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Slamming the door behind them didn’t help him unsee the bodies adorning stained chains.
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Witches. The doctor is dealing with them. She slapped a patch over the heart on his sleeve, then scolded him for disobedience. He protested, holding forth arms stained in poorly mixed ink that glowed alongside candles. Lowering her voice, her stance to eye level, she would claim he’d been playing with fireflies, and in return, he must never tell the doctor what he is. Never mention what he saw.
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But the doctor could cure him!
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Bright eyes did little to soften her own, too shadowed by sleepless nights, nor did they scratch the darkness inking stone steps, descending like cold air toward Pandora’s box now padlocked, soundproofed, banned.
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Like flame to wick, his hopeful stare gnawed at the head priestess until she snuffed it out. She told him point blank the doctor would stop treating his mother if he revealed himself. Unconvinced that someone who is otherwise so kind would resort to such wicked measures, the boy pointed a finger, brighter than the rest, down toward the chamber inside which magic-users lay strewn. He demanded to know why the doctor would then treat them. She commanded that he wash off his mess, lest she punish him for desecration.
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Later that evening, against all warnings, the boy told his father everything. He needed advice from someone whose devotion to the Holy One would steer him toward telling the truth. His father, however, only echoed the pleas made by the head priestess.
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It made zero sense to the young son why, if she hated them so badly, the doctor kept witches in the temple. Desperate, his father cried out that if the boy wasn’t careful, he’d soon find himself beside them.
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Blades and needles flashed. If the doctor wasn’t helping them… then what was she doing instead?
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His father requested in an old, weary voice to not make him explain.
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The next morning, he waited outside his mother's room until the doctor finally came out. He asked her directly what she was doing yesterday. She told him she was being a doctor.
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Treating their wounds?
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Rather than respond, she waved him to follow.
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Huddled in the basement dew were a fresh batch of unfamiliar faces. Assisted by lower ranked priests, the doctor wore a slaughterhouse smile as she plucked her favorite specimen. Chills froze him in place when she remarked how lovely it was to have someone so fascinated by her work. Limbs tied, gag set, and tools freshly sharpened, the doctor successfully guaranteed that this young temple boy would never touch the field of medicine.
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Tangle

Bred to retread his forefathers' steps toward the temple as priest, fed odysseys venerating his god, and wed to ideals of guiding, sheltering those who have lost their way—in a dark corner of Salem cried a boy found no longer shielded from the truth about his people.
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Years of deaf ears, blind eyes turned counter to a revolving door that was once a holy place. They practiced an accursed craft with a devil he'd later learn was mana. As the doctor spun miracles, the clergy's flywheeling moral compass helped blur the true witchcraft away. It dizzied the boy, all the gymnastics he performed in his head just to keep his sick mother alive.
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Imagine the whiplash, the slam against wall like the mildewed concrete that chilled a small frame's fresh wounds.
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The youngest of all their guests. The boy couldn't call himself a follower of the Holy One if he couldn't spare a child this horror. Past the priestess, past the doctor, he chased a guidelight dying in a tempest of heresy, fueled by burning righteousness that would slingshot him around the point of no return.
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But when he returned with key in hand, the child and doctor were gone.
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Knot

Integration with larger society proved difficult with a mind as closed as his. Still, with the doctor now missing and his village in conflict, his commitment to ripping out the root of these horrors drove forward his reeducation. Helios Knights offered him a home, though perhaps only because he withheld much of his history. Gathering strength was his foremost goal, with allies coming in second. In the meantime, his dedication to the Holy One waned only in terms of grandeur.
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Evening worship claims his favorite hour of the day. It took weeks of endlessly hounding higher powers to let him set aside a small hideaway in the headquarter's gardens. Rather than tapestries and oils, which are unapologetically lacking, curious visitors flock to the altarpiece that is Asha, knelt at his shrine, with soul laid bare and sold.