Chapter 21: Blessed of Truth

Father Tensril came for Sethlzaar at the rise of dawn, with the same Tarc that brought them. To Sethlzaar's surprise, he came with a sister of the convent.

Together they rode in silence with another boy Sethlzaar recognized from the Seminary but not as a part of his group. The absence of Omage left his mind fearing the worst.

The nun whom Saelin had called Sister Naele had waited outside as Father Tensril had walked into the shelter and woken them.

The walk to the carriage after, had been done in shameful silence. They shared the carriage, and at some point the nun left them, going her separate way. Alone.

On arrival at the seminary, Tensril instructed them into following him. He led them all the way to the Monsignor's chambers.

It was Sethlzaar's first time in the room, and he was surprised to find it filled with books on every shelf covering most of the walls save the one behind where Shrowl sat. The wall there held three broad swords coated in the purest of black.

Beside Shrowl stood an elderly woman in a habit. Her crosier distinguished her as the Abbess of the convent here to take Saelin or hear their story.

Tensril stood at the door and Father Ordan stayed seated at one of the corners, observing.

"You were found helping each other during your tests," Shrowl announced, calm. "Explain yourselves."

Saelin went on to describe a fairly normal ordeal up till the point where she felt she was being watched, how she survived two days on the run from her assailants before finally getting caught. She stopped after their deaths. All the while Sethlzaar noted no surprise amongst the adults in the room, the Abbess betrayed only the briefest anger. Her grey blonde hair was tied at the back and her daring green eyes took on a surprising glow so mild he was certain of her anger.

When his turn came, he told his story. He left out the old man, the ghosting he experienced with the deer, as well as Frent's involvement. He knew his omission of Frent bothered Saelin, but her silence showed her trust in his decision.

The Monsignor and the Abbess exchanged a brief glance when he was done.

"In light of your special circumstances," Shrowl said without much interest, "we see no reason to fail you both. You may leave us." He paused. "And this does not leave this room. Sister Saelin, the Abbess will come for you shortly."  It was an easy dismissal and they were led out the door.

Sethlzaar stopped. Thinking better of his story, he informed them of Frent's involvement. It drew the briefest surprise from the priests and the Abbess. But the Monsignor's face betrayed no emotion.

As he told them of leaving Saelin at the shelter and what he had done with Frent's remains Father Ordan looked at him with disgust, Father Tensril watched with caution, and the Abbess watched with pity.

"Why would you do that?" the Monsignor asked.

"It was not my intention to tell you," he replied, sparing a glance at Saelin who was waiting and listening. "I planned to keep it a secret from everyone."

"What changed your mind?"

Sethlzaar answered easily. "If I cannot trust my family, who can I trust?"

The walk out of the room was a quiet one. Sethlzaar found himself not wanting to leave Saelin to return to the convent in such a state. So he made a detour. Saelin offered no complaints, simply following him the moment he grabbed her hand.

He led her straight to the stables.

Sethlzaar often spent his time in the stable since joining the seminary. The first time had been when he had been sent to help Father Bjorg on an Elsahel. He was an aficionado of shoveling dung and replacing hay, but the horses seemed to marvel him. As big and scary as they were, they allowed him groom them, and the colts sometimes prove playful while he did. He found grooming the horses to be surprisingly calming and hoped it would prove the same for Saelin.

Saelin didn't resist when he brought her hand slowly to the head of the horse after a few strokes of the brush. She did not fear what was before her. But she was not interested in it either. Nonetheless, after he stroked its hair a couple times and snuck the brush into her hand, she took to the duty of grooming it with a certain interest, and for the first time since the ordeal, Sethlzaar saw a kind of light in her eyes. He left her with the horse, found himself a position against one of the walls, and sat there. It was a while when a voice spoke from beside him.

"What is a sister of the convent doing in my stable?"

Sethlzaar did not have to guess who it was. Father Bjorg had a way of sneaking up on him and asking such questions to initiate contact: "why are you here?" ... "whose horse is that?" ... "have you had your meal?" ... "are you in trouble?

Sethlzaar never found such entrances tiring.

"Good eve', Father," he replied.

Father Bjorg moved so that he stood before him.

Bjorg was a huge, domineering man, muscled from his time spent with the horses. The hair on his hair was cut as short as a third of a finger span. Like most of the Fathers in the seminary, his eyes had a look to them. But it was not something intimidating, rather something soothing.

Sethlzaar found long ago that he liked talking to the priest. His eyes traced where Father Bjorg had come from. At its origin was the closed entrance to the Kennel.

"Your mate, Alsipin, brought back a wolf," Bjorg said. "It wouldn't obey him when it woke, so he left it behind. I told him he can come visit whenever he has the time."

"And you?" Sethlzaar asked. "Does it listen to you?"

"No." Bjorg shook his head. "I offered it a piece of meat and the animal wouldn't even come near me. So I left a prey in its confines. Hopefully, the space won't be too small for it to hunt, and it..." Bjorg paused. "Would you like to see?"

Sethlzaar shook his head before returning his gaze to Saelin. Right now, a wolf was not his concern. Saelin had a small smile on her face as the horse she groomed began nudging her with its head.

"So, why is she here?" Bjorg asked again.

"After the test she didn't look so well so I brought her here to help."

"Seems to be workin." Bjorg rubbed his neck. "You abuse your power," he noted. "Do you like her that much?"

The question took Sethlzaar by surprise. He was always free with the priest, almost always letting his guard down. But he was no fool.

"Not really," he replied. "She is a good friend though." In truth, he had missed spending time with Saelin, but he wasn't sure if he liked her the way Bjorg insinuated.

He didn't feel like he did.

"I see." Bjorn frowned. "But you want to protect her."

"Yes."

"You have not forgotten, have you?" Bjorg asked.

Sethlzaar knew exactly what he referred to. "No, Father." Bjorg gave him a searching look, and he added, "We are Blessed of Truth."

"And..." Bjorg encouraged.

"To the credence, our life is offered," he finished not too happily as he understood what it meant in the context.

Bjorg sighed. "You won't be able to protect her outside these walls." He studied Saelin. "Your purpose will not let you."

And what purpose is that? He knew exactly what it was, and feared it all the more. She will not always be like this, he assured himself as he watched her. She will be stronger. He refused to believe she was merely the vulnerable child before him. He'd seen proof of it not so long ago. I am not here to protect her, and neither is she to protect me.

Bjorg turned abruptly. "There is something I must do. Are you sure you do not want to see the wolf?" Bjorg offered once more as he rose to his feet.

Sethlzaar declined a second time.

The man sighed. "Do not stay too long." And with that he returned to the kennel.

Sethlzaar and Saelin were left alone, with the horses.

At some point, the sun began its descent and Sethlzaar knew it was time to leave. He raised his head and saw Saelin walking towards him. He saw a little of who she was had returned. He rose to his feet before she reached him and dusted off his cloak.

"Time to go," he informed her.

Deeming it necessary to return to the Monsignor's chamber, they headed there. They made their way through the compound and Sethlzaar noted how she followed without protest. He knew she needed no guidance this time.

All around them the new and old boys trained in their different arts as their lives in the seminary went on. The boys snuck the briefest glances at them, bearing the brunt of the priests' fury when caught.

If I die, I, too, would not make a difference, Sethlzaar thought. How many people would ever learn of what happened to Frent?

The Abbess was waiting at the entrance of the monsignor's chambers when they arrived. She spared him a curious glance without words before she took Saelin. Together, they the seminary.

Alsipin, Cenam, Takaris, Soartin, Narvi and Omage where present in the room when Sethlzaar entered, all engaged in discussions aplenty save Cenam, as usual.

Cenam made for the door and pulled Sethlzaar in an embrace before he had time to register his own presence in the room.

"I feared you wouldn't make it," he whispered. As normal as he was to Sethlzaar, Sethlzaar fought to remind himself that his brother very much wasn't.

Hands placed on both of Cenam's shoulders, Sethlzaar pulled away from the hug. He patted him on the shoulder. "Well..." He smiled. "Here I am, brother."

After Sethlzaar made his way to his bed, it took but a moment for him to realize they had been talking about their ordeals. Omage looked the same size as when they had left, but the others had clearly suffered the hunger of the winter test.

Cenam, not surprisingly, had grown bigger.

"... when I found it," Alsipin was saying, "it was sleeping. There were other wolves but they were dead."

"What did you do about them?" Takaris asked.

Alsipin seemed puzzled by the question. "I took a few back with me, obviously," he answered. "But I didn't need to finish one before they came for me the next day."

Soartin scoffed in disgust. "Maybe that's why it doesn't like you; it can smell its friend on you." It made Sethlzaar wonder if the boy had not borne the full weight of the test.

They exchanged stories till the moon came out. Before long Orctis arrived with a message from Father Ordan informing them that it was the last day for those who would be considered to have passed the test to arrive, before requiring them to put out the lights.

The entire room was soaked in darkness, and Soartin's fear.

Canabi was yet to return.

Takaris spoke of how he had encountered two travelers and helped them survive the blizzard, housing them in his shelter. Omage's story was uninteresting.

The only unexpected part of Cenam's story was when he spoke of seeing an old man walking and singing in the snow the day they came for him, and how he had lost sight of the man as he followed, which was unusual for Cenam as he was known never to lose his prey.

Sethlzaar, however, found himself wondering if it was the same man he had spent his test with. The likelihood of it proved too high for his comfort. At least it seems he's alright.

Footsteps came from the stairs as the night aged, and they waited in suspense for who it was.

"Three apples say it's Frent," Omage wagered.

Sethlzaar took the wager. "Deal."

The moment the body walked into the room they all knew Omage had lost. The boy was smaller than Frent as he hunched in fatigue. Soartin was out of his bed, like an arrow from a bow. He bolted for the door before anyone could say anything. But while Sethlzaar could see who it was, the others simply knew.

"I'm so sorry," Canabi sobbed in Soartin's embrace as he lowered their brother to the floor.

Soartin stroked his hair gently and let him sob. "You have no reason to be sorry," he consoled him.

Canabi's sobs did not subside. "I found Dronavi," he whispered softly, but was loud enough to hear.

Dronavi was a boy from one of the other towers. They didn't know him well enough, but they'd known him enough to recognize him by appearance.

The room waited in silence for the rest of the story.

Found? Sethlzaar noted. He doubted he was the only one.

"He was frozen in the snow..." Canabi continued between sobs. "I couldn't help him; I didn't even try to. I found his shelter nearby, but he had no food. So I left him without as much as even taking his body inside."

"You did what you had to, to survive," Soartin continued in his consolation. "You might have died too if you had tried to help him."

Sethlzaar wondered how many in the room knew what he knew. He lied very often, and was good at it. Good enough to know a lie when he heard one. Not only was Canabi's story incomplete, there was also a lie in it, perhaps an omission. Whatever it was, it was important.

Soartin led Canabi to his bed. All the while he glanced at everyone as though challenging them to judge Canabi for what he had done. No one did.

Sethlzaar could only guess the reason for Canabi's guilt was not in what he hadn't done for their frozen brother but what he had done to their frozen brother. Canabi might not have been honest, but Sethlzaar understood his actions. We do what we must to survive.

Later Sethlzaar fell into a slumber. He let the darkness come upon him. An ally in the waking world. A foe in his sleep.

The yellow eyes stalked him as he ran aimlessly in the dark, the hilts ever present in the scabbards it made, demanding he draw them, the presence of the other unknowns ever watching. But something was different. In the silence of the dark he could feel the presence of a single sound growing. A voice speaking words like a mantra...

He stopped in his tracks. A frown assuaged his lips. The words came to sound. You cannot save her from what is to come.

Sethlzaar dared to look up. He knew he shouldn't have, but compulsion played the strongest tricks. He came to face a sight he'd hoped against.

Frent's face hovered before him, all-encompassing. The yellow eyes drew closer from behind him but did not have much of his attention. He was trapped as Frent's face offered him a bleeding smile.

He woke with a fear, gripping his bed as hard as he could. He heard a groan to his right and realized that Narvi, too, found disturbance in his dreams.

"I will protect her," he swore. He didn't know to whom he swore it; Truth, the room, his brothers, or maybe the gods the old man spoke of in his tales. But it did nothing to hinder the weight of his words.

So he closed his eyes and waited for his feared dreams to take him again. Father Antuas words hovered in his mind as they did: a man is his word.

Sleep took him again. And so did the darkness.