Ezril was summoned last and he had the feeling that it was a conscious decision of the judges.

“Ezril Vi Antari,” the Monsignor summoned him to his feet.

Ezril began in vrail, hoping to spin a tale of Father Don at least half as compelling as Salem’s. “My tale is of Father Don the—”

“Brother Vi Antari,” the Abbess interrupted in the Alduin tongue. “Your tale will be quite different from what your brothers have offered.”

Ezril did not agree with the Abbess. His brothers had all presented varying stories. Although some boring, they had proved their choice of tales to be eccentric, to say the least. The priests spoken of were mavericks in the archives of not only the seminary but also the entire history of the Credo.

“… Therefore,” the Abbess continued. “We will have you give something more present. A history of recent times, so to speak.” The silence of the other judges proved that they were in clear agreement with the Abbess.

“Did you know that among all your brothers in this seminary, the priest included, you are often referred to as mistborn?” she continued. “Even the younger brothers call you brother Mistborn. Do you know why this is?”

Ezril was surprised that his mates were not the only ones that called him by the moniker.

“Yes, Abbess,” he answered. “It is because on the day of my arrival Father Ulrich found me within the mist of the North gate where I stood.”

The Abbess, clearly reading his expression of surprise, chuckled. The wrinkles around her eyes squeezed in a clear display of genuine amusement. “Do not fret, child. The sisters of the convent gossip far more than your brothers. Speaking of which, I would like to inform you that the sister you met last time is doing very well in her studies to becoming a priestess. She wishes me to pass along a message. She says ‘thank you, again, for always finding her.’”

“Abbess Lehana!” the elderly man who had sat beside her chided. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

The Abbess smiled jovially. “My apologies your Lordship”—She clearly was not sorry—“I deemed I would not find the time after the test. And you know how I do like to keep my promises to my children.”

He’s the bishop. Ezril was surprised. The man seemed to be around the same age as the Abbess and the Monsignor, and the Abbess seemed rather familiar with him. He cast his gaze to the elderly woman beside Abbess Lehana. What title of import does she hold?

“As I was saying,” Lehana continued. “Your brothers speak even more discreetly of the scars on your back. We would like to hear of its tales.”

This drew another surprised expression from Ezril. He knew his brothers had seen his scars. But while only Olufemi had approached him of its story which he had refused to give, he knew his brothers spoke about it only when he was not around. They did it so discreetly that it was only a suspicion. There was only one way the Abbess knew of it, and that was because the priests knew of it. Which meant they observed them more than they thought. His brothers all had their gazes cast down in guilt, refusing to meet the gaze Ezril cast on them. Olufemi remained unfazed.

“Do not hold it against your brothers, Vi Antari,” the Monsignor said. “All children talk. You do not have to tell this tale if you do not want to. I am sure the Abbess can find something else for you to tell.”

Ezril saw a test in the Monsignor’s words. He was uncertain of its existence, but he saw it. How could they believe him loyal if he was not willing to share something so personal with them.

Slowly, he came to a decision: This is my test.

“No, Monsignor,” he objected. “I will tell it.”

“I grew up in the city of Green Horn,” he began, falling back to Vrail. “But while I lived there, I spent most of my time in the slums. The places that lacked laws and control. In Green Horn, it is called the Underbelly.” The brief looks on his brothers faces and the elders told him the Underbelly was famous in the kingdom. “Regardless, I lived in a house with my au—a woman who took care of me. She took care of me and I saw to menial tasks in the house whenever I was not out in the Underbelly. When I started spending time in the Underbelly I had only one friend among the children who lived there. Apart from him, the children of the Underbelly were not many, fifteen at the most. In the beginning, some of them didn’t like me very much, to them I was the city kid with the enjoyment that only came by to waste their time, but Tolin always looked out for me.” He frowned at how he was forced to relegate Teneri to ‘a woman’ who took care of him. But it was necessary, the seminary frowned on a child’s inability to remember that they had no family. “My friend Tolin worked for a man in a bar, and the stories in the Underbelly said that he was going to run the bar one day. He would be…”

Ezril frowned slightly and grew nervous. He had forgotten the word for powerful in Vrail. He feared it would count against him. Regardless, he steeled his resolve, slipped out of the sentence and continued on.

“The owner of the bar often held meetings with different people and I spent enough time with Tolin to be a witness to some of them. Sometimes, while he held certain meetings, he would command most of the children working for him to stay in their rooms until someone came to get them. He only allowed Tolin freedom during such meetings. The bar owner had made a name for himself in the underbelly so those related to him in anyway were treated right by the people that lived in it. No one disobeyed his rules, no one messed with what belonged to him. And Tolin belonged to him. Thus, by extension of my friendship with Tolin, the Underbelly saw me as one of those that belonged to him.

“One night the man had one of his special meetings, and I watched in secret. The men he met with were mean and rude. They broke his rules and messed with the bar in his presence, but he did nothing. Till today I don’t understand why.” He frowned. “Maybe I never will.” The words were intended for himself.

“Tolin served them during this meeting, and one of them threatened him. They left the bar that night and the next day Tolin was found in a ditch in the Underbelly. Dead.” Ezril’s brothers’ moods dimmed, and though he saw pity on Takan face, he knew they gave him all their attention.

“I begged and begged,” he continued, “but the owner of the bar would not offer retribution even though everyone knew who had done it. He locked me up in a closet at one point where I promised retribution even upon him and cursed him in the name of Truth. By the time I was returned home, I had run out of retributions and curses. By the third day after the death, I ran out of things to say on the subject. I had not forgotten it but I had slowly come to understand that there was a lot about punishing another person that a child was not capable of.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I calmed down after that. The vengeance that burned in me like a forest fire had dimmed to a candle light. After two days I became more or less the boy I was before Tolin died. I had lost a chance at revenge and my rage had almost cost me the little good will I had gained in the Underbelly. At least that was what I thought. At the end of a week I saw the men that had been at the bar that night and my vengeance kindled to a hearth.

“I watched and followed all three of them, making certain of their businesses. Where they stayed. Who they met. I knew them down to the tavern girls they f—” he bit down on his swelling rage. “My apologies.”

When he was certain the elders had forgiven him his choice of words, he continued, “I watched them for a month, letting them see me as a normal boy who lived in the Underbelly, knowing they had not seen my face the night they had met with the owner of the bar. Towards the end of that month I was walking the streets after sneaking on my way back home like I normally did when I heard noises in one of the alleys. I went to check on it, and there they were, bullying a small girl my age. I had chosen to bide my time but the sight reminded me of Tolin and I couldn’t just watch them do it to another child.” Ezril tempered his rage, again. He remembered seeing Lenaria struggling and clawing at the hand of the man around her neck for freedom. “With Tolin it was almost acceptable, but the girl had nothing to do with the Underbelly, at the time I had thought that she was perhaps some orphan from one of the orphanages that wandered into the cesspool from the main city.

“Watching them, I knew that they were enjoying it and I stopped thinking. I picked a piece of glass from the floor as I ran into the dark alley and I stabbed the man holding her in the leg. I was just a small boy and they were grown men. I didn’t have enough power and the glass cut my palm as I stabbed him.” Ezril flexed his hands beneath his gaze, the cut was barely visible, or probably joined with one of the lines of his palms, he couldn’t be sure. “He let her go when I did, and she dropped to the ground. I think she hit her head, because she didn’t get up. There were more of them. I hadn’t seen them when I entered the alley but they came then. The one I stabbed in the leg barely flinched while he lifted me by my neck. I shouted before he squeezed but there was a rain and it drowned my voice.

“They laughed at me. Said they knew I’d been watching them, said they were waiting for me to do something stupid and I’d done it. I had given them an excuse to torture me before dumping my lifeless body in the same ditch they had abandoned Tolin. They didn’t even know his name, they called him ‘the other boy.’ I was stupid to have thought I could take them alone. Somewhere in my mind I had known I couldn’t. But I was a child and I couldn’t stand by and let them have their way with the girl. But I knew I had done nothing then. They were going to do whatever they wanted, and I would be a victim to it too. They would have their way with me and the girl.

“I could feel their eyes on me, too many eyes. But it was the sense that all of us were being watched that disturbed me. It disturbed me more than the hand that held me by the neck. The reason for this became evident when a man came into the alley. He wore a black hooded cloak over his head, and his beard was a greying white. He didn’t speak. He simply walked in, bare feet and sword raised. I thought he might be one of them but he looked too… calm, too composed, as though he was walking into his destiny. It was as if what he was about to do was the reason he was alive. His swords were black as night and hard to see in the darkness. The men who had me and the girl stood no chance.

“First, the cloaked man severed the hand of the man that held me. He just swung his sword in an arch and I fell with the hand still wrapped around my neck. The man that had lost his hand screamed, and the others came to his aid, drawing swords and knives. They weren’t slow in their attack, but he moved among them so fast I couldn’t see. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even make a sound… none of the men he fought ever made a full swing of their weapons and a few didn’t get the chance to unsheathe theirs. There no sounds of metals clashing. The men did not even defend or parry. In truth, it was more like they couldn’t, even if they tried. The man moved through them and into the alley. And only when he was done and sheathing his swords did they fall. They fell as one. The man that had held me fell on me, not the only one missing his head.

“After that, the man who had saved us picked the girl up and produced a globe. It was made of glass and it had a dark hue inside it. He tossed it to the floor and it broke. By the time I crawled out from under the body, the fire had spread and some of it was me, burning my flesh. It is the reason I have the scars. As a child, I was burned by fire. I believed he had been there for the girl. The men had simply been unfortunate to have found her… me more so for trying to save her.” Ezril unconsciously moved his shoulders slightly as if he would perhaps feel the black scars that marred his back at both shoulder blades. “The woman who raised me went looking for me when I did not return home at the usual time and she found me after sunrise but after other members of the town had seen me and the bodies. They brought me back to home and put me in my room while the adults of the city discussed.

“The woman who cared for me came into the room and asked me what had happened in the alley and I told her. She left the room after that and I believe she told the others. I could hear a few of what they said and it didn’t take long before they started voicing their opinions… killed all of them… they will think we did it… surrender the boy to them so we’ll be safe… they’ll still kill us… but we have to look out for the city… … one child for the sake of us all. Only the Tainted could do such a thing… you know what the church will do if they find out we are hiding a Tainted.

“I didn’t know for sure what their decision was, but I knew the woman who cared for me did not believe me. I had seen it in her eyes when I told her, but I had also seen that she didn’t care; that it changed nothing. I know I’ve added a bit more and wasted everyone’s time, but that is the story of the burn marks on my back.”

Ezril looked all around him and found his brother entranced in his story. It took them a moment to notice his tale was ended.

“How did you quell the fire?” the woman beside the Abbess asked.

“The rain,” Ezril answered.

“But you were in an alley.” The skin of the woman’s face creased as she frowned. “From what I know of the Underbelly of Green Horn, famous as it is for bad reasons, all their houses have wide roofs that touch each other.

She was right and Ezril couldn’t argue the point.

“I crawled to the entrance,” he replied. “The man helped me out… I don’t know. My back was burning, I passed out. The woman who cared for me was the one who told me that I had been found at the edge of the alley.”

“Brother Vi Antari, can you show us your scars?” the Abbess requested.

Ezril turned his back to them. He took off his shirt and displayed his scars. He heard one of them gasp. He couldn’t tell who it had been.

“What burned you was no mere fire. You were burned with shadow fire and glass is the most common method of storing it if someone wishes to move around with it,” the Abbess told him. “It is not anything I would wish on even my enemy.” Her voice was compassionate when she added: “I do apologize for making you relive such a memory.”

She turned to the other woman now, her voice almost scornful. “I do believe the boy would not know how he made it to the edge of the alley. The fact that he remembers most of the event is evident of how important it is to him. Shadow fire is not something to trifle about, Mother superior.” Then she addressed Ezril again. “It must not have been easy. Again, I do apologize.”

Turning, Ezril faced the judges and put his shirt back on. “There is no need for one, Abbess.”

The faces of the others, although stern, had softened. They didn’t seem as hardened as when they had entered the room.

…………………………

After Ezril and his brothers were dismissed, they trooped to their room, Father Talod having informed them that there would be no training for the day.

“Is it true?” Takan asked as they ate a dinner of meat and stew and bread so soft it almost melted in their mouths. “The shadow fire, not the story.”

Ezril spared him a brief look, then returned to his food, silent.

“I’m sorry,” Takan added, realizing there would be no answer. It wasn’t much by the boy’s standard, but it was something.

Ezril took his apology in good faith.

Aunt Teneri had not believed him but she hadn’t cared. The city had not believed him and he had become a pariah in it. They had debated his life against theirs and had chosen. But it seemed his new family did. It satisfied him. But satisfaction wasn’t all he felt from it. Whatever else touched him left a twitch on his lips. It wasn’t necessarily a smile. Perhaps it could’ve been a facsimile of one. But that didn’t matter.

Anyone watching would’ve called it one.