A month after the test of awareness, Ezril and his brothers had grown out of their induced silence. Ezril, growing out of his earlier, maintained the silence not to offend his brothers. After all, his fears weren’t new to him. He faced them most nights. But the throne was new.
The old man he’d shared a shelter with had narrated a story that had a throne that fit the description amply. If Ezril was not mistaken, it was the throne of the king who led the Scorned. The king who’d lost. In the man’s tale he had described the throne as the envy of men and worthy of anger from the gods. It had reached the skies and pierced the heavens—metaphorically speaking. But he knew nothing of the swords.
Regardless, he was more than satisfied to blame the anomaly on the old man’s tales. He couldn’t ponder too much on what else it could be. He didn’t have the time. The seminary already took more than a lot from him. If he wasn’t thinking of how to survive Talod, he was thinking of how to defeat Baltar.
The month saw him awake at night to the sounds of cries and sudden night terrors. The occasional creaking consolation of Salem or Divine’s bed grew rarer but never really stopped. Surprisingly, the darkness visited Ezril’s dreams the least now. Notwithstanding, their training continued under the priests, their performance showing obvious progress.
It was a few months after the test that a new dread haunted them.
Everyone had grown out of the test and returned to their daily lives, but Divine always seemed to pretend to have grown out of his. Ezril would often catch the boy staring at nothing, lost in thoughts as the brothers engaged in friendly banter before they were required to turn in for the night.
On one night, while returning from his escapades, Ezril ran into Divine at the foot of the tower stairs, staring into the darkness of the night.
“You do know that’s the best way to get caught and punished, right?” he said as he approached the stairs.
“A nice night to you, too, brother,” Divine returned, cheerily.
Divine was fond of calling everyone brother, just like the rest of them, except for Salem whom he always called by name. Thus, the title was a natural one to Ezril.
Finding himself with nothing else to do, Ezril propped himself on one of the steps. He settled beside Divine, joining him in his survey of the night.
“You and Olufemi are quite close,” Divine said into the night after what seemed a thoughtful while.
Ezril wasn’t certain how to react to the boy’s statement. It was an obvious fact. Divine bringing it up proved no more troubling than if Father Talod himself had brought it up.
“Yes,” he replied, thumbing the medallion hanging from his neck. “I guess you could say that.”
“Ever wondered what life would be like without him?”
The question puzzled Ezril but he played along. “Sometimes.” He knew he cared for Olufemi, as Tolin had cared for him, but he could live his life easily were the boy not in it… he hoped.
“I see,” Divine mused. “Salem is a good person, even though he often gets carried away when he sets his mind to something.” Divine smiled. “He’s strong… you’re all strong; you’ve all gotten over the test, as expected. But I still can’t. There were things I never wanted to see again… things I…”
Ezril understood the concept of never wanting to see something again. But what he never wanted to see again had a habit of always wanting to see him, and he had no say in the matter.
At least, I’ll never be alone in the dark.
“I had a brother once,” Divine continued after a while. “When we were little our dad left us and our mother for another woman. We suffered for a long time before mother started bringing in money for the house. She would often be gone the whole night and when she came back she would smell of alcohol. My brother and I couldn’t complain much for it. Then she started bringing her work home; one man after the other. One man every week. Sometimes two. They would keep my brother and I up at night making noise while they lay together. She enjoyed it, y’know…” he let out a mock laugh. “She lost her soul to depravity. We had to listen as three… sometimes four men would lay with her. The good thing was we at least never had want for food. Then one night, one of them came into our room. We struggled and screamed but no one came.” Tears rolled down his cheek as he looked at Ezril. “You have to understand, there was nothing else we could do. We were just children, and he was a grown man. If we could’ve handled it more peacefully, we would’ve. It’s not our fault we couldn’t. It’s not our fault he died.”
Ezril knew of men who laid with other men in the Underbelly, but none of them boys. Divine was fragile but Ezril wouldn’t have guessed the life the boy was telling him was his own. He always just seemed timid. To learn that he already had the burden of death on his soul, and at so young an age, was a difficult truth to bear. No one deserved the guilt of taking another’s life. Not at so young an age.
“That was the night we decided it had gone too far,” Divine continued, “So we abandoned the food and the shelter and ran. Our mother who was meant to protect us had endangered us, served us up to those monsters herself. We ran away from home one day and lived in the streets. It was a horrible experience, Ezril. I don’t know if you know what it’s like. There’s no promise of a next meal. The other children are wicked and mean. Every night is cold. Every day is cold.
“I was lucky enough to run into a priest one day while he was passing by. I stopped him and told him my story. When he came to me and my brother we were saddled with two surprises. One, if I was Hallowed, then I was not my mother’s child. Did you know that mothers of the Hallowed die at child birth?”
Stolen novel; please report.
Ezril shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“Me either. It seems it has something to do with all the nin that we require. The Hallowed have more than four times the nin a normal person has and we get it from our mother’s life force.”
Ezril remembered hearing something of that nature but couldn’t remember where he’d heard it. The mothers of the Hallowed regardless of if she was Hallowed, did not live past childbirth. It was part of the reason the Hallowed were so hated.
“Unfortunately, my brother did not have the luck of having the potential of being Hallowed. He was normal, not fit for the seminary. I chose not to go with the priest then. If my brother couldn’t be taken from that life with me, then we would go through it together.”
Ezril could only imagine the dedication it required. He’d never had to make such a decision before. Besides the night he’d first met Lenaria and tried to save her, he hadn’t ever truly made an important decision before being brought to the seminary. Even then, the choice to try and save Lenaria hadn’t been a noble one. It had been backed by a child’s vengeance. Anger and retribution had clouded his mind.
“My brother had other ideas, though,” Divine continued. “He wanted better for me. He convinced me and I chose the seminary. I went with the priest and he brought me here. I left my brother, Ezril. I know it was what he wanted, but it changes nothing. I left him to that life and came to a better one, alone. Still, it was nice for a while. I met Salem on my first day.” For the first time in a while Divine smiled. “And the guilt faded slowly as I came to know him. For some reason he kept me company without saying a word. He only spoke about what I wanted to speak about. He was really nice; I don’t think I would have been able to come this far without him. He has his weaknesses, and he needs someone to look out for him. It’s something I can’t do…”
Ezril frowned, unable to hold his puzzlement back any longer. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked.
“I don’t know… Maybe because you got over the mist long before the others. Or maybe because you look like you have a lot of secrets. Sometimes all the light in the world cannot save us from the darkness,” Divine replied. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like someone well acquainted with the dark. So keep my secret from everyone, brother. Especially Salem. I don’t want him to know who I was before I met him and I don’t want him to remember me for what the mist has made of me.”
Remember you. Ezril found he did not like his brother’s choice of words.
“But you’ve been doing fine,” Ezril said. “What changed? What did you see in the test of awareness?”
Divine smiled softly. “I saw myself.”
“I may not be as close to you as Salem, brother,” Ezril said. “But I know you well enough to know that if you had seen yourself—your true self—you wouldn’t be in a bad mood. You are the purest of us. Olufemi is a close second.”
Divine cocked a brow. “I’m surprised you put your friend at second.”
“It is because he is my friend that I know he is not first,” Ezril shrugged. The innocent were not as adept at the things Olufemi was adept at. Ezril remembered the night Olufemi had spoken to him of the Atle wolf, the boy’s readiness to live a life of violence. No, he’s not as innocent as he seems.
Ezril shook his thoughts and returned his attention to Divine. “I know enough to know that seeing yourself isn’t what went wrong, brother.”
Divine chuckled. It was a sad sound. “I guess those who lie and keep secrets recognize when someone else lies and keeps secrets.”
Ezril wasn’t entirely certain if he had been insulted. He refused to dwell on it, however. Divine was sad, and going through something. The boy’s mind was more important in this moment than his feelings.
“What happened, brother?” Ezril pressed. “What did they show you inside that room?”
“They showed me nothing,” Divine said quietly. “But they told me what I had done.”
“And what was that?”
“Abandoned my family,” Divine said. He looked up and a single tear rolled down his cheek. “My brother is dead.”
Ezril’s lips pressed into a thin line. He had no words to say, no consolation to give. He’d never had a friend who’d lost someone to death. It was weak of him but silence was the only answer he had. What do you say to someone who’s lost a family?
“Apparently,” Divine continued into the silence, “he died on the side of the road, malnourished and broken from hunger. My brother starved to death while I ate mountains of food in the seminary and smiled and laughed and made friends.”
Why would they tell him this? Ezril wondered, angry. What purpose would it serve to give him this knowledge; to give him such details?
The old man’s words from the test came to him soon after: Some of your mates have, sadly, already been rendered mentally incapable of continuing with life…
“Promise me you will keep this from Salem,” Divine pleaded. “Promise me you will not let him learn of this.”
Ezril fought the urge to disagree. This sounded important. The tone in Divine’s voice sounded final, and not just for the request he was making. It sounded as if the boy was making a greater decision.
Does he mean to run? Ezril wondered. Does he mean to flee the seminary and return home?
There were no stories of people escaping the seminary. No rumors of children who’d succeeded in fleeing. And there was a reason for this. Ezril frowned as he tried to deduce what exactly was happening. Divine couldn’t escape because the priests and older seminarians standing guard at the fort’s walls would not let him.
No, Ezril realized. He doesn’t mean to flee. He means to fail the next test. If it isn’t one that will claim our lives, then the seminary will send him on his way. He will be expelled.
But was it really alright? Was it fair to the rest of them? Everyone wanted one thing or the other. But Divine was doing the same thing he’d done once. He’d left his brother once, but that had been for a good reason. Leaving his new brothers simply to punish himself was not a good reason.
Ezril shook the thought and lied with his action.
Nodding in agreement, he acquiesced to his brother’s request. Divine retreated up the stairs after that, leaving him to ponder on what he had told him.
“Look out for Salem, alright?” Divine said, his final words for the night. “He might not show it but he actually thinks you’re one of the few reasonable people in this place.”
Ezril didn’t see the point to the request. They were brothers. It was their duty to look out for each other. He would always look out for Salem the best he could. But he would have to break his promise. He would speak with Salem and they would make plans; arrange how to keep Divine from failing the next test. It meant standing in the way of Divine’s wishes, but he felt the boy’s wish was stupid.
He would not allow his brother to punish himself for a crime he did not commit.
Divine was a different person the next day, happy and jovial, playing and talking with everyone to the point of making Olufemi the most uncomfortable Ezril had ever seen the brother. But for him, Divine only spared a few words in each passing.
Ezril saw the sadness in each smile and couldn’t help but feel Salem saw it too. He wondered how long their brother could keep up the pretense.
Divine spent the night in Salem’s bed in forced peace, offering him false happiness until they all slept. Somewhere in Ezril’s dream he was certain he had heard the words “Thank you.”
He knew it had been imagined. He had felt no gratitude in the words.