They gave him a new robe when he returned from the Wound. White, stitched with wax-threaded scripture and too heavy for comfort. A crude sunburst had been sewn across the back, the rays made of tiny, sharpened bones.
Aaron hadn't asked for it. He didn't even know who stitched it. One moment he was being helped from the crater by Sister Trenaxa and two wide-eyed pilgrims, and the next, the robe was on him and people were kneeling.
He hated it.
He hated the way it fit.
He hated how the others looked at him now—not with suspicion or curiosity—but with reverence. Like he was no longer a man, just a mouthpiece. A mouth with no teeth.
He sat alone in the shadow of a rusted cathedral mech—its once-ornate armor eaten through by chemical rain—trying to scrape dried wax off his fingers with a shard of bayonet.
Trenaxa approached, carrying a roll of parchment and a steaming cup of something oily and bitter.
"Orders," she said, handing him the scroll.
Aaron stared at it like it might explode. "I don't take orders."
"You do now."
He unrolled it. The parchment smelled like blood and iron and old regret.
By decree of the March Ecclesia, under Wound-sanction, the Saint-Born Graves is to be transferred to the Forward Conviction Front, where his presence shall sanctify trench line Theta-Seven and provide morale infusion to the 33rd Redemption Corps.
Aaron looked up. "They're shipping me off?"
Trenaxa nodded. "You're too loud now. Too important. The Wound confirmed you. That makes you useful."
"I'm not a war asset."
"You're a myth now," she said calmly. "And myths don't sit still."
They loaded him onto a relic train—a land-crawler converted from an ancient locomotive, its engine powered by trapped psalms and coal that sang when burned. Inside, he shared space with relics, soldiers, and one barrel marked only with the phrase: DO NOT PRAY NEAR.
No one explained that one.
The soldiers aboard didn't speak much to him, but they looked. Always. Some whispered prayers under their breath. Some touched their icons. One man wept silently every time Aaron walked past, then saluted like he'd just seen a martyr walk by with his skin still on.
He took a seat near the back, next to a flickering reliquary lamp that burned black. A lone priest sat beside it, cleaning his weapon with strips of flayed parchment.
The priest turned to Aaron after a long silence.
"They say you told the Wound about the pigs."
Aaron nodded slightly. "I told the truth."
"They say you whispered truths, and the mud wrote scripture."
"I didn't mean to."
The priest smiled, thin and crooked. "None of the saints ever do."
Trench line Theta-Seven was not a place—it was a scar. A gouge in the earth where the dirt had turned against itself. The trenches here didn't just run parallel—they folded into each other, a spiral of barbed wire and bunkers where time bled in reverse.
They dropped Aaron off at the outer wall.
A group of officers greeted him. All wore gold-trimmed rebreathers. One held a book made of pressed skull fragments. Another held a leash attached to a voxhound that sniffed for heresy.
"Saint Graves," said the ranking officer. "Welcome to the Conviction Front. We've been blessed with your deployment."
"I was told I'm here to inspire," Aaron muttered.
The officer nodded solemnly. "We will build a shrine around your trench. Your breath shall be captured in jars and passed through the ranks. We've already circulated the wax copy of your Wound Testament."
"My what?"
"We transcribed your prophecy," the officer said, like it was obvious. "It's required reading now. Soldiers whisper your memetics before battle. Some have begun carving 'COPE HARDER' into their flak armor."
Aaron buried his face in his hands.
This wasn't a promotion. This was a canonization by viral infection.
Night fell.
Aaron was shown to his quarters—a dugout chapel lit by phosphor candles and patrolled by a scribe who recorded everything he said in case he "accidentally exhaled another verse."
He tried to sleep.
Couldn't.
Not with the sound of pig-horns in the distance. Not with the low chant of desperate zealots whispering his name like a ward.
Saint Graves.
Prophet of Plastic.
The Painter of Fire.
He rose, stepped outside, stared across the trench at the horizon where Swine banners writhed in the dark.
Something out there knew him now.
Something was listening back.
And somewhere, beneath the ash and bone and brass, Aaron felt it stir.
Not God.
But maybe worse.
Canon.