The days stretched into weeks after the test of the pathfinder. The weeks stretched into months. Ezril and his brothers trained. They sparred. They ate. They learned new tricks, and new skills. Eventually, winter came again. With it came the falling snow, coveting the grounds in the finest white. And with the snow came blizzards common to the kingdom.

No one spoke of the children who did not return from the test of the pathfinder. They were not forgotten. But they were never mentioned, as if by some unspoken rule among the boys of the seminary.

A new set of children trooped in not long after the test. They brought with them a sense of growth. Ezril and his mates thanked them for their arrival as they were finally free of the putrid chores of the seminary, most especially the chore of cleaning out the latrines.

The new children looked so young, and so small. Ezril wondered if he had looked like they did when he’d first arrived and how exactly he had survived the seminary for so long. Soon, they would grow out of it, just as he had, just as his brothers had. After all, they were no longer the confused children that had walked in through the seminary’s gate a year ago. They were now grey brothers of the seminary; seminarians. And soon the new ones would come to understand that.

Darvi was different after the test of the pathfinder. It was as if he’d experienced something they had not. He was a mystery when they had begun in the seminary, but since the test, he had grown more... alone. He still spent his free time sparring with Ezril. But he spoke less. Even Alric complained of it.

Ezril said nothing of it. Everyone had their secrets as well as their ghosts—old or new. His existed in his past and lurked in shadows. Each time he moved, he watched the darkness as he was certain it watched him. His secret was in the fact that he might be Tainted.

Since joining the seminary Ezril had developed a sort of kinship with the dark. He loved and reveled in it, even if said relationship contradicted itself. The darkness rarely left him, and his dreams were claimed by it. In them Ezril found a new feeling, like a prey hunted by predators aplenty and unknown. He sometimes found himself bolting for the torch by the door of their room. Striking a flint, he would light it at a corner of the stairs. There he would sit, waiting for the unknown to make their exit. In the waking world whenever he woke in fear, they would be the phantoms watching from the edge of darkness. So Ezril would stay in the light until he could no longer feel them.

On such nights he felt more and more like a Tainted than a potential Hallowed.

His dreams grew worse after the test of the pathfinder. The darkness of his dreams were plagued by yellow eyes that watched, and waited, and stalked. The faces beyond it, although known, troubled him not. Ezril had felt a fear for the unknown before. Now he simply wished it had remained the unknown. His new guest was more unwelcomed than whatever had lurked in his dreams before the test. So he took to sleeping with a flint in his hand.

One night, while he sat at the corner with his light, Darvi came out of the room to join him.

"Can't stay asleep?" Darvi asked, taking a seat on the ground beside Ezril.

Ezril nodded. He wanted to lie but somehow couldn't find the strength for it. It would have been easy. He found his was not the way of the warrior. While others came into the light and fought in plain sight, he preferred the dark or the distance. He was acceptable with the sword now but it paled to his prowess to release the arrow from a distance or strike when his opponent least expected.

He stole better that his peers, and lied better, too. Though, the latter was one he rarely did. Lies, it seemed, were too easy an escape. They always left him devoid of achievement in their success.

Darvi adjusted in his place beside Ezril. His eyes lingered briefly on the torch. "If you light a torch every time you wake up, you'll never win," he said to Ezril. "If the darkness is anyone's friend, brother, it's yours. I know it, and there is no one amongst our brothers who does not know this, too. So, tell me. If you are afraid of it, then what can the rest of us do in it?"

Gently, he took the torch from Ezril. He watched it with a contemplation, then produced a damp cloth and doused it. In the darkness, Darvi stood up.

Without a word, he walked back into the room.

Ezril watched him leave. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. He's always known. The realization dawned on him. With it, came a wonder. How many of them know?

The dreams never left Ezril after that night. He continued to wake in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, gripping his bed. This happened on some nights but not all nights. It was a burden he knew he would always carry. A burden that came with seeing people die, standing amongst them at a young age as their lives were taken from them. He had an experience no child should ever have. He knew this without question.

Ezril resisted the urge to light a flame as often after his encounter with Darvi. Sometimes he kept his flint where it was hard to reach before he went to bed. It served to dissuade him from running as he hoped he would be calm before the time it took to wake up and find the flint. But sometimes he succumbed to his fears. In his fear he lit fires after tearing through his things, seeking out his flint. Whenever his fear ate at him too quickly, he stole any of his mates’ if it was accessible.

It was the story of his nights within the seminary walls. The nights when he dreamed of the dark or when he wasn’t out and about.

On one cold night Ezril walked the compound on one of his nightly escapades. Talod was nowhere to be found, and he didn’t fear the priest coming out of the darkness to find him.

He stopped at one of the gardens to appreciate the silence of the night. In its cold its sky was beautiful. Stars littered it, countless as the leaves of the forest trees. The seminary was quiet, dead as it could be. It gave his mind the peace of thought. And in the recesses of it, emotions held back swelled.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He was appreciating the world around him and tempering the chaos in his mind when Olufemi popped up beside him, startling him.

"You should be more aware of your surroundings," Olufemi lectured.

Ezril gave no response. Olufemi was practically the only one of his mates who could achieve such a feat. Sometimes Ezril wondered if the boy appeared out of nowhere, or glided over the ground. It marveled him how the boy always appeared without a sound. Even now, in the silence of the night, he could still achieve the feat. It was impressive.

To the others, it was terrifying.

"Can't sleep?" Olufemi asked after a while.

Ezril nodded. "Yes."

There were nights when Ezril knew before he went to bed what awaited him in his dreams. It made him appreciate the busy days more. Whenever he got back to the room after them, the exhaustion took him. The moment he put his head to his mattress he would fall into a dreamless sleep.

The nightmares didn't come every night, but tonight was such a night.

Olufemi watched him, seeming curious. "What do you see?" he asked.

Ezril knew exactly what his brother meant. The question was of what he saw in the night. He chose to sidestep it in hopes that Olufemi would let it go. Questions never made it any better.

"Stars." Ezril shrugged. "Fruits, too, I guess."

Olufemi gave a little chuckle then shoved him playfully. "Not that,” he said. “In your dream. What do you see?"

No luck, Ezril sighed.

"Men fighting,” Ezril answered. It was another lie. “All of us dying. Is that all there will be for us?" He looked at Olufemi. “Death?”

It was a deviation from the topic. Ezril had intended to be a simple distraction, but it echoed a worry he hadn’t truly considered or come to terms with. Priests went to war against the Tainted and the Scorned. While they were Hallowed, which made them harder to kill, it didn’t change the fact that they would go to war with people who could perform feats as great as calling down fire from nothing or shooting lightning from their hands. These were the gains of using Vayla’s nin.

Olufemi grunted in affirmation. "Maybe."

There was no contemplation in his reply. It was as if he had accepted the lot, like it was who he was before he joined the seminary. Who he was bound to be. The ordeals of the seminary were not entirely unknown to the outside world. There were rumors. But to accept it so readily…

"Some people have only fights in them," Olufemi continued. 'Some are born that way. Some are made that way. And some choose that path of their own will.” He looked up at the stars, a whisper of a sad smile on his lips. “Fighting is a part of living. It may not seem right, but someone has to do it, because it must be done. And the Credo needs those who are best at it."

Ezril turned to Olufemi in surprise. He knew how much the boy hated confrontations. Olufemi had always struck him as something of a pacifist. He was no soldier. That was obvious. He rarely ever spoke of the Credo or indulged in the conversations of it—not that he indulged in any of the group conversations—so it was safe to assume he wouldn't die for it either. He was no patriot that he would die for the kingdom nor a zealot that he would die for the Credo. Yet, his words were ready acceptance of the future set aside for them by the seminary.

What Olufemi had told him after the test of the pathfinder rose in Ezril’s mind. It had bothered him a few times. Now, he took advantage of the moment to satiate his curiosity.

"Why would anyone come to this place of their own volition?" he asked.

"Volition?" Olufemi asked, puzzled.

Ezril smiled despite the severity of his question. "Their own choosing," he explained.

For all they had been through in the seminary, Olufemi was still that boy he’d met in the dining on his first day.

Olufemi’s lips creased in thought. "There is something I must learn, and something I have to do.” He shrugged. “This is the only place I can learn it."

Urden's words came back to Ezril as he pondered on Olufemi’s own. Here you will learn what it means to be a man, to protect and fight for what is yours.

Ezril doubted it was what Olufemi had come to learn.

He wondered at Olufemi’s tone. It was not one of a boy with something to protect. But he knew not what it was. Sadly, he feared he would come to wonder how much pain and suffering he would have saved them both if he had figured out exactly what it was.

Olufemi gazed at the stars in the sky as Ezril trapped himself in his mind, wondering.

"Do you know the thing about wolves?" Olufemi asked suddenly, his voice shifting into something akin to a storyteller’s.

“What’s that?” Ezril asked.

"They have a hierarchy,” Olufemi said. “The alpha leads. His decision is final. The rest simply follow. They ensure his safety and he ensures theirs. As far as I'm concerned, they possess the truest form of loyalty and do everything together." He smiled. "They can go for small prey individually. But they don't. They would rather work together and bring down larger prey. And their determination?” He chuckled. “They'll chase their prey until they can chase no more. Humans are similar, but they are not the same. Their hierarchy is a mess with no definite accepted order, no matter what they like to think with kings and priests and soldiers. And they don't possess a wolf’s level of loyalty."

His smile saddened and Ezril wondered what exactly was going through his brother’s mind. He wondered why he was suddenly having a conversation about wolves.

"Humans are social,” Olufemi continued, “but they're selfish. But the Atle wolf," his lips split into a grin, "they're lords unto themselves…” he paused in thought, looking for his next words, “like king makers. They would be Titans if they were big enough. But they are not. They grow too big and different to be a normal wolf and too small to be a Titan. They live solitary lives but sometimes can be found leading a wolf pack. In the pack they will be the biggest amongst them. Sometimes they are members of a pack, but there is always a twist when they are not leading. The alpha of the pack is usually not their alpha, but a wolf in the pack is.

"They pick any wolf to be their alpha, and follow it till the day one of them dies. If you kill its alpha, there's a chance it will kill you. There is no known way to how it chooses its alpha. Men have tried to train them, and failed.” He snorted, seeming impressed by their inability to be tamed. When he spoke again, there was a wonder in his eyes. “A true creature of the wild, Atle wolves. But they are not divine. An Atle wolf,” he looked at Ezril, “is the true definition of loyalty."

Ezril could not help but think the words were intended to be more than a lecture about wolves. There was just too much awe and admiration in his brother’s voice. It was as though Olufemi was trying to liken human behavior to that of Atle wolves, as though the perfect human was meant to possess the loyalty of an Atle wolf. There was something in the boy’s words that told him there was more to the conversation. Sadly, Ezril wasn’t confident enough to know what it was. He was certain of one thing, however. Olufemi was loyal. At least he displayed loyalty in the friendship they had.

As they dipped into silence and watched the night sky, Ezril pondered on how Olufemi and Unkuti were much like Tolin from the underbelly. They always had information and stories to tell. Where Tolin had told Ezril stories of the kingdom, of the first kings and the wars waged and the enemies conquered, Unkuti told of the Tainted, of nin and its poisons, and Olufemi told of the wild.

Ezril’s mind was filled with wonders of the Atle wolf even after they both returned to their room. He put his head to his bed and knew the nightmares would come.

They did not.

He dreamt of Atle wolves, instead.