Igor came for Seth a day after, finding him in the confines of his shelter. He’d since told Timi to find a new hiding spot or move Bartholomew’s body. As for the pieces of reia beast meat, he’d done away with what was in his shelter long before Igor’s arrival.

Peace came to his mind and he was happy to be done with the test. However, rather than take him to his brothers after the long ride back, Igor took him to a familiar room and left him there.

It wasn’t long before John came in and proceeded to strap him down to the bed. He could’ve tried to fight but he gave no resistance. What point was there in fighting against a Baron?

Then the torture of runes began. It went on for a long time and Seth drowned in the pain, screaming and wailing till he could no longer hear his own voice.

“As much as I enjoy the melody of your singing, I find there are more important things to attend than your art,” John said, his voice carrying over Seth’s raging cry.

The pain in Seth’s chest soared like an eagle with the wind at its beck and call. It bent all that he was, permeating into every fiber of his senses. Somehow it encompassed him until it became him. He would’ve worried for it if he had the presence of mind to. But he did not. The pain was all he knew, all he felt.

With an insignificant gesture John wiped it all away and the pain left him abruptly.

The suddenness of its disappearance left Seth with a disturbing sense of whiplash. When he was capable of focus he centered it on John’s smiling eyes. He knew killing the man would be a type of pleasure he would only feel once. In truth, John was no different from the priests who trained him and his brothers, inflicting pain where there should’ve been clear alternatives. However, where the others inflicted pain in order to serve lessons, John inflicted pain on him for no logical reason.

“We’ll kill him some day,” Seth told his minds in clear words, his eyes never leaving John.

But we’ll scare him first, came an ominous response.

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Skill [Fractured Mind] is in Effect.

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The notification startled Seth but he restrained himself, kept any expression from his face. He felt the effect of the skill as it took control. Something changed and he put his conscious mind to the task of figuring it out. It seemed while he did not know how to trigger the skill, his minds did.

Slowly he found where the change was. While the world around him remained the same, a variety of things changed. Darkness remained dark and the light remained as bright and dim as it was. The difference, however, was in how he perceived everything around him. He did not see clearer now, but he was more aware of what he saw. As the notification fell away from view, he noted John’s face. He watched the mild twitch in his skin just at the edge of his lip, watched the minute movement of his eyes, the deceptive focus that made the man seem unbothered while he searched. Seth might’ve been matching the man’s stare but the man wasn’t staring, he was looking, and not at Seth’s eyes.

Seth studied the priest’s gaze, watched it as a scientist would watch a fast moving experiment. John’s iris contracted mildly, then the pupils glowed a little, like a dying flame veiled in fog.

Was he looking for hints of reia? Seth wondered as all soul mages were said to see it clearly at Barony.

Without the pain of John’s punishment, he forced himself to relax. His muscles responded first and he felt the solid platform on which he rested. He saw the flash of annoyance in John’s expression come and go. It did so quickly as all his emotions tended to flicker, but Seth saw it, though he was not watching for it.

Another emotion flickered past his face and Seth knew the priest fought the urge to bring him more pain. So he waited. As he did, information continued to slip into him. There was a stain of hair, a strand barely an inch long that rested at the edge of one of John’s sleeves. It belonged to an animal. What type was beyond him. He felt the information pack itself away as more came—not discarded, simply catalogued.

A disturbance to his side told him the man’s fingers twitched away from sight, perhaps a part of his struggle not to inflict more pain. The show of restraint did not make the man any better in Seth’s mind.

He smelled something he was not certain of, and knew there was too much he did not know. He lacked enough knowledge to turn data into true information. Still, the smell reminded him of blood, but he was certain it wasn’t., at least not as it should be. It came from John, trailed from outside the door that kept them confined to the room.

It’s blood, a fragment thought. Something about it felt strained, as if it suffered for overexertion. It’s… blood.

“How?” Seth asked.

“I’m a Baron, child,” John answered.

“Not you, priest!” Seth hissed, then returned his attention to his mind. “How?”

Winter… Test.

Seth’s brows furrowed. So he’d smelled it before. But he’d smelled enough blood during the winter test, he knew what it smelled like. And this was not it. Then again…

“Your disrespect is—”

“Have you not found what you’re looking for?” he cut John off, when no response was forth coming, he added: “Find it and be on your way. If you’re just here to bring me pain, then bring it and be gone. I have greater things to worry about.”

“Like what?”

Seth’s nostrils flared as he took in the smell. Yes. It was blood. He knew it now. But there was something off about it. Something…. Wrong. He inhaled deeply, allowed the scent into every atom of his lungs, then stopped.

He knew it now.

“Tell me, John,” he said, willing every condescension he was capable of into his voice. “Why do you smell of something dead?”

When John’s brows furrowed, the confusion was clear. Whatever Seth was smelling on the man, he knew nothing of it.

“Do you presume to threaten me, child?” John asked, hands poised to inflict pain.

Seth braced himself for the pain to come when the door opened and Faust stepped in.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I believe that’s more than enough.”

John hesitated before he put his hand down, but his countenance did not change, not even when Monsignor Faust came to stand beside him, his playful smile lingering on his lips.

“Now what’s this about something dead?” he asked Seth.

Seth’s nose wrinkled, bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it then cussed under his breath. The smell hadn’t come from John. It had come from Faust. And now that the man was here it was strong enough to choke him. But he knew better than to address it. The Monsignor might not necessarily be his friend, but if the man knew Jabari in any way, he doubted he was an enemy he was willing to make.

“Nothing?” Faust chuckled. “That’s unfortunate. I was looking forward to a good hearing.” He walked away from John to stand at Seth’s feet then took one in his hand and began unstrapping it. “Your test was quite intriguing, I must say. And how you survived against a Guda snake…” he chuckled, undoing the straps of the other leg. “By all that is good, what even possessed you to try and fight one. I know you can’t feel it right now—Kyle is quite good at his job—but all those injuries are going to sting once the anesthesia wears off.” He held his hands up for Seth to see and wiggled them.

“Anesthesia?” Seth asked.

Faust walked over to his side and began working on his hand. “Of course. Did you think you were going to fight an Iron rank reia beast and come out unscathed? What did you think happened to all your injuries? Surely you would’ve wondered why you weren’t in any pain.”

We did not, a piece of his mind informed him.

“I take it you’re alright now,” he replied it, hearing no strain in the thought and noting the smell of Faust was no longer so strong. In fact, it was already fading away.

Fit as a fiddle, another piece replied.

Faust chuckled again. “I swear its hilarious trying to figure out if you’re talking to me or not. Are you?”

Did we ever tell you we like him? A piece asked.

Seth twirled his free wrist and smirked at John’s barely concealed annoyance.

“The boy is weak,” John said.

Faust paused his stroll and turned a smile on him. “He killed a Guda snake, John. And it was Iron. That makes your very words confusing.”

“That could’ve easily been Frank.”

Faust poised his lips in thought and cocked his head to the side. “So Frank lied about the snake but not the hare?” He resumed his strolled, walked around Seth’s head so he stood beside John, and began working on his other hand’s straps. “Sounds unreasonable. Besides, why would he?”

“To protect the boy.”

“For what reason?”

“Conscience, empathy. It could be any of it.”

Faust made a gesture of nonchalance then moved to Seth’s head. “Perhaps.” He began loosening the straps. “But tell me what the point of sending them on that mission would be if we were just going to discard their words as lies on nothing but a whim.”

John scoffed. “The boy said he fed on reia meat.”

“And Kyle found enough poison in his system to kill ten men.” He turned an apologetic smile to Seth. “Ten unsouled men, I mean.”

“Then how is the boy alive?” John argued. “There’s a lie somewhere.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s from Kyle.” He freed Seth’s head, then placed a restraining hand on his chest. “Regardless, the boy returned alive, with enough cores to pass, a soul fragment, and something quite intriguing. Wouldn’t you say?”

“And we are to believe he claimed them by his own hands?”

Faust stroked his beard. “I see. You would have the boy punished rather harshly. Then would you like to expel Frank while we’re at it?”

Who is Frank? Seth’s mind asked.

“I never spoke of expulsion,” John objected.

“Then in what direction are you heading, Reverend?”

“A simple punishment, of sorts.”

Seth moved to get up but Faust’s hand did not budge. It was like trying to move beneath the weight of a boulder. “Then whom?” Faust asked. “Frank? Kyle?” He chuckled. “You and I both know Kyle cannot be punished. So, Frank it is. What punishment would you have us bestow upon him?”

“Not Frank!” John hissed. “I meant the child!”

“For what crime? Coming back alive?”

John opened his mouth, then closed it. It opened once more, then closed again.

“Tell me. Should I not have brought you?” Faust asked John. “Should I have picked one of the other priests? Will your hate continue to cloud your judgement?”

“I do not hate the boy.”

Faust made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Dislike then. The question does not change, John. Should I have brought someone else?”

John bowed his head, chastised. “No.”

“Good.” Faust removed his hand from Seth’s chest, releasing him to movement. “Then that is that. As for you,” his attention swiveled to Seth. “I have questions. Would you be nice enough to give me answers?”

Seth had a feeling there was no request in that question.

With a quiet cuss, a sigh, and a silent prayer to himself, he answered, “What would you like to know.”

Faust leaned against one of the walls of the room, walking stick held before him in both hands and asked his questions. Through it all, John stood at the entrance as if barring the exit of sound, like some secret was being spilled in the room designed only for the ears of him and the Monsignor.

Faust asked Seth of his first few days in the forest. He asked of the experience, the cold, the survival. Seth answered as best he could. He kept no secrets. He spoke of the chill of the snow. Worded the stress of building shelter. Giving words to hunger proved tasking and he found himself pausing in thought, searching for the words to best describe what he needed to say. Each time, Faust hurried him along with easy hand gestures, forcing him forward.

His anger and frustration at his broken traps and scant meals were easy to describe. He used as many civilized words as he could. For each one he used, John made a sound that was evidently a concealed laugh. When he arrived at his ambush at the nest of reia beasts Faust began taking interest in his story.

“So you chased the hare into it?” he asked.

Seth nodded.

“And you did not see the tracks?” John asked.

Again, Seth nodded.

“Rookie mistake,” John said, softly. “Judgements get clouded by hunger quite often.”

“True,” Faust agreed. “But I am more interested in the hare. I hear it was souled.”

The hare came to mind vividly, razor sharp talons, a mocking in its eyes Seth had not noted then. He frowned at the thought, a sadness at not having killed it weighed on him. “I would not know, Monsignor.”

“But you fought it.”

There is a lie here, a piece of his mind thought. If not from them, then from whoever Frank is.

The question now, another offered, is if he lied to protect us or not. And what do we do here?

The answer was not as difficult as they made it seem.

“I fought a lot of things, Monsignor. I killed a lot of things.”

“A Guda snake being one of them.” Faust scratched his neck just beneath his jaw. “No matter. We have tallied your accomplishment and have decided on your reward.”

“Which I remain against,” John said, harshly.

“Then it’s a good thing the reward is not yours, isn’t it?” Faust said.

He approached Seth with slow steps, one hand reaching inside his cassock. He fished around until he stood before Seth, then brought out two fragments. Each one, to Seth’s excitement, was as black as the walls around them.

“You have achieved a feat deserving of these.”

Both soul fragments were warm in Seth’s hand. Each one was small, the size of half an infant’s fist, and Seth’s mind skipped to how soon he could absorb them, how soon he could begin the path of a soul mage.

He looked up from their smooth surface to find Faust looking at him with mild amusement. In his periphery John continued to watch him, studying, waiting. Whatever the man sought, he hoped he would find it… elsewhere.

“You want to absorb it?” Faust said, the words less a question and more a statement.

Seth nodded shamelessly and Faust laughed.

Faust picked a fragment from the two, made a flamboyant gesture, and with nothing but a sleight of hand the fragment was gone. “Let’s start with one. Then we’ll move on to the next.”

He turned his attention to John. “Would you like to do the honors?”

John did not meet his gaze, did not acknowledge it. “You admitted him. It’s your cross to bear.”

Faust snorted as his attention returned to Seth. “He’s always been a baby, even as a child. He’ll get over it. That said.” He clapped his hands and the sound was loud enough to make Seth wince. “Let’s get this over before the anesthesia wears off.”

He closed Seth’s fist around the fragment in his hand, balled it up and held it tight so that his grip was firm. “Now,” he began softly, in the way an adult would speak to a particularly skittish cat. “I will help you along with some of my reia, but we will have to be careful. First, this is a black fragment. They are not as easily absorbed as the others. Secondly, my reia is a bit on the toxic side due to my Way.”

“Your Way?” Seth asked, his mind struggling to focus on anything that was not the feel of the fragment in his fist.

Faust smiled down at him. “Yes. My Way. You’ll learn more about that in time. For now, focus.”