Godfrey was a soldier, not just by profession but by rite. As a brother of Mithras, he was bound by oath to his god and his fellows, and there wasn't anything of this earth that could lead him astray from his adherence to protecting the secrets of his cult–for he'd seen his god himself!

Carted in for alleged crimes of blasphemy against a new god, his hands were bound behind his back and he was blindfolded. This predicament felt strangely nostalgic to him, and Godfrey couldn't help but be reminded of his initiation.

He was in a similar position, kneeling nude, bound of the wrists and eyes, waiting for the mystery to show itself to him in the cult's cellar. Only then would the blindfold be removed, and he would be reborn as a soldier of Mithras.

The mind sees strange things when all senses are blocked from this world. Perhaps it wasn't the mystery that revealed itself to him, but he revealed himself to the mystery. After hours of waiting, he simply gave in to the echoing fears that plagued his mind to see where the deepest parts of his subconscious would take him.

A visitant appeared from the desperation of light and sound that his body created to soothe him. This figure emerged from this artificial darkness as if hatching from it, not quite a man in form, but neither a woman. Godfrey wasn't one to question the appearance of a god, so he assured himself that this was the Mithra of legends appearing before him just as he did to all of his fellow worshipers. But this vision of the god was different from what was described by others–this Mithra was golden in complexion with hair that rivaled the embers of the sun and much smaller in stature compared to the heroic bull slayer he'd seen in reliefs. This god did not wear armor, but presented himself nude too, the same as Godfrey, though without the same vulnerability in its posture. No–this god did not seem to have the same human concerns about decency, and strut towards him, its body adorned with golden chains and jewels that swung against his sundipped skin. Coming closer, he could have sworn his god had a tail and hooves, a one-horned faun that he realized was no Mithras but a deity far more worthy of his patronage by some metric Godfrey couldn't articulate.

Placing its hands on either side of Godfrey's face, the god brushed its fingertips over tufts of white hair that pushed out from under his blindfold. Lifting it with a smirk, this god forced the daylight to blind Godfrey before ever fully seeing its face. The burning intensity of the light intoxicated Godfrey from the overstimulation, and he involuntarily moaned. Coming to, he sensed the sweat running down his back and thighs as if baptized by divine contact.

But Godfrey’s present arrest did not create the same arresting feeling as this memory of giving up control as a matter of devotion. Instead, he sat chained to his fellow worshipers in fear of each and every movement made without the knowledge of where he was and what would become of him.

The cart stopped, and Godfrey, with his cult brothers, was led through a corridor that smelled more and more like frankincense and smoldering fireplaces the further they descended into the building, and this warmth scared him. Though, the cold, smooth feeling of the marble floors under his feet and the metronomic padding of their footsteps in tune with one another helped him reorient. But then they were forced to stop by the guards pulling on their chains like the leads for a horse, and the voice that greeted him threw him back into uncertainty.

"A fine raid indeed."

Godfrey could hear the curling of lips, implying the mystery voice was pleased to see their imprisonment. A sack of rattling coins confirmed it.

"Before you take these heretics off, let me speak to them. Perhaps they can be saved yet."

Light footsteps pattered for a while with slow, drawn out steps–this was the gait of one who was never asked to rush. The sound stopped in front of the man chained to Godfrey's left. He could hear delicate fabric shifting and could feel the sensation of heat radiating from the presence of this noble interrogator.

"Have you devoted yourself to our father, the creator, and the divine?"

Chains shifted, answering where the other man refused. Godfrey waited in blind anticipation; the reaction that follows would no doubt inform the way he would decide to answer.

The silence, unfortunately for his brother, was a supposed admission of wrongdoing, and without words, Godfrey heard how the other man was sentenced. The guards, men who could have been his brothers, crowded them and unlinked their chains, pulling his cult fellow further and further away despite his cries of protest.

The ripples of fabric and heat now directed itself toward Godfrey, lifting his chin toward its presence. Godfrey hated that this touch alone overwhelmed him with the same pulsating longing that felt so much the same as his encounter with the divine.

"And you, blaspheme, do you have love in your heart for our father, the creator?"

Godfrey's voice trembled. "I may..." This voice, so full of the same warmth and wrath as his god melted any hesitation or rebellion that bubbled in him. "Who is this god?" He could hear the same crinkled smirk in response to his answer.

"He is the one that created the heavens and earth! The true god that gives and takes with the same two hands. He created us in his image–" the voice came closer until it seemed as though words alone lifted his blindfold, revealing Godfrey's eye's to the same blinding divinity that he experienced at his rebirth. "–can you love him?"

Godfrey groaned, squinting in an attempt to avoid the light, but his curiosity kept his eyes open. Between the visual static of starbursts, the figure of his noble interrogator immerged–a beauty among mortals, having the voice of a catamite and the body of a maiden. It was as though the mirk was cleared from his eyes and he was looking straight into the golden heavens of the gods themselves. But Godfrey was not familiar with the patrician before him. In his years as a soldier, it was rare for him to actually see the face of those he was fighting for, and so this moment felt as though all the atrocities he'd committed were worth it for such a beauty to grace him. If he weren't already on his knees, he surely would have fallen to them.

It was at this moment that it dawned on Godfrey that the androgynous judge before him had still been asking questions, and he'd been sitting here, mouth agape, saying nothing in response just as his brother that came before him. He had to say something, and fast.

"I fight for those as beautiful as you, your Grace. That's all I can say I've devoted myself to."

This flattery turned the skin behind the young ruler's freckle speckled cheeks red, now returning the same awkward silence to Godfrey.

"You choose your words well, soldier, but we will have to investigate your devotion to our lord further–"

"Wait!" Godfrey interrupted. "Can you at least gift me with the knowledge of knowing who's taken me?" He paused, staring down the line of his fellow cult members. "And my brothers?"

This somehow pleased the interrogator, no doubt finding the fact that being so mysterious has with it its own advantages apart from not even gracing the common folk with even a glance at his perfect complexion.

"I'm Patre Elyssio, and I've been chosen to cleanse the empire of its immorality." Elyssio shifted the purple robes that draped over his shoulders. He turned his back to Godfrey and began walking toward another corridor, exposing his bare back that tempered Godfrey's courage with shame for how long his eyes fixated on the soft of the young patrician.

"Guards, take this man to my chambers. Consider this one saved for now, but my own divine tests are needed to determine his faith further."

The guards pulled Godfrey up by his shackles and tugged him over to the entryway, and he stood, still exposed, anxious for what trials lay before him.

"And let's hope he complies, lest the grace of our Lord be taken in vain," Elyssio said with a wink and stopped Godfrey with his arm extended, the back of his hand waiting for him to kiss it before his ascent to his quarters.