4 years later. It was 2044, and Nora was 22 years old. She was in Scotland, visiting the Sinclair’s Rosslyn Chapel, cross-referencing their holdings, when she received a call from her father, informing her to come home immediately. There was some discrepancy with her records, and an Atharim priest had arrived straight from the Vatican. She flew home on a chartered jet that very afternoon.
The entire family was shocked, humbled, and horrified that the Atharim Priest was accompanied by the Regus.
He inquired about the tongue.
Nora had submitted a scant description of the carving. All the records were sent to the Vatican for compilation with the Atharim archives, and it seemed that the Scholars were just now getting around to analysis. That the Regus was here meant one thing. Her suspicion about the tongue was correct: it was a weapon, and she had hid it from everyone. She was terrified not that the Regus would learn about her intentional oversight, but that he somehow knew why she did it.
When he indicated that he wanted to see it, Nora panicked. If he witnessed her digging it out of obvious hiding, he would know it had intentionally been obscured. So she offered to retrieve it, saving them the trouble of traversing a dark and dirty dungeon. Just carrying its box gave her the creeps, and she was glad to put it on the floor at his feet. He asked her to open it, and her heart began to pound. The tongue was lying in its skewed position from when she dropped it, still surrounded by the rotten and moldy padding.
Then he peered at her with that intense stare of his and ordered her to hand it to him. Everyone was staring, and her parents repeated the order, worried she was going to shame them in front of the Regus himself. All kinds of excuses rippled through her mind, but all of them would make her look weak and cowardly. So she grit her teeth and grabbed the thing like a snake striking a mouse and gave it to the Regus. Warmth and whispers flooded, but nobody else seemed to notice them.
She breathed a huge sigh of relief when he took the tongue into his hands.
He turned it over, reading the language inscribed upon it as if it was his mother voice.
“Grant your voice to me.” He intoned.
Nora was grateful the hidden script remained dormant.
The priest opened a new box, this one lined with modern padding and locks into which the Regus deposited the tongue.
“That was the Tongue of Baal,” he explained as the priest locked it inside. “It will be transferred to more secure holdings at headquarters. Well done discovering it, child.” He turned his steely attention back to Nora, who did all she could to keep her face still and bow her head in reverence.
The Tongue of Baal was brought back to France during the Second Crusade by Sir Anselm de Saint-Clair, a younger son of Count Saint-Clair who had joined the Templar knights in their holy campaign as an Atharim hunter. According to family records and Atharim lore, Sir Anselm discovered the relic hidden deep within a crumbling temple in the Levant, guarded by monstrous figures who were said to be cursed servants of Ba’al Hadad. The artifact’s aura and the strange, inscribed script etched into its surface immediately caught the knight’s attention. Believing it to be a powerful weapon or a sacred object of immense significance, Anselm retrieved it at great personal cost, losing several of his men during the encounter. Smuggling the relic back to Europe, he entrusted it to the family upon his return. Over time, the artifact was hidden away in their ancestral holdings until it was all but forgotten.
“Thank you Regus,” she said, genuinely grateful that he was taking it away.
The following week, Nora was invited to a conclave at the Vatican to take her oaths, but she fell ill again. Fever gripped her, worse than before, and the sickness delayed her ceremony significantly. She sent a message to Grym, inviting her to attend, but no response came. The silence felt like an ache, deep and hollow.
In the years that followed, Nora threw herself into her work. She steadily climbed the ranks, completing tasks of increasing responsibility. She applied for and was granted passage to the Holy Lands on behalf of the Atharim. The assignment lasted nearly six months until civil unrest in the region, known as DV, forced her to return to Europe prematurely. The experience left her restless. Her application for a post in Africa was similarly denied, and frustration bubbled under her skin. She wasn’t a huntress anymore, not officially. But she could defend herself, and she made sure the Atharim knew it. Still, her arguments fell on deaf ears.
It was then that she heard the rumors: Grym was in the southern region of what had once been Poland, hunting in the rugged Sudety and Carpathian mountain ranges. The area was stable, largely untouched by the instability that plagued so much of Europe prior to its incorporation into DII. Nora saw an opportunity and leveraged an errand—documenting holdings hidden away during World War II—as an excuse to travel to the region. In truth, she didn’t care about dusty scrolls or buried nazi treasure. She searched for her mentor. But by the time she arrived, Grym was gone, having moved on to Moscow.
When Nora arrived, the Convocation was underway, called at the behest of the Regus himself. The announcement sent a ripple of unease through the Atharim: the gods had returned, and the order was reorganizing to combat this unprecedented threat. For Nora, the news was like a thunderclap, a horrible weight pressing down on her chest. She felt an inescapable sense of doom.
Before she left HQ, the Regus summoned her to his chambers. His presence was as intimidating as ever, his piercing gaze seeming to strip away her defenses.
“I am glad to see the Saint-Clairs remain as loyal as ever,” he began, his voice heavy with authority. He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You know, the Tongue of Baal might be a formidable weapon, but my Scholars have never deciphered how to activate it.”
The words hung in the air, sharp and probing. Nora felt the weight of an unspoken question pressing against her, though she couldn’t tell how much he knew. Forcing herself to remain calm, she blinked and nodded solemnly.
“Well, should you think of an idea,” the Regus said, his tone carefully neutral, “do share it.” He dismissed her with a casual wave, and Nora bowed her head before leaving.
Relief washed over her, but it was short-lived. As she walked away, her thoughts churned uneasily. Did the Regus know she concealed information? Did he suspect anything?
But there was no time to dwell on it. The Atharim were at war, their Scholars frantically poring over ancient prophecies and inventory logs in a desperate bid to find weapons capable of fighting the gods. And though she buried her fears deep, Nora couldn’t shake the sense that the Regus knew far more than he let on.
Nora spent a great deal of time in the digital archives of the Baccarat-based HQ. She glimpsed people that were far more important than she, even as a Saint-Clair, such as the Archangels and infamous hunters. She yearned to join them, not necessarily to confront the gods, but to do something meaningful. She yearned for action.
Nora had no intention of ever returning to the Atharim after the fire in the Moscow HQ. The memories still haunted her—the smoke and flames consuming the archives, the walls cracking and falling apart as if the wrath of God Himself had come down to erase them. She had doubled back to save an ancient scroll she had been working with, and in doing so, she had been trapped.
That was when it happened. She had screamed, panicking as fire roared around her, and in her desperation, she willed the flames to part. To her astonishment, they obeyed. The fire shifted like a curtain, opening a path through the inferno for her to escape. Even as she stumbled out of the burning wreckage, her mind reeled with disbelief. The warmth in her body, the same warmth she felt when she touched the Tongue of Baal years ago, surged within her again. That was the moment she knew: she was a god.
She fled, terrified of the implications.
The next day, she was violently ill. Fever raged through her body, leaving her barely able to stand. Hallucinations blurred the lines between dreams and reality, and whispers filled her mind like a choir of unseen voices. She thought she would die until Grym, her long-lost mentor, found her.
It was Grym who saved her life. She nursed Nora through the worst of the Sickness, feeding her, cooling her fever, and keeping her safe from prying eyes. When Nora regained enough strength to speak, she finally told Grym everything—the Tongue of Baal, the whispers, the dreams, the fire, and the impossible parting of the flames. She confessed the truth about her powers and the horrible, unshakable knowledge that she was no longer human.
Grym listened in pained silence, her stoic demeanor cracking for the first time since Nora had known her. When Nora was finished, Grym spoke softly. “You’re one of them. A god.” The words sounded foreign in her voice.
Nora looked away, shame rising in her chest. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for it.”
“I know,” Grym said, her voice heavy with conflict. She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “But the Atharim… they won’t care about what you want. They’ll hunt you, Nora. Just as they’ve hunted others like you. And when they find out what you are—” Grym stopped herself.
“I know,” Nora said bitterly. “They’ll kill me.”
Silence fell between them. For a moment, Nora dared to hope that Grym might suggest a way to stay hidden, to live in peace off the grid. But Grym's next words were something else entirely.
“There’s another way. There’s a group—an organization. The Brotherhood of Ascension.” Grym’s expression was unreadable as she continued. “They help gods like you survive the Sickness. They’ll teach you to control your powers.”
Nora blinked, stunned. “The Brotherhood? Aren’t they just another cult worshiping some false messiah?”
“They’re more than that,” Grym said. “According to the news, they’re saving people like you. And more importantly…” She paused, meeting Nora’s gaze. “They’re the only ones with the resources to keep you alive. Without their help, the Sickness will kill you. I’ve seen it before.”
Nora recoiled at the suggestion. The idea of joining the Brotherhood disgusted her. Everything she’d heard about them painted them as zealots, people willing to bow to Ascendancy like a god. And yet, the Sickness had nearly killed her already, and Grym’s words held undeniable weight. If she stayed on her own, the next fever might very well claim her life.
“I can’t,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I can’t join them. They’re insane.”
“They’re not insane, Nora. Misguided, maybe. Dangerous, certainly. But they’re not insane.” Grym leaned forward, her tone hardening. “Do you want to die? Because if you don’t go to them, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And even if the Sickness doesn’t kill you, the Atharim will.”
That thought struck Nora like a hammer blow. She had devoted her life to the Atharim, to the Saint-Clair family legacy, and now the very people she had spent years serving would see her as a threat to be destroyed. The betrayal stung worse than any wound.
She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to be one of them.”
“You don’t have to be,” Grym said quietly. “You don’t have to join their cause. But you do need their help, Nora. Use them. Learn to control your powers, survive the Sickness, and find your footing. Then you can decide what to do.”
Nora looked up at her mentor. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Grym said, her voice firm, “you can take their help without becoming one of them. The Atharim failed to stop the return of the gods. Now they’re scrambling to figure out how to fight them. Someone needs to make sure the Brotherhood doesn’t become what the Atharim fears. You can do that from within. You can stop them before they grow too powerful. You can make a difference.”
The idea was insane, reckless, and utterly terrifying. But it was also strangely liberating. For years, Nora had yearned for a purpose beyond the dusty tomes of the Atharim archives. She had dreamed of action, of being part of something larger. Now, standing on the precipice of two warring worlds, she saw an opportunity to carve her own path—a path neither bound by the Atharim nor consumed by the Brotherhood.
Nora stayed with Grym for several days, pondering the decision. At last, she nodded. “I’ll go. But on one condition: if the Atharim asks, you say nothing. Not until I know more.”
Grym agreed, though her expression remained solemn. “Lux et umbra, Nora. Whatever happens, you’re still a Saint-Clair. That name means something.”
Nora didn’t respond. The weight of the Saint-Clair legacy settled on her shoulders like a mantle. She wasn’t sure what her family would say, or how they’d react when she told them her plan. But she knew one thing for certain.
“I am Nora Saint-Clair,” she whispered to herself. “And if the Knights of old could go to war, then so can I.”
That protectiveness backfired spectacularly. Nora’s adventurous nature thrived despite their restrictions, or perhaps because of them. She shirked her lessons whenever possible, escaping to the outdoors where she climbed trees, splashed in creeks, and caught all manner of insects and critters. Her aristocratic family, aghast at her wild streak, tried in vain to curb her tomboyish tendencies, but Nora was utterly undeterred.
She had one younger sibling and little interest in her cousins, who were too polished and reserved for her liking. Instead, Nora bonded with Tanis Peregrym, a member of a family who had loyally served the Saint-Clairs for centuries. With Nora’s knack for recklessness, Tanis—older by nearly two decades—was assigned to act as her minder. Somewhere between nanny, older sister, tutor, and bodyguard, Tanis became an unshakable presence in Nora’s life. Despite her strict, no-nonsense demeanor, which earned her the nickname "Grym," Nora adored her.
Nora’s 13th birthday was supposed to be a Parisian party with friends, or so she thought. Instead, the family arranged a celebration at their ancestral home in Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. Extended relatives arrived from Switzerland and Scotland, turning the day into something closer to a grand family reunion than a child’s birthday. Even the family’s priest attended. Nora was disappointed at first, but curiosity overtook her frustration.
It was on this day that Nora was brought into the Saint-Clair family’s confidence. They shared the secrets of their heritage: the family’s ties to the Knights Templar, the legend of Jean de Saint-Clair and the demon in the woods, and their sacred alliance with the Atharim. Surrounded by her family, Nora was shown the dagger of Benedictus, the silver blade her ancestor used to slay the Loup Garou. The gravity of their revelations, coupled with the solemnity of the occasion, left no room for doubt in her mind. This was no elaborate prank. It was her legacy.
From that moment, her training began under Grym’s guidance. Tanis was an Atharim Hunter, descended from a knight who had been saved by Jean de Saint-Clair and the mysterious monk Benedictus centuries ago. That knight, along with his descendants, had sworn eternal loyalty to the Saint-Clairs. Grym now took it upon herself to prepare Nora for the family’s sacred mission.
At 16, after years of relentless training, Nora convinced her family to allow her on a hunt. It was meant to prove her bravery, but the experience went horribly wrong. Nora was wounded, though she suffered no lasting damage. Grym, however, was held responsible and banished from service. The loss devastated Nora. Grym obeyed her dismissal without question, disappearing into eastern Europe, leaving behind an empty void in Nora’s life.
For Nora, hunting was forbidden from then on. She was confined to studying Atharim lore, a task she found tedious and suffocating. Still, she begrudgingly complied, though she secretly kept up with her combat skills. Over time, she threw herself into exercise, weightlifting, and running, becoming disciplined in her physical health. She vowed to return to hunting someday, even if it had to wait until she came of age.
When Nora finished her formal schooling, she spent her evenings studying Atharim lore and restoring and digitizing the family’s collection of artifacts. Their ancestral basement was piled high with ancient books, relics, and oddities in need of care. In 2040, when she was 18, one particular discovery changed everything.
She found a wooden box whose boards were near to crumbling with age and moisture. She easily pried the old nails out, careful to avoid cutting herself on rust easily 100 years old. On the lid was carved the word levante. She simply shrugged and tossed the lid aside.
She immediately recoiled as a foul stench hit her—a mix of rotted hay and moldy paper. Grimacing, she dug out the upper layer until she spied something solid. It was a thin piece of ivory carved into the shape of a human tongue, etched with intricate foreign script. The anatomical detail was disturbingly lifelike, and Nora couldn’t suppress a shiver as she snapped a picture for analysis. Using an AI translator, she uncovered the meaning of the first inscription:
It turned out to be ancient Phoenician, that according to the language model read:
Grant your voice to me
This relic was unlike anything else she had cataloged: no pottery shard, statue, or weapon fragment had ever made her skin crawl the way this tongue did. Intrigued and unsettled, she touched the tongue, and her breath caught in her throat. A faint whisper tickled her ears, growing louder the longer she held it. Warmth bloomed across her body, startling and unnatural, and as she stared, new script began glowing faintly across the tongue’s surface as if glowing from within.
She fumbled for her Wallet and take another picture, but as soon as she let go, the script and warmth disappeared. Eyes wide, hand uncertain, she touched it once more, and the script returned. With her other hand she quickly took a picture, and had the language translated.
Baʿal Ḥadad
Rākib ʿalpīm
Mōtēn ’al rōbātn wa-mārīn
Kāntēn ʿanīšaʿn ’ālī
Tārēt ’āl ’arṣā
Bī ləšōn qāʿlōmn wa-ʿakal kašōtīn
There was a god, Ba’al in ancient Mesopotamia, but she recognized none of the other words. “Ba’al Hadad…” she said to herself, questioning the name. As soon as she spoke his name, the whispers returned, this time louder than before. She couldn’t understand their language, but the warmth grew to heat, as if she was standing before a furnace. Then, without warning, her hair rose with the static, and a flash of light shot across her vision. Startled, she dropped the tongue.
All the sensations vanished instantly: the warmth, the light, the whispers. Shaking and surprised, she stared at the tongue now lying askew in the box. Trembling, she hurried to cover the box, jamming the lid back into place. This must be an actual weapon, she thought. The word, levante, was upside down now, and an ominous feeling spread over her mind.
She buried it deep in the storage room, tossing a canvas over it and stacking stones to keep it out of sight. That night, although vowing to never think of the tongue again, she couldn’t get the words out of her mind. She asked the wallet to translate the rest of the phrase, and what she read gave her goosebumps.
"Ba’al Hadad, Rider of the Clouds, Master of Thunder and Rain, grant your voice to me. Let your fury fall upon the earth. By this tongue, let storms rise and swallow the unworthy."
They haunted her dreams—terrible storms with a man at their center. The words replayed in her mind, and within a week, she came down with a high fever, and she had the feeling that the tongue somehow caused it.
The tongue didn’t return to the forefront of her attention until 4 years later. It was 2044, and Nora was 22 years old. She was in Scotland, visiting the Sinclair’s Rosslyn Chapel, cross-referencing their holdings, when she received a call from her father, informing her to come home immediately. There was some discrepancy with her records, and an Atharim priest had arrived straight from the Vatican. She flew home on a chartered jet that very afternoon.
The entire family was shocked, humbled, and horrified that the Atharim Priest was accompanied by the Regus.
He inquired about the tongue.
Nora had submitted a scant description of the carving. All the records were sent to the Vatican for compilation with the Atharim archives, and it seemed that the Scholars were just now getting around to analysis. That the Regus was here meant one thing. Her suspicion about the tongue was correct: it was a weapon, and she had hid it from everyone. She was terrified not that the Regus would learn about her intentional oversight, but that he somehow knew why she did it.
When he indicated that he wanted to see it, Nora panicked. If he witnessed her digging it out of obvious hiding, he would know it had intentionally been obscured. So she offered to retrieve it, saving them the trouble of traversing a dark and dirty dungeon. Just carrying its box gave her the creeps, and she was glad to put it on the floor at his feet. He asked her to open it, and her heart began to pound. The tongue was lying in its skewed position from when she dropped it, still surrounded by the rotten and moldy padding.
Then he peered at her with that intense stare of his and ordered her to hand it to him. Everyone was staring, and her parents repeated the order, worried she was going to shame them in front of the Regus himself. All kinds of excuses rippled through her mind, but all of them would make her look weak and cowardly. So she grit her teeth and grabbed the thing like a snake striking a mouse and gave it to the Regus. Warmth and whispers flooded, but nobody else seemed to notice them.
She breathed a huge sigh of relief when he took the tongue into his hands.
He turned it over, reading the language inscribed upon it as if it was his mother voice.
“Grant your voice to me.” He intoned.
Nora was grateful the hidden script remained dormant.
The priest opened a new box, this one lined with modern padding and locks into which the Regus deposited the tongue.
“That was the Tongue of Baal,” he explained as the priest locked it inside. “It will be transferred to more secure holdings at headquarters. Well done discovering it, child.” He turned his steely attention back to Nora, who did all she could to keep her face still and bow her head in reverence.
The Tongue of Baal was brought back to France during the Second Crusade by Sir Anselm de Saint-Clair, a younger son of Count Saint-Clair who had joined the Templar knights in their holy campaign as an Atharim hunter. According to family records and Atharim lore, Sir Anselm discovered the relic hidden deep within a crumbling temple in the Levant, guarded by monstrous figures who were said to be cursed servants of Ba’al Hadad. The artifact’s aura and the strange, inscribed script etched into its surface immediately caught the knight’s attention. Believing it to be a powerful weapon or a sacred object of immense significance, Anselm retrieved it at great personal cost, losing several of his men during the encounter. Smuggling the relic back to Europe, he entrusted it to the family upon his return. Over time, the artifact was hidden away in their ancestral holdings until it was all but forgotten.
“Thank you Regus,” she said, genuinely grateful that he was taking it away.
The following week, Nora was invited to a conclave at the Vatican to take her oaths, but she fell ill again. Fever gripped her, worse than before, and the sickness delayed her ceremony significantly. She sent a message to Grym, inviting her to attend, but no response came. The silence felt like an ache, deep and hollow.
In the years that followed, Nora threw herself into her work. She steadily climbed the ranks, completing tasks of increasing responsibility. She applied for and was granted passage to the Holy Lands on behalf of the Atharim. The assignment lasted nearly six months until civil unrest in the region, known as DV, forced her to return to Europe prematurely. The experience left her restless. Her application for a post in Africa was similarly denied, and frustration bubbled under her skin. She wasn’t a huntress anymore, not officially. But she could defend herself, and she made sure the Atharim knew it. Still, her arguments fell on deaf ears.
It was then that she heard the rumors: Grym was in the southern region of what had once been Poland, hunting in the rugged Sudety and Carpathian mountain ranges. The area was stable, largely untouched by the instability that plagued so much of Europe prior to its incorporation into DII. Nora saw an opportunity and leveraged an errand—documenting holdings hidden away during World War II—as an excuse to travel to the region. In truth, she didn’t care about dusty scrolls or buried nazi treasure. She searched for her mentor. But by the time she arrived, Grym was gone, having moved on to Moscow.
When Nora arrived, the Convocation was underway, called at the behest of the Regus himself. The announcement sent a ripple of unease through the Atharim: the gods had returned, and the order was reorganizing to combat this unprecedented threat. For Nora, the news was like a thunderclap, a horrible weight pressing down on her chest. She felt an inescapable sense of doom.
Before she left HQ, the Regus summoned her to his chambers. His presence was as intimidating as ever, his piercing gaze seeming to strip away her defenses.
“I am glad to see the Saint-Clairs remain as loyal as ever,” he began, his voice heavy with authority. He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly. “You know, the Tongue of Baal might be a formidable weapon, but my Scholars have never deciphered how to activate it.”
The words hung in the air, sharp and probing. Nora felt the weight of an unspoken question pressing against her, though she couldn’t tell how much he knew. Forcing herself to remain calm, she blinked and nodded solemnly.
“Well, should you think of an idea,” the Regus said, his tone carefully neutral, “do share it.” He dismissed her with a casual wave, and Nora bowed her head before leaving.
Relief washed over her, but it was short-lived. As she walked away, her thoughts churned uneasily. Did the Regus know she concealed information? Did he suspect anything?
But there was no time to dwell on it. The Atharim were at war, their Scholars frantically poring over ancient prophecies and inventory logs in a desperate bid to find weapons capable of fighting the gods. And though she buried her fears deep, Nora couldn’t shake the sense that the Regus knew far more than he let on.
Nora spent a great deal of time in the digital archives of the Baccarat-based HQ. She glimpsed people that were far more important than she, even as a Saint-Clair, such as the Archangels and infamous hunters. She yearned to join them, not necessarily to confront the gods, but to do something meaningful. She yearned for action.
Nora had no intention of ever returning to the Atharim after the fire in the Moscow HQ. The memories still haunted her—the smoke and flames consuming the archives, the walls cracking and falling apart as if the wrath of God Himself had come down to erase them. She had doubled back to save an ancient scroll she had been working with, and in doing so, she had been trapped.
That was when it happened. She had screamed, panicking as fire roared around her, and in her desperation, she willed the flames to part. To her astonishment, they obeyed. The fire shifted like a curtain, opening a path through the inferno for her to escape. Even as she stumbled out of the burning wreckage, her mind reeled with disbelief. The warmth in her body, the same warmth she felt when she touched the Tongue of Baal years ago, surged within her again. That was the moment she knew: she was a god.
She fled, terrified of the implications.
The next day, she was violently ill. Fever raged through her body, leaving her barely able to stand. Hallucinations blurred the lines between dreams and reality, and whispers filled her mind like a choir of unseen voices. She thought she would die until Grym, her long-lost mentor, found her.
It was Grym who saved her life. She nursed Nora through the worst of the Sickness, feeding her, cooling her fever, and keeping her safe from prying eyes. When Nora regained enough strength to speak, she finally told Grym everything—the Tongue of Baal, the whispers, the dreams, the fire, and the impossible parting of the flames. She confessed the truth about her powers and the horrible, unshakable knowledge that she was no longer human.
Grym listened in pained silence, her stoic demeanor cracking for the first time since Nora had known her. When Nora was finished, Grym spoke softly. “You’re one of them. A god.” The words sounded foreign in her voice.
Nora looked away, shame rising in her chest. “I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask for it.”
“I know,” Grym said, her voice heavy with conflict. She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “But the Atharim… they won’t care about what you want. They’ll hunt you, Nora. Just as they’ve hunted others like you. And when they find out what you are—” Grym stopped herself.
“I know,” Nora said bitterly. “They’ll kill me.”
Silence fell between them. For a moment, Nora dared to hope that Grym might suggest a way to stay hidden, to live in peace off the grid. But Grym's next words were something else entirely.
“There’s another way. There’s a group—an organization. The Brotherhood of Ascension.” Grym’s expression was unreadable as she continued. “They help gods like you survive the Sickness. They’ll teach you to control your powers.”
Nora blinked, stunned. “The Brotherhood? Aren’t they just another cult worshiping some false messiah?”
“They’re more than that,” Grym said. “According to the news, they’re saving people like you. And more importantly…” She paused, meeting Nora’s gaze. “They’re the only ones with the resources to keep you alive. Without their help, the Sickness will kill you. I’ve seen it before.”
Nora recoiled at the suggestion. The idea of joining the Brotherhood disgusted her. Everything she’d heard about them painted them as zealots, people willing to bow to Ascendancy like a god. And yet, the Sickness had nearly killed her already, and Grym’s words held undeniable weight. If she stayed on her own, the next fever might very well claim her life.
“I can’t,” Nora said, shaking her head. “I can’t join them. They’re insane.”
“They’re not insane, Nora. Misguided, maybe. Dangerous, certainly. But they’re not insane.” Grym leaned forward, her tone hardening. “Do you want to die? Because if you don’t go to them, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And even if the Sickness doesn’t kill you, the Atharim will.”
That thought struck Nora like a hammer blow. She had devoted her life to the Atharim, to the Saint-Clair family legacy, and now the very people she had spent years serving would see her as a threat to be destroyed. The betrayal stung worse than any wound.
She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t want to be one of them.”
“You don’t have to be,” Grym said quietly. “You don’t have to join their cause. But you do need their help, Nora. Use them. Learn to control your powers, survive the Sickness, and find your footing. Then you can decide what to do.”
Nora looked up at her mentor. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Grym said, her voice firm, “you can take their help without becoming one of them. The Atharim failed to stop the return of the gods. Now they’re scrambling to figure out how to fight them. Someone needs to make sure the Brotherhood doesn’t become what the Atharim fears. You can do that from within. You can stop them before they grow too powerful. You can make a difference.”
The idea was insane, reckless, and utterly terrifying. But it was also strangely liberating. For years, Nora had yearned for a purpose beyond the dusty tomes of the Atharim archives. She had dreamed of action, of being part of something larger. Now, standing on the precipice of two warring worlds, she saw an opportunity to carve her own path—a path neither bound by the Atharim nor consumed by the Brotherhood.
Nora stayed with Grym for several days, pondering the decision. At last, she nodded. “I’ll go. But on one condition: if the Atharim asks, you say nothing. Not until I know more.”
Grym agreed, though her expression remained solemn. “Lux et umbra, Nora. Whatever happens, you’re still a Saint-Clair. That name means something.”
Nora didn’t respond. The weight of the Saint-Clair legacy settled on her shoulders like a mantle. She wasn’t sure what her family would say, or how they’d react when she told them her plan. But she knew one thing for certain.
“I am Nora Saint-Clair,” she whispered to herself. “And if the Knights of old could go to war, then so can I.”
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