The next day Ezril sparred alone with Foln, deeming it fit not to put any of the younger soldiers through the morning torment they seemed to be getting acquainted with, so much so that once he had caught them drawing straws upon his arrival. Those who had drawn the shortest had followed him on his request. It reminded him that he’d asked for volunteers only, but to them it was a Sundered command.

“You display only violence,” Ezril told Foln, ducking beneath one of his full swings, creating a distance between them. “There is no strength in the way you fight.”

“Really?” Foln asked, sarcastic. “There’s no strength in this?” He swung the sword around, taking pleasure in the sound it made as it cut through the air.

“Yes.” Ezril ignored the sarcasm. “None. Just violence.”

Foln smirked, returning to his stance. “What’s the difference?”

“What you do is violence,” Ezril said, then darted towards him.

Foln brought his sword up for a strike, and Ezril stepped to the side. Feinting to the side, Foln came around with a side swing and Ezril evaded it just as easily as the first.

“This, however…” Ezril added, stepping into the boy’s reach. He executed a better feint. Foln swung to his right, creating an opening on his left and Ezril rounded him from his left and swept his feet from beneath him, bringing him down. As Foln came crashing down, Ezril put his hand on the boy’s chest and drove him harder into the dirt. He hit the ground with more impact than he would’ve, unaided. Incapacitating Foln’s sword hand with his free hand, Ezril pinned his student on the floor. He held the boy’ hand up, wrist twisted at an odd angle, and kept the boy’s face to the ground with his foot.

“This…” he lectured. “…is strength.”

Foln gave one last struggle before acknowledging its futility and laid still. Ezril released him soon after and walked away, returning to the stump upon which he sat since he began training the boy. Foln returned to his feet soon after.

“Power is required of every man,” Ezril said. “Violence is one way to use it. However, violence has its place in alley brawls, and tavern fights; the kind you have in the underbelly. And I’m certain you had your fair share of it while you were there,” he added, catching the boy’s grin. “However,” he continued. “Violence can only take you so far in battle. What you need to learn now is strength.”

“Why?” Foln asked. “The battlefield is chaos. Violence seems the best for such madness. Of what use is strength?”

Ezril regarded the boy briefly before he spoke. “Strength will keep you where violence fails.”

He had Foln practice through the rest of the morning, swinging his sword with less power and more accuracy, deciding that in time he would have the boy swinging his weapon with less openings in his defense.

When the sun took its place at its peak, he gave Foln his leave. He made his way through the compound, watching the peace it had taken since the establishment of the encampment, and wondering with a cynicism how long it would last.

“Is the boy any good?”

Ezril turned his head to find Darvi walking towards him.

He shrugged. “Better than we were when we joined the seminary.”

“We were barely twelve, brother,” Darvi reminded him. “The boy is seventeen. Is he better than we were after the test of the mist?”

Ezril chuckled. “No. Not even close.”

“Will he at least survive in battle?”

“He’ll last.”

“That isn’t what I asked, brother,” Darvi replied. “Will. He. Survive?”

An unHallowed with the skills the boy possessed surviving in the battles they found themselves in was a possibility Ezril could not fathom. “Truth will have to smile on him first.”

Darvi’s countenance fell. “I see.”

They walked a while, partly surveying the keep. While Ezril and Salem had let their hair grow, Darvi had kept his trimmed. Ezril found it a look that had always fit his brother. Suffice it to say, it was a look his brother had always had.

“Despite my dislike for the Lord Commander,” Darvi said after a while. “We will have to return to his battlefield.”

Ezril nodded in agreement. “It was bound to happen at some point.”

“But that aside,” Darvi continued after a while. “Have you seen Olufemi?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I find it strange that he’s not in his room.”

“I don’t find that enough reason to be worried about our brother.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Darvi chuckled. “It’s not our brother I’m worried about. It’s the new soldiers.”

“Dragmund’s men?”

Darvi nodded. “They always seem eager to provoke us. Three days ago Takan almost drew his Sunders. It’s as if they want to know what we can do.”

“Why not leave them to it.”

“What do you mean?” Darvi asked, confused.

“We know very well Olufemi can take care of himself. Let them provoke him, if they can. I doubt he’ll kill them all. Whatever’s left of them when he’s done will most likely know better.”

Darvi rounded on him. “We cannot have him killing soldiers of the realm! Let alone the hero’s men.”

Ezril paused to study his brother a while. Darvi never objected so sternly. However, his brother was forgetting one thing.

“You forget, brother,” he said, believing it his duty to remind him.

“Forget what?”

“That we cannot stop him.”

Darvi’s brows furrowed. “But he’ll listen to you.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Darvi frowned. “He always does.”

“…And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll have to stop him.”

Ezril sighed. Darvi thought him more capable than he really was. “Just let Olufemi do what he wants if they do provoke him,” he told Darvi, patting his shoulder. “Believe me, it’s significantly easier than your alternative.”

“And if Dragmund demands justice?”

“Then he’ll know where to find our brother,” Ezril answered. “He’ll have to go and collect it himself.”

Darvi watched him. “And you’ll just stand by and let him?”

Ezril chuckled. When he spoke, his voice was without humor. “No.”

His time with Darvi was short lived. After a while, they parted ways and Ezril found himself around the infirmary. Sister Alanna found him not long after his arrival and, for the first time in a while, they spoke without argument, Alanna choosing not to speak of Lenaria. It was a decision Ezril was certain was made consciously.

Alanna spoke of the patients she attended to; the ones who caused no trouble and the ones who found it impossible to stay still. Ezril sat and listened, smiling where he was expected to smile and shaking his head where he was required. He noted how her favorite story was of a soldier who had returned from the encampment. While she treated him, he had requested her hand in marriage. She had courteously turned down in consideration of her position as a sister of the church and the effects of the aleroot in his system.

“Would you have accepted his offer if the circumstances were different?” Ezril asked her.

“If the circumstances were different then I would not have met him,” she answered with a scoff.

“Just indulge me,” Ezril persuaded. “If you weren’t a sister of the church, would you have?”

Alanna thought a moment before she replied. “I just met him,” she said. “The only time I spent with him was cleaning his blood and sewing his flesh. Of course I would have turned down his offer. What do you think we ladies want? It’s not all about being handsome, Father Antari.”

Ezril chuckled. “Then what is it about?”

“It’s about knowing she can trust him,” she answered abruptly. “It’s about knowing he’s dependable. It’s also about love, Father Antari. A woman has to know that her husband loves her. Because only when a man does love something will he cherish it.”

“What makes you think he can’t love you?” Ezril asked. “What makes you think he doesn’t. Loving you is not a difficult thing. You are pretty, even in your habit, Sister.”

“Love, Father Antari. Not lust.” She shook her head. “Any man can lust after a fine girl. But what happens when I begin to age, or he finds a woman whose beauty is more pleasing than mine? Ladies want security, Father. If it were a man like you, then perhaps I would be willing to settle even if it were only lust.”

Ezril cocked an eyebrow. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Alanna laughed. “I assure you, it’s a compliment.”

“Then why does it not feel like one?”

“Because you’re no fun.” She shrugged. “What I was trying to say,” she continued, the glint he had caught in her eyes mildly dimmed, “is that most men like girls just for their body. All they ever seem to want to do is get a quick shag. You’re not like most men, Father Antari. You do not want women for their body.”

Ezril sighed. “That is because I am a priest, Sister. We are not designed to want the female body in such a manner.”

Alanna scoffed at his response but said nothing further on the topic. Soon she began speaking of her experience before she came to the forth.

She told him stories of how she had been stationed at a parish outside the capital in one of the villages that had been attacked by a passing Merdendi group. How she had had to amputate a few limbs due to infestation. How the worst part of what she did as a sister was convincing people that the permanent loss of a limb was a part of Truth’s plan for the person so they can live.

“… Especially when all they want to do is die…”

Ezril found no surprise when she began speaking of a world beyond the reaches of the realm, where life was peaceful, when they sat. She spoke of places where a person could live a peaceful and comfortable life as a simple healer. With a wanderlust she spoke of lands where there were no wars and the greatest causes of loss were diseases the realm had knowledge of how to treat. A place where a man and woman could live happily if all they did was heal and farm. She spoke of places she had read of and had heard stories about.

Ezril knew about them. Cyrinth had spoken of them every once in a while during their time together. And there are places that think a god a lie, he thought, a thought he kept to himself, noting the wanderlust in Alanna’s eyes as she spoke. He understood the appeal of a life where violence and death were not a constant part of life, and he saw in it a form of respect to allow Alanna her dreams.

“And if you could leave right now with someone you care about and just go, would you?” he found himself asking with a smile.

She turned to regard him, and in this moment he feared he shouldn’t have asked the question. Her eyes bore a hope he remembered only ever seeing once upon a time, when he had first met her. A hope he had come to see only when she spoke of leaving. Unfortunately, he had failed to keep his fears from his face. He watched the hope die.

“Of course not.” Alanna laughed, the sound forced and weak. “I belong to the church. And even if I wanted to,” she continued. “I’m certain they would find me.”

“Perhaps…” … but there’re always ways. Ezril had no doubt Cyrinth would know them.

They fell into an odd silence after.

A soldier came to them a short while later. Ezril recognized him as one of the few remaining soldiers from Lord Oddor’s era, his clean jaw never having seen a blade nor a strand of hair. It was almost a wonder how the boy still lived, considering Ezril remembered his face from the battlefields and not the tower.

“Father Antari. Sister Alanna,” the soldier greeted. “The messenger has returned, and he bears letters for the sister.”

Alanna rose without hesitation, dusting off the back of her habit as well as her hands. “I believe this is where I leave you, Father Antari,” she said with a smile. “We leaders are often too busy.”

He caught the humor in her voice and chuckled. “And how in the name of Truth are you their leader in the presence of a few priestesses?”

“Because,” she answered. “All priestesses know is blood. If they were to lead, then we might as well become the seminary.”

The soldier was since gone and now Alanna turned and followed in the same direction.