The days played by torturously into a week and Ezril found himself wondering if he would survive the test as he went too long with too little food.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this life, he thought as he picked up the last of his traps and found a single rat trapped in it. How the rat had gotten to the trap in the midst of all the snow was a question he did not have the brain power to ponder upon.

Another week went by in such a manner.

Each day Ezril found an insignificant catch and had him eating meat of measly quantity. It ranged from rats to lizards and other small creatures; creatures that had no right being found in such a snow filled forest.

Each day was a day he grew thinner and weaker.

Ezril made his way back to his shelter each day. He discreetly surveyed his surroundings with each step. It was a trained habit he was yet to lose. This level of caution had been birthed on his fourth day of the test when he had first felt he was being watched.

At first, Ezril’s mind had gone to Olufemi. But such a feat in such an environment was something he couldn't imagine his brother capable of, even in all the boy's mastery in the wild. The feeling had remained with Ezril through the days that followed. Now he was beginning to think it was all in his head as he slipped into his shelter once more.

This night proved different from the others. It was a significant challenge to Ezril. After eating, he laid beside a small fire he’d built to ward off the winter cold. Wrapping his cloak tightly around himself, he closed his eyes and waited for a sleep that would not come. Even though he had just eaten, his stomach growled in protest at the size of the meal. In the first four days, taste had been a challenge when he ate. But that was over a week ago. Ezril had since grown accustomed to his situation. Taste was a luxury; sustenance was a need.

The wind blew at his blanket that protected his shelter, threatening to pull it free as it did every other night. But, unlike other nights, the blanket succumbed. It came loose, letting the howling wind in. With the wind came all the snow it could carry.

Teeth clattering, Ezril rushed back to the entrance. He raised the blanket, replaced it with numbing fingers made worse as cold wind and snow slapped against it. Done, he sat on the wet ground. The blanket came loose again. Whatever had kept Ezril going through the test ebbed.

Ezril caught a glimpse of the night beyond his fallen blanket. A blizzard, he noted in resignation. Just my luck.

After painstaking repetitions, he finally got the blanket to stay. In the brief period he had struggled with putting the blanket back up, the wind had made a mess of his shelter. His fire was gone and Ezril sat on a wet floor, in a dark night, on an empty stomach. The sticks he saved for fire were wet, making fire an unavailable option.

Ezril flexed his fingers as he laid in his cloak. It failed to bring the tingle of warmth he hoped for.

In the darkness he took stock of what he could. He didn’t have much in his shelter. His gaze wandered, noting nothing of use. Much was disappointing to note. He counted them as his eyes panned his surroundings. The soaked blanket covering the exit. The wet wood where there had once been a fire. The soaked bundles of spare wood. His quiver. His arrow. The yellow eyes watching and waiting. The cloak that served as his blanket from the cold. His….

Ezril froze.

He blinked. The action assured him he was awake. He turned his head and it moved sluggishly, the cold and his lack of will doing much to ensure it.

Fear played its part, too.

Ezril felt watchful eyes. They were the same ones that followed him all week. He’d never seen them before and never known them. But the feeling was unmistakable. Now, his memory screamed their presence. They were here with him and he begged it to be a figment of his imagination—a hallucination brought on by his fears and hunger.

Yet he knew he was wrong.

Yellow eyes watched him in the darkness. Even if for the briefest moment, he had seen them.

Has it come for me? He worried, his mind going to the bear in the test of path as well as the one that helped haunt his dreams. Over such distance… just for a lost prey? Or have my dreams followed me into my waking moments.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

His head turned and he saw nothing. Darkness shrouded everything.

Perhaps… A cynical smile spread across his lips. It came, manic. Perhaps freezing might not be a completely bad way to go.

It was a horrible joke, cracked in distaste.

No sound joined him in his shelter, besides the constant grating of the blizzard outside he was well and utterly alone. The bear had not come for him. If anything, the hunger was making him fail at distinguishing reality from what was in his head. He was glad for it, but not entirely so. The fact that there was no bear only meant he would not die too gruesomely. The winter’s chill still remained a strong possible cause of death. Ezril stretched out a bit, his body as straight as he could make it. If he died frozen, he did not want to look like a scared child when they found his body. He wanted to look like a seminarian who had seen his fate and accepted it.

"A man doesn't need fire. All he needs is a burning passion to keep himself warm."

Ezril smiled. He’d never expected Takan words to walk in his thoughts at the thought of death.

I wonder how he's doing.

He thought it and knew he didn’t care. He remained in the dark and cold, thinking no thoughts and enjoying the rondo of a baleful blizzard outside until something new happened.

There was a sound of shuffling. The sound grated at Ezril’s ears and his eyes snapped open.

The room was still covered in darkness. The winds still howled. The blizzard still continued its rondo of insanity outside the shelter. Where the shuffling had come from, Ezril did not know. How he had heard it amidst the raging blizzard, he could not fathom.

Ezril waited. His eyes grew unfocused, seeing but not noticing. His breath held. Its sound ceased in his ears. He was as still as instinct could make him.

The shuffling came again, this time to his side.

There! He sat up as it came again.

It was akin to the someone trying to make arrangements. His blanket still protected the entrance, flapping ever so gently. The snow he had molded into bricks to keep it in place did its job surprising well. But something was wrong with its arrangement. Ezril could not put his finger on it. But he was certain it had been tampered with.

I'm not alone. The realization hit him like one of Olbi’s blows.

An animal? he wondered.

His hand slowly went for his knife. He worried about how firm his hold would be, considering the numbness of his fingers. He grabbed the hilt, regardless. Slowly, he drew the blade from its sheath until it came completely free.

Ezril strained his ears, listening. It was too dark for his eyes to truly help him as it usually did.

"Have you no flames for the night, child?" a voice asked. It belonged to a man and Ezril could have sworn he knew it.

Ezril stopped. He stopped listening. He stopped searching. He stopped planning. He knew the voice. It was a familiar one, one he had heard before. It was certainly not one of his mates. The voice was too deep, too croaked… too old. It was the voice of the elderly.

He doubted it was one of the priests.

"Tis a terrible idea to wait out a blizzard without a fire," the voice came again. "Or did your new family not teach you that?"

Something about the way the voice said the word ‘family’ grated at Ezril’s memory. He scanned the darkness again. This time he used his sight. Whoever the man was, he knew him. How he could recognize him in the darkness was questionable. Ezril's eyes adjusted to darkness as he watched. All he saw was the form of a man sitting on the floor. His back was straight, his head fixed on Ezril.

Although he saw better than most at night, Ezril could never see details. He could make out shapes, forms, and even movements. But the details were never clear. Such was to be expected of the dark.

The voice spoke again, old and strained. "You have a few pieces of wood right at the corner there. And you do need a fire. If you had a flint it wouldn't be too difficult to get one going. I would do it but, alas, I have neither flint nor the command to do so.” The person coughed. When he spoke again it was as if he addressed himself. “This body’s really too old for this.”

"The wood is wet," Ezril found himself answering at last. Something about the familiarity of the voice put his mind into a state of troubling calmness. It goaded him into a response, as an elder would so easily goad a child.

"That's a load of brothel talk if I ever did hear one," the voice scorned. "Wood is wood…. Or so I've been told."

Ezril watched the form of the person move towards the pieces of wood. The sound of shuffling ensued. Amidst the persistent howling of the wind, Ezril heard the faint sound of wood upon wood as the person rummaged through them.

That's not the sound of wet wood, he realized.

He rushed over to the pieces of wood. His guest gave him space as he arrived and he rummaged through his stack of wood. Some were still wet while some proved dry, some drier than others. Ezril grabbed the driest ones. He hurried over to where he always lit the fire, cleared it of snow and as much of the wet sand as he could. He set the wood in place and looked around for his flint. He found it with relative ease. He snatched it up and struck it once. Nothing happened. He struck it again, aware of his guest patiently waiting. After a few sparks, the wood caught alight. A moment later he had a fire going. His guest’s face lit up in the glow and Ezril frowned at sharp eyes as blue as his own.

The old man grinned. "We should really stop meeting like this, child."

For a moment Ezril had half the mind to throw him back out into the blizzard.

It wouldn't take much. His eyes fixed on the man. He's frail, and weak. All I need is a little shove. He shook the thought from his mind. He wasn’t going to subject the man to the blizzard no matter how displeased he was to see him. It would be nothing short of barbaric.

He frowned, frustrated without reason. He let the frustration show in his voice when he finally spoke. The single word was bitter, and vexed as he remembered the test of the pathfinder.

“You.”