"This I swear, this I vow. By thy light which thou hast granted to me…"
Pulsating golden light was the only thing that illuminated the ancient, crumbling glyphs, the crypt which had not known light in vorns. Not until he found it. Since then, the only light which had touched the ancient, buried place was his. He would allow none of his acolytes to light it – that was his right, the Herald's right.
There were some who had called them unnatural, the Seekers which nested in these dark, enclosed underground places. Some – not many. The Herald hid himself behind a labyrinth of mysteries which few Cybertronians could penetrate. Few had seen him face-to-face. Fewer had lived.
"This, the duty thou hast chosen to mantle my wings, I taketh into myself as a piece of my own spark. Lord, know I should sooner rip it out than forsake thee."
The golden light made shifting liquid patterns across the body of the acid-green Seeker who knelt some distance behind him, wings down, head bowed as was proper. All the same he snuck a look at the shining, radiant figure in front of him, arms raised and head thrown back before the sigil of Primus which dominated the entirety of one wall, the most pristine wall.
It was, Acid Storm knew, a great honor to be here. The only acolyte the Herald had deemed worthy of attending him in these most sacred vows. He still couldn't suppress the chilled feeling running up his spinal strut, a sensation quite at odds with the heat radiating through the Temple.
"I shall restore thy child. This I swear, this I vow." The Herald was pacing now, in slow measured steps, reverently laying his hand on the wall in certain well-worn places already blackened by his touch. "He shall become one of us, a sacred vessel for thy light, greater even than I."
Acid Storm, head bowed again, listened intently. It was his first time hearing these vows for himself, but he knew the tales, as any acolyte did: the history and the prophecy. How the Herald's own brother had fled him rather than join him in forming their sacred order, despite how according to the prophecies they needed him. How the Herald had twice found him, and twice his brother had fled. The prophecies stated that the Herald's brother was greater than he, and once filled with Primus's radiant light would lead their order out of the dark places and into their rightful glory. But he had been unfaithful, and forsaken his fate. The Herald had founded their order alone, and every solar cycle renewed his vows to restore his brother, the Unfaithful One, to his rightful place.
"And if he should deny us the third time, I shall take him and cast him down by thy sacred light," the Herald intoned, his voice now raised and terrible. "For he shall have shown himself unworthy of the burden thou hast chosen to mantle his wings, and made himself into a darkness even I cannot brighten. And before thy light, all darknesses shall fade away."
The green Seeker shivered again. Sometimes the Herald unnerved him. Even he, the favored and the most faithful, had sometimes heard the other stories. The Seeker granted immense power by a laboratory accident, so immense that it shattered his mind, causing him to flee into the darkness, commanded by the whispers of his own insanity. This was blasphemy and Seekers had been killed for speaking it; but these rumors lurked in the back of Acid Storm's processor all the same, forever hidden.
He'd heard of the traitors as well, Seekers who had left to follow the Unfaithful One in his pursuit of material power. Though he knew of them, he was too young to remember Skywarp and Thundercracker, two of the first initiates and two of the first traitors. For a long time he had dismissed these stories as unimportant, the traitors as filth who lacked proper devotion – until the most recent desertion, a Seeker he'd known well. Too well. He had been Acid Storm's trinemate.
But Acid Storm had faith in the Herald, drawn like a moth to his radiant light. In the presence of that warmth, so destructive in the Herald's anger and yet so comforting in his compassion, Acid Storm could not abandon him. Those lies, poisonous as the chemicals Acid Storm had once worked with as a university student of chemistry, were darknesses, destined to fade away before the Herald's divine eternal light. This Acid Storm knew.
"This I, Sunstorm, thy first Herald, swear to thee, my Lord Primus," the Herald said, more quietly now, dropping to his knees before the sigil in a bow so deep that the front of his helm touched the ground. His wings quivered with emotion. "That Starscream thy unfaithful child shall burn to be purged of his iniquities. And if I should fail, I shall burn alongside him until the Devourer takes us all." A deep shudder ran through the Herald's body, and for a long time he was silent, unmoving. Acid Storm remained perfectly still in his position, not daring to move a servo. Long cycles seemed to pass in an instant, immaterial in the golden glow of the Herald's armor.
At last the shining Seeker stood, gazing up as if he could see straight through the many layers of Cybertron above them and into the very heavens, and Acid Storm dared to follow his gaze, tense with anticipation. "Amen," Sunstorm whispered.