The parish house stood behind the church. It was a massive building fashioned from brick, and designed in varying colors. It gave the building an extravagant beauty. Ezril always wondered how the kingdom lived in buildings of brick with a certain civility to them while the seminary was drowned in stone towers that gave a sense of how the kingdom might have been during its conception. Now, he only wondered why a building would be so decorated. He saw it as a form of vanity the church taught against.
Behind the parish house, however, was a smaller building. Not so tall, and terribly simple, it reminded Ezril of the housing the rich offered their servants in Green Horn. It was a room in this building he had been allocated.
Opening the door to his room, he stepped inside, and shut it behind him. Shade raised its head in response from its place atop his bed. It was fond of occupying it when he was away, willingly relinquishing it only when night came.
Shade had grown. Its grey black fur was so great Ezril’s hand could disappear within it. It’s shoulder height was barely above his waist. It was not a wolf anyone could carry. At least, not anymore. It had changed over the years it had followed him. But where everything changed, the blue of its eyes remained, never changing. It was always assessing, watching.
Waiting.
Four years, Ezril thought as he sat beside Shade and the bed dipped further under their combined weight. You will follow me a while longer. If it was a command or a question, he truly didn’t know.
After a while, he shrugged off his boots, rose from the bed, and looked around. The room was spacious, comfortable enough for two people.
The floor was made of marble and he traced the sole of his feet over it. It was cold to the touch. The sensation was not new to him. What he was about to do was something he had done almost every day since he arrived at the parish. Gently, he measured his strides. Three simple steps led him to the center of the room.
He stood there for a moment, and for a while all he could feel was the cold of the marble floor. He felt it travel up his feet. It crawled beneath his skin, but never went beyond his muscle. It was a difficult task to let it travel the path he set for it as he allowed the sensation travel up his body as if drew it from the floor. For a long moment, all Ezril could feel was the cold. It was the way it always was.
Slowly, his surrounding spilled into his mind. The air in the room was still, barely swirling around him. Where the air had been warm he felt its heat as it caressed his face and hands while it gently crawled its way into his hair. The room seemed to meld into one ignorant of the noise outside its walls. Even Shade’s breathing melded with it, combining in a harmonic silence. It was a silence Ezril could hear loud and clear.
Next, his emotions seeped into his mind, whole and in their entirety as they always did. Each one was a part of the other. But this was not what Ezril was looking for, what he sought was deeper than this.
Reaching into the depths of his mind, he probed deeper. The emotions he sought lay at the bottom. Seeking them was like dipping his hand into a pool of water. A lake that left the tips of his fingers frost bitten. It was not the type that came with any amount of ice or cold.
The old man, Cyrinth, had said something about the stand. Ezril remembered his conversation with Cyrinth. It had been brief as time had not been on their side, but there’d been time enough, regardless. It had been enough to learn a few things. Slowly Ezril’s mind folded on itself, warping everything he felt as he drifted into his memory. Then he was pulled back into that gentle evening before the test of the Hallowed.
……………………………..
Ezril’s hand almost lay in Cyrinth’s when the rumble came. It was the snarl of a predator, teeth bared in warning. Ezril turned to see Shade watching Cyrinth with a fury worse than any he had seen before. It was a fury that spoke of impending death, a death not grown from the need for sustenance. It was simply plain and unadulterated fury.
Cyrinth frowned and took a significant step away from Ezril, leaving his hand hanging in the air.
The old man watched Shade with caution, but there was pity in his voice when he spoke, not fear.
“Atle wolves,” he said. “Loyal to a fault.”
Shade stalked over to Ezril’s side, never taking its eyes off Cyrinth. The old man took another deliberate step back, and stopped there. When he spoke again it was decisive.
“You cannot follow me, child.” His age poured out of the words. “It seems your wolf will not allow it.”
“What about the step?” Ezril asked, unable to find any anger towards the Shade, even if he felt he was meant to be angry.
“The stand makes it easier to attain it,” Cyrinth said. “But it is not the reason for it. They both exist independent of each other.”
“That doesn’t help me,” Ezril argued. “I already know the stand. It’s the step I need.”
Cyrinth tapped a finger to his temple. “But in there you are depending on the stand, as your priests would have you do.” He retreated another step. “When you use the step, remember that it is not all about the toes. It will hurt when you do it properly. The toes will sting and burn and so will your legs. What you have to remember is that you have one body. The burden is not only for your legs. Share the pain.
“The step is far more about the body than it is the mind or your legs,” he said, then he spread his arms majestically. “This generation has forgotten the purpose of the stand. Now they settle for understanding their emotions. You must learn to sacrifice whatever you can for something if you want it badly enough.”
Ezril took a step towards the old man. “What do you mean? How have we forgotten?”
“I will give you a piece of advice, Ezril Vi Antari.” There was an odd power in the way Cyrinth said his name, like a king speaking to his subjects. “The stand helps a man understand himself by understanding and controlling his emotions. But it serves a greater purpose. It seeks to find something all men possess but fail to display.”
Those were the only things Cyrinth had left him with that night. Ezril had gone on to spend another few hours practicing the steps. He looked out for the pain Cyrinth had spoken of until he felt it, then he learned to share it with his legs. When it was too dark to remain outside, he had returned to the seminary with a mild understanding of how to share the pain.
As Ezril returned through the mist, he wondered what Cyrinth meant about the stand and the emotions it was supposed to govern. But one thing was certain: he had to first understand all his emotions. Even the ones that threatened to consume him.
………………………………
A knock pierced a precise hole in the silence and Ezril fell from the state he had settled himself into. He staggered briefly before he caught himself.
“Brother Antshari.”
It was the parish cook, Ulni. No one else spoiled his name so generously. Though he could blame her; her brogue was already ghastly on the Alduin tongue before he came to the church. His name was merely one of many victims.
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He heard another set of footsteps before he heard Sister Alanna’s voice. “Is that his dinner?” she asked. “Give it here, I’ll take it to him.”
“Thank you, Shishter.”
The knock came again and Ezril opened the door. He wondered how long he had been enthralled in the stance. The absence of the sun was no surprise to him. These days the stand often stripped him of time as much as it did other things. It had only begun when he had started his spiritual year and he worried that the loss of time whenever he used it was not supposed to be so great. He would ask Cyrinth about it when next he met the man.
Ezril frowned at the thought. It seemed that he had somehow accepted that meeting the man again was inevitable and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
Alanna greeted him with a friendly smile. She was always happy whenever they were alone. She slipped the tray into his hands and walked into the room. Ezril caught the tray on reflex and closed the door with his heel.
“You still won’t take your meals from the parish yourself,” Alanna scolded as she looked around the room.
Ezril always found it a thing of difficulty to take her seriously with that smile on her face. She was a different person when they were alone, which was almost every evening, different from the girl she was in the presence of Nervia.
Which of you is real? Ezril wondered. It was not the first time and he did not believe it would be the last.
His room had no tables or chairs, only a bed. So Ezril dropped the tray on the floor beside his bed. “How may I help you, Sister Alanna?” he asked, settling on the floor.
“I told you to stop calling me that when we are alone.” She pouted. “Alanna is just fine. Although I would rather you call me Lana, seeing as we are friends.”
Are we? The question was on the tip of his tongue. “How were the masses?” Ezril asked instead.
Alanna rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me. Mother Nervia can be a bore,” she answered. “Why do I even have to attend all of them? It’s stupid.”
“Because you are a sister of the church.” Ezril kept his eyes on his meal.
“What about you? Why do you get to attend only one?”
“Because I am not a sister of the church.” He stuck a piece of bread in his mouth.
“So tell me this, Ezril. Why are you still in your cassock?”
Ezril shrugged, nonchalant. “I lost track of time.”
Shade deserted the bed. It was a sign that night had fallen, and Alanna took to the bed as if she had been waiting for it to be free. Despite all the friendliness she had to offer in Ezril’s room, she was smart enough to keep her friendliness from Shade. The wolf always regarded her with the same emotion it regarded others. It was a precise dislike, unfiltered, with no room for misunderstanding.
“How old is he?” she asked Ezril, looking at Shade. “Ten? Eleven? I hear that’s when they get big, but rarely ever this big.”
She had asked him this before and Ezril had since noticed how she often repeated her questions. Like the last time she had asked, he offered her his silence. What kind of wolf Shade was, was not entirely her concern. As for how long it took for a wolf to grow as large as Shade currently was, he genuinely did not know.
“Do you know that one of your brothers met one of my sisters during one of their tests?” Alanna asked as she made herself comfortable on his bed, carrying the entire conversation. “I wonder how it happened. You’d tell me if you knew, right?... right?”
She also talked too much. Ezril knew she would keep asking simply for the fun of it, so he shrugged.
“You know you should learn to talk more,” Alanna continued. “What would you do if Mother Nervia were to drop dead today, and you were to say something at the pyre? What? She’s older than anyone I know,” she protested against the look he gave her.
“Y’know,” She leaned in, her mouth almost brushing against his ear, her voice barely above a whisper. “I heard she stays alive by feeding off the sufferings of the Sisters the convent sends to her.” She nodded, agreeing with herself. “That’s why she’s so cruel.”
When Ezril didn’t respond, she exhaled from her mouth against his ear. The air was warm and it made Ezril’s skin tingle. He backed away from her, briefly startled, and Alanna grinned. Then a laugh escaped her lips before she could cover it and her shoulders shook. Ezril couldn’t help but share a smile with her.
The girl was incorrigible.
“See.” Alanna sat up. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it? You should smile more. You look less… gloomy when you do.”
Ezril frowned.
“What?” she whined. “I meant it as a compliment. Like…” she waved her hands around in contemplation. “Alright… I have nothing. But I did mean it as a compliment.”
Ezril wondered how she could be so free. She smiled with a freedom and laughed with a recklessness. She enjoyed life. But what disturbed him most was the twinkle in her eyes when she looked at him.
“You do not intend to become a priestess, do you?” he said.
It was the first time he had brought up anything related to her and the convent.
Her answer was immediate. “Truth! No.” She seemed disturbed by the idea. “I leave that to those like Sister Lenaria. The love and nurture of Truth is the path for me.” Her smile returned. “Maybe one day I can return to the convent and become the Abbess.”
That’s why she can live so happily, Ezril told himself. There is no blood in her future.
Alanna cocked her head to the side. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you called it their trial once,” he answered.
“Oh.”
Ezril’s attention shifted back to his meal. The plate was almost empty now. “Who is this Sister Lenaria you mentioned?” he asked, feigning ignorance. In truth, he was curious to know how those Lenaria lived with viewed her.
“Oh,” Alanna mused. Her voice held a hint of excitement. “One of the sisters aiming to become a priestess. The sisters say she’s the best in her class. They say nobody’s near as good as she is.”
“Oh.” Alanna slapped her forehead as if having forgotten something, “she’s also the one that met one of your brothers. There is a rumor that they spent the night together. But whenever we ask, she says nothing. She doesn’t talk much, though, even less than you do. They said it’s because something bad happened to her before she came to the convent. Personally, I wouldn’t know. I think she just doesn’t like people.”
Quiet was never a word Ezril thought he would ever associate with Lenaria. The Lenaria he had known always had something to say. There was always some quip or something annoyingly witty. However, she had been different in the forest, and her story was enough to bring any child down.
“Besides,” Alanna continued, “only a Hallowed can become a priestess. The priests fight and risk their lives in times of war, so I’m going to become a healer. That way I can help you when you need it.”
Her words surprised Ezril. Helping him was not something he had expected her to say. Perhaps there was something more in her words.
You represent the priests to her, he told himself. That is all.
Ezril kept his surprise from his face and chose not to correct her notion. Priests didn’t necessarily fight in times of war. They fought only for the Credo, not the crown and only the bishop had the power to send them out to war.
He felt the darkness as it deepened outside more than he saw it now.
“I believe it is time for you to leave, Sister,” he said, rising to his feet.
Alanna turned on his bed. “Mother Nervia will be out till morning I can—”
Ezril shook his head. “No.”
“—sleep here,” Alanna finished without missing a beat.
Ezril looked pointedly at her. “You will not sleep here.”
“But why?” she asked, incredulous. “I’m a quiet sleeper, I promise. No one will know, and I’ll be gone before first mass.”
Ezril sighed. “Sister Alanna, I think it would be best if you called it a night—”
She laid on the bed and closed her eyes.
“—and left for your quarters,” he finished.
“You know.” She sat up a moment later, pouting. “You’re no fun.”
Ezril thought he did not care, and yet, he did. He walked over to Shade and rubbed its head, taking as much pleasure from the feel of the fur as the wolf did from the rub. We are not bred to be fun, are we?
“What would you like for breakfast?” Alanna asked, standing at the door now, tray in hand. “I can get Ulni to cook it.”
There was no need for it. Ezril ate anything they gave him, and they took the trays when they brought his next meal.
“Anything is fine,” he said and walked up to the door to open it. “As long as it’s food.”
Alanna frowned. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. She wasn’t afraid of him.
Not yet, he thought. Once he became a priest there would be more than enough people to fear him. It was a sad thing to know but he had chosen his path as much as the path had chosen him now.
Alanna mulled over whatever it was she wanted to say. Whatever decision she came to ended without words. Instead, she offered Ezril one of her smiles, turned, and left his room.
Certain she was gone, Ezril bolted his door and took off his cassock. He sat on his bed, then turned his attention on Shade. “You don’t like her very much, do you?”
Shade placed its head on the floor and closed its eyes.
Of course you don’t.
It had been years since Ezril had felt the hands of freedom. The seminary had long become what he saw as normal. Even as a child he hadn’t known freedom. Not true freedom. For the first time in a long time he missed the underbelly. It had been a time when he never worried. A time when he was with Teneri and the few Underbelly friends he’d had. He shook his head and turned to the side. This didn’t feel like freedom to him. The little release that beckoned to him when Sister Alanna was around was a temptation. He felt that if he was to accept it, he would be trading one shackle for another.