---RYNE---
“You seem far away. Where are you headed?” Claude said, looking at me from the granges. “Is everything all right?”
He was circling the new batch of sprouting crops. He had brought his shepherd’s staff and was leaning on it, watching me. Woodrow had called off his training for the time being, uncertain of when the dark forest would summon them back to the village of Grant and Kent.
“Sorry,” I said. “Yes, some things are weighing me down.” I was sitting on our usual spot at the steps of the church, resting my chin on my open palms.
“Tell me about them.” Claude dug his staff deep into the earth, leaving it there like a twisted wooden sentinel as he walked toward me.
I shook my head. Just a while ago, he was practicing by himself on the field, swishing his staff, striking and lunging at the empty air. I threw berries at him, and he chuckled, running to his staff, blocking the berries and batting them away at first. Then he realized it must seem a waste of perfectly juicy berries, so he caught them with his mouth instead.
We made a game out of it. We cheered, gradually louder, our eyes wide, each time the berries landed on his tongue. When he gathered a mouthful, he squished it all, the pink-red juice dripping down his mouth. Like blood.
That vision stole the laughter out of my throat, shadowing it with the vision of my brothers, feeding.
Claude noticed. He swallowed the rest of the berries, coughing a little because of the spice. But earlier, too, I told him to not worry. I told him to continue with his sword practice.
He touched my shoulder gently, sitting down next to me. It was rapidly approaching dusk. A strong wind roared up above our heads. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said again.
I chose to be partly honest with him, even though I wanted to tell him all. I felt his heat radiating from his neck and cheeks and breath. He was like a warm candle himself, a light you kept close as you scribbled your innermost thoughts.
I looked at him. “My brothers contacted two different villages last night as they wandered through the dark forest, somewhere close to Mount Lhottem. You remember that Brother Wilbur is our healer and horticulturist? He’s hard at work developing some cure for a new disease he discovered using ores he found in a tunnel in the mountain. Claude, I…” I closed my eyes, fearing what would happen if I chose to drop the words I was juggling on the tip of my tongue. I decided to risk it. “You know what an apothecary is? He’s like that. Only, he wears the robes of a monk, as well.”
Claude nodded immediately. “Well, we already established that you monks were special.” He pondered. “What disease did he discover?”
I blew out a breath, relieved. I had thought that finally, this strangeness would make him uneasy.
“It’s some sort of mutated plague. Oh, Claude… it has ravaged the village there. Wilbur spared me the details, but the way I imagined it was much more dreadful. Empty huts, empty beds, empty cribs. Soon, there will be no one to mourn for them. And the village would be part of the forest. Dark. Soulless.” I shivered. Claude held an arm around me, sending me warmth. “He has the cure now, but the thought that it could go wrong…”
Claude squeezed my shoulder as I buried my face in my hands. “Will he not get the sickness himself when he goes back there?”
I shook my head. “My brother Wilbur is… resilient to illness.” All manner of illness, I thought. “And there’s a boy so young and so frail. Tatum Worthe, his name is. Wilbur won’t abandon him. None of us would.”
Claude did not move for a moment. Then slowly, he spoke close to me. “Of course, none of you would.” And then he put his head next to mine and we sat there for a moment until the cold wind blew at our faces.
We sat upright. Claude looked at his shepherd’s staff and the crops, biting his lips slowly. I just then noticed that earlier today, he did not want to continue with his writing, and I had forgotten to teach him the Old Language of the Saints.
“You seem distracted yourself, friend. What troubles you?”
“It’s nothing compared to what you’ve all been going through.”
“No, go on. Please distract me from these thoughts.”
Claude started scribbling in the soil with his finger. “It’s about apprenticeship again. I know that the future isn’t guaranteed for most of us. Maybe one day, this all won’t matter. But I just can’t help but think that it isn’t right that we should be sticking to one profession for the rest of our lives. I don’t think it’s fair that we get to be one thing until we grow old.”
Are these his dreams of becoming a soldier again? I thought.
He flashed a smile. “Maybe being here with you gave me hope of better days to come. But on those better days, would I be allowed to…” Claude huffed. “I ran into the brat noble in the town square. Vincent Bahram, first son of our noble ruler. He was with his friends collecting tributes from the smaller cottages. Usually, it was the tax collector accompanied by the lord’s knights that did those rounds, but the brat must be bored.”
“What were you doing there? What does he look like?” I asked.
“Buying a loaf from the bakery and sending one of our pigs to the butcher’s shop,” he answered. "Vincent looks like your typical noble. Blonde, like you, though his hair is getting darker with age. He’s one year older than us, I think. He looks well-fed.”
Claude shrugged. Anger flashed in his face. “He caught me looking at the different wooden signs swinging on the roofs. ‘Brewery’, ‘Tannery’, ‘Bakery’. It felt good to read the world around me. It’s like… the town has more life in it. Like names of objects give it some sort of spirit, I think. Anyway, Vincent thought I was looking at the drawing of the bread since most townspeople can’t read nor write, but when he saw me squinting and mumbling out the words of the bread, that was when he pointed to me and mocked me reading.” He sucked in a breath, callused hands balling into fists.
I shared the anger he felt; of people telling me what I could or couldn’t do. I bumped his knee. I noticed that we were bumping knees as a way of comforting each other.
“Don’t let him discourage you from learning about the world.” I matched his expression, my brows knitting together. “These people, they’re mostly the same. Even amongst their own kind, they drag each other down. Never stop achieving what you think is best for you or your family, Claude.”
He blinked, and a smile slowly spread across his face. “Aye to that, friend. Thank you.”
I once again heard Knox’s opinions about the hierarchy of things. I hated how things worked, even though it was a necessity for our survival. We needed to follow the rules to cover our tracks. Still…
“Claude, when you get better at your letters, I would like to teach you the language of the Saints. Old Yarbro. The language of the clergy, of some nobles, and the Saint-King himself.”
I’d like to think that Claude was getting used to big news arriving at his doorstep, metaphorically speaking, but his face is still a controlled façade of surprise and glee and doubt. But it was good that he was more receptive now. We knew the implications it meant. Maybe when he sets out into the world, he can make a new name for himself. He can reinvent his past to forge a new good future.
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I swallowed, Woodrow’s words buzzing in my mind. One day, he will decide to move on. Even if he remains on their farm, he will get taller, he will get older, and he will have to find more natural companions than I.
It was laughable that I was not even thinking about the Unending Chaos. I was just thinking about him; the end of our friendship seemed more daunting than the end of the realm.
But if that day of parting will come, I will be comforted in the fact that he would know the language of the Saints by heart. That the language of the clergy and nobles will make him valuable… too valuable to be a common soldier easily deployed in senseless skirmishes. I clasped my hands together in the dark now, praying to the Miracles Above that Claude finds himself in the service of a good ruler.
The night came early. Owls hooted in the forest. I walked Claude to the path with the arched trees. He squeezed my arm and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something. But then he shook his head and went on his way.
When he had gone, I went to the crypts. Woodrow and I passed each other at the church door’s entrance. He raised his brow at me. I shook my head. “The dark forest does not move,” I said as he planted himself on the granges, waiting.
I already heard the clinking of Wilbur’s glasses and vials when I pulled the lever that revealed the secret entrance down to the crypts. He was arranging his things on the sarcophagus he slept on.
It had been a while since Wilbur held his glass bottles, and the sounds of clinking were like bright bells in the quiet crypt. He was darker than the shadows, his cloak swishing as he prepared his ingredients and tools.
There was an unlit torch near me. I whispered Gaelmar's name and the warmth coursed through my outstretched hand to ignite it. Wilbur looked up, blinking when the torch roared.
I went by his side. "Let's go heal Tatum."
Wilbur gestured to the ice-blue ores he had mined. He held out an iron bowl and iron pestle to me. I knew what had to be done. As one, we broke off a piece of the ores and placed them on the bowls. We crushed them with the pestle, gently at first, the sounds of glass crunching on the ground. Then faster, grinding them into coarse dust.
We looked at each other when we were finished. The rest of the ice quartz winked at us on the flat surface. We thought the same thing. Brother Ealhstan would have made quick work with this. It would take him a pinch, a firm squeeze, and all this would be done in a moment. We grunted, swallowed, and broke off another piece, crushed them, and broke another until two large ice quartz were turned to powder. Wilbur held his bowl of glinting blue up to the light and admired our efforts. He smiled just as we felt the monster inside us strain against his cage.
I went to the altar and prayed, my arms aching from the effort of pounding the antidote he was making.
Blake taunted me. "You cannot do all this. Without your other brothers, you will fail. Look at you all, already weary."
"Gaelmar, give me strength. Brothers, I am with you." I whispered, closing my eyes and summoning the faces of my brothers.
When Blake had settled, Woodrow entered the church with berries and small eggs from the dark forest. "You're tired. Here, cook something for yourself."
I grabbed them from his hands and put the eggs in the cooking pot on the granges, lighting the black branches underneath. As the water began to bubble, I remembered Claude’s words from before. Of how the Saints had a way of blessing the food of their comrades.
Hearty, healthy meals do have the power to bring people together. Along with benevolent hosts and their earnest wish to keep their comrades strong and nourished, I can imagine how they would go about blessing the ingredients. I suppose it would feel like how Gaelmar was showing me to cast the many properties and manifestations of his kindflame power.
And then, I felt it.
There was a warm wind in me, one that only I could feel. I felt a part of my strength leave me, feel it pour from my heart and into the modest soft-boiled eggs cooking in the pot, and I knew that it would be something special.
I stared at the fading faint glow of my hands. I must have blessed it. The cooking pot too, had glowed briefly.
I tasted it. It did nothing for me, but maybe… I grabbed a wooden canister from the kitchen and transferred half of the soup into it.
I went back inside the monastery, thinking of storing the canister back in the cupboards. But praying to keep Blake silent and accidentally blessing the food took a lot out of me, so when I climbed the steps up the church, I slumped under Gaelmar’s statue, my limbs weary. The sounds of grunting and crushing ores ushered me to sleep.
When I opened my eyes again, everything was silent.
I went down the crypts and saw Wilbur looking frustrated and Woodrow looking perplexed. They were trying to light a suspended glass bottle over thin strips of wood. The content of the glass bottle was a mixture of powdered ice quartz, the soil from the garden, and purified water from the stream. Woodrow was trying to light one kindling by sparking two dry stones.
It lighted, but the mixture did not boil.
Gaelmar guided me. I knew that it would not burn without my fire in this sanctuary. “Here,” I said, taking the kindling from under the glass bottle and lighted it with the earlier flame from the torch when I first came down the crypt. Only when I placed that flame under the bottle did it begin to boil.
Wilbur waited for it to rise to a certain temperature. Then he swirled it around, introducing the minerals of the quartz to the lacking garden soil. Wilbur repeated the process of heating it back to the flame then swirling it until gradually the mixture turned from the stubborn separation of black and blue to a glowing dark-blue liquid. Wilbur stopped and brought it close to us, close to the torchlight, eyes wide in triumph. Even Woodrow was impressed. He clapped his hands as Wilbur and I hurried to the cloister garth to awaken the soil of the shivering maiden.
"Wilbur, wait," I said, stopping behind in front of the statue of Saint Gaelmar. He turned around and I grabbed the neck of the bottle and blew on it. The mixture glowed a brief blue before it settled into the dark soil again. The glow from my chest was not as quick to fade.
"Did you bless it? Or awaken it?" Wilbur asked.
I nodded. I heard Woodrow behind us go back to the granges. When Wilbur and I stood below the giant oak tree, he let out a breath and muttered that he hoped this worked. He poured the dark blue liquid gently on the soil of the shivering maiden, making sure that not a precious drop was wasted. We watched.
The soil did not show any sign that it was reacting well to the mixture. Wilbur’s eyes were focused on the spot where the bud grew. Then I felt something tug at my finger, a gentle force. I placed that finger on the soil and closed my eyes to a vision of a brilliant blue flower with light-blue nectar flowing from it.
“Wilbur, it’s—"
And just like that, the soil churned softly. Not like the burrowing of the ground when the vines erupted last night. But softly, as if digesting the minerals of the ice quartz. It glowed faintly once more, and as it did, the bud of the shivering maiden shyly peeked from the ground, and when three whole buds were out in the open, it unfurled and showed us one seed each in their mouths.
Three seeds to replace three flowers, just like the yellowtongues.
The shivering maiden’s nectar dripped from its fresh petals and Wilbur scrambled for another empty glass bottle to collect it.
"I thought it would take longer," Wilbur whispered.
When the shivering maiden gave no more, Wilbur collected the three flowers gently from the ground and replaced them with the three seeds. We stood and Wilbur hugged me. He gripped my shoulders, his face joyful and relieved.
“Ryne, I can save him!” Wilbur was ready to spring back to the crypts to make the antidote.
I smiled, squeezed his arm, and nudged him to go on while I dipped my finger back in the sleeping soil. The new batch of shivering maidens will remain there again until we make another ice quartz soil mixture. The soil needs constant nourishment; it needs wood to burn like in the fireplace. But I would spare Wilbur that knowledge.
Back at the crypts, Wilbur was already boiling fresh water in a larger glass bowl, infused with the petals of the shivering maiden. He waited until the color of the flower bled into the bubbling water. When it was done, he scooped out the petals using a strainer. Wilbur set aside the infused bowl and set the wet petals to dry near the fire. He then placed it in an iron bowl, covered that bowl with another iron bowl, and placed it on top of the flame. It smoked, and the smell was a crisp floral incense.
“You could make that into a rare scent for the nave,” I said.
He smiled and checked the flowers, cooking and stirring and shaking them. They dried to a crisp not long after. And when they did, Wilbur again crushed them with a mortar and pestle until they were fine dust. These he added to the earlier infused bowl, making it a richer blue. That bowl he poured into several smaller bottles that he added to his satchels.
Wilbur took a sip from the remaining bowl. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "This is it. This is the antidote."
As if the forest heard, I sensed vines slithering underground rapidly approaching Rothfield monastery even before Woodrow called. Wilbur was ready for it. He blew out the flame that he used in his experiments and hurried up the stairs, out of the church, and into the granges.
"Wilbur, wait!" I stopped him and gave him half the canister of soup. "For Tatum, if his appetite returns.
Wilbur nodded. "Thank you, Ryne." He stowed it in his pocket, joining Woodrow at his side.
We waited, my two brothers bracing themselves. The ground shook, and the vines erupted, grabbing both my brothers by the waist.
Then the forest vines slithered their way near my foot and wrapped themselves around my waist. I only managed to let out a breath of surprise when the vines took me along with Woodrow. I shared one look of confusion with Wilbur before I was taken through a large earthen tunnel.