---WILBUR---

When Wilbur returned, he found Ryne sleeping like a cat curled under the Saint’s feet. Woodrow climbed up the steps not long after him, holding a dusty skull in his hand. He put it near Wilbur’s face and with his fingers, clacked its jaw like a macabre puppeteer as he talked.

“It’s not a bad place, considering.”

“Be serious,” Wilbur replied. Now that Ryne was asleep, he can now say what he really meant.

Woodrow, as the voice of the skull said, “But I was on the ground when this kind redhead picked me up. Woe was me before him.”

“Respect the dead.”

“Says the one that experiments on them,” Woodrow said, using his natural voice.

Wilbur crouched down upon his sleeping charge, small and spent. He combed back Ryne’s locks that fell down his eyes. It was the color of golden wheat breezing under a summer’s day the first time he met him. It had withered as Blake had used him as a conduit. Wilbur and Woodrow stared at Ryne when the boy recounted what Gaelmar showed him. He had no memory of their beginnings, only shivering as his imagination brought him Ryne’s small body levitating in the air, his veins appearing as Blake and Knox did the dark ritual to snuff out Gaelmar’s hope in him and use it to turn the prayers into power. It was like alchemy, Wilbur thought.

He twisted the ends of Ryne's hair. His brows met. Wilbur combed Ryne’s hair with his hands until the boy looked neat for sleep. To Woodrow absentmindedly, he murmured, “Had his hair always been this long?”

Whatever form they had during their afterlife—or whatever name it was that marked their transition from normal life to this—they kept forever. All of them had tried it; Wilbur cut his hair one night out of curiosity. He stared as his lock of hair turned to ash in the wind and felt the patch grow back into place. Ryne was the same. But he was sure that his hair did not look this long.

Wilbur crouched down lower, Woodrow following him. When he peered closer, Ryne’s nose and cheeks seemed wider somehow. He looked like a child, still, but with his familiarity with Ryne’s features, he was certain that his face had changed.

Wilbur looked up at the statue. Saint Gaelmar, the Kind Flame. He had named his powers the same. His kindflame was said to inspire and reignite the hope that dwindled low in the hearts of men. He stared into Gaelmar's marble eyes, wearing an expression that was unnamed. Wilbur frowned at the statue. For Wilbur, it would always feel like yesternight when Ryne was clinging to his robes. He scarcely remembered a time when the boy he would care for did not occupy his mind. Before him was only Knox, then Woodrow, then Ealhstan, then Swithin. He did not come near his brothers back then, only content to read his books from a life he barely remembered.

He was in a university, Ryne said. He was working on something and then the cauldron exploded. Was it there he met his demise? Why did the Chaos pick him than the others? He assumed there were other alchemists. Where were they now, he wondered. Did he know him? Did he have friends or was he always a recluse? These were the questions that he pushed to the back of his mind.

They did not matter. Only Ryne did.

He did not mean to get this close to the child, but Ryne warmed his heart and changed him. The grey child listened to him when no one did. He paid attention and asked questions when Wilbur taught him some of what he knew. And he had found his bravery all on his own as he grew with each monastery.

Woodrow brought the skull back into the crypts snugly in place with the rest of his fallen brethren. When he came back, he put a reassuring hand on Wilbur’s shoulder. “You have got to stop treating him like a child, Wilbur. He’s seen too much. He’s done more and dealt with far more serious things than a man four times his actual age will ever face.”

“I know that. I know. But he… I will always be there to protect him,” Wilbur said firmly.

Then, he picked the boy up, one arm on his neck and one arm under his knees. Woodrow stared at them both, noticing that Ryne only stirred to nuzzle his cheek against Wilbur’s chest. Wilbur took one last glare at the statue and spat. “Saint you are, and born out of your sacred flame Ryne may be, but he is my brother and I have known him, known him far more than you. You promised not to abandon him. I shall hold you to that.”

There were four sarcophagi in the crypts. Wilbur carried Ryne gently down the dark staircase absent of torchlight. He ducked at one low oak root. He took off his habit and placed it on the stone slab and placed Ryne there, where he curled back again and mumbled.

“Are you tired?” Wilbur asked Woodrow.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Hardly.”

Wilbur murmured. With nothing left to do for the moment, they took in the crypt. The Saints weren’t buried here, but there were great four stone slabs in preparation for that outcome. Maybe in the past, they were decorated with the colors corresponding to each Saint. Bright reds and deep blues. Calm greens and silvers. Wilbur remembered just now that Saint Edmund was the only royal Saint, and the Patron Saint of scholars, of both learners and educators, of alchemists including him. Gaelmar… Gaelmar on the other hand was the Patron Saint of Outcasts, of those with no homes. Wilbur looked again at the boy curled on the slab. If anyone could prepare a home where both darkness and light can live, it was Ryne. Wilbur only needed to support him in this great quest.

“So, how do you feel that we were serving a servant of the Chaos that keeps ruining this land?” Wilbur asked Woodrow.

“Pissed,” came Woodrow’s easy reply. “What do we do now? Just plant, and wait for things to grow? Wait for Ryne to glow again. What if years pass by without anything happening? I mean, I wouldn’t mind that much. This journey with his is a direction at least, knowing that one of the Saints himself chose Ryne.”

“I don’t know if you have noticed this, brother, but Ryne seems to speed things along. Unlike our past nights where we spent years trying to build and maintain communities surrounding monasteries. I’ve got a strong hunch that the land is impatient itself in ridding the Chaos.” Wilbur looked at Woodrow meaningfully.

Woodrow touched his chest and felt unsettled. Their hearts beat slowly. Faster when they fed, slower when they were famished. Blake was in them, and that part of them hated to be in this place, overriding their instincts. Which means that they must remain.

“I can’t imagine how Gaelmar is fine with us feeding. I imagine he’s going to use Ryne like Blake possessed us and burn us to crisps when he finds out that we are draining people of their blood.”

Wilbur shrugged. “Ryne says that this is our place now. We do it out of survival. We don’t do it for sport.”

“About that…” Woodrow stretched his arms. “What use will I be here? If the dark forest keeps the townsfolk away and protects this place from wandering eyes, then what use will I be here? I don’t have anyone to charm.”

“Maybe an opportunity will arise for you. And for once, you can use your other abilities other than charming.”

Wilbur observed Woodrow. His redheaded brother looked down on the ground with an expression he couldn’t decipher. Woodrow seemed to like the idea, but he was not sure. He was about to call to him when Ryne screamed at the top of his lungs, obliterating the quiet of the crypt.

Wilbur and Woodrow rushed to Ryne’s side. Ryne’s eyes were squeezed shut. He levitated, still screaming. Fear seized Wilbur’s lungs, choking him with dread. He did not want to hear that kind of agony from him. Without thinking, Wilbur slapped him awake. Ryne opened his eyes just then, and a thick smoke rose from his mouth. A dark energy that laughed with the voice of Blake. The ice spread from Ryne and swallowed Wilbur. Woodrow dropped next to him. They shivered under the deathless chill of their Abbott. The plume of smoke began to form into the shape of a face, one they knew all too well. It stared at them, snarling, and was about to strike them with a claw cloaked in shadow where they stood.

And then Ryne dropped to the ground, knocking the breath off him. Wilbur immediately shook his shoulders, but Ryne opened his eyes and leaped from the table. Ryne pushed him away and knelt to the ground. He clasped his hands in front of him and called forth Gaelmar’s name. And then his lips mumbled silently, spouting a silent string of words Wilbur could not hear. Wilbur realized, then. He was praying.

As he prayed, the ice wave melted away. But their Abbott’s cruel laughter still echoed in their ears. Ryne had begun to glow. It started from his chest and then spread through his face, the veins in him seeming to ignite. It was not in the same intensity as before when Ryne forged a connection with Gaelmar, but wondrous still. And then, when the warmth was back, Ryne’s glow faded and he finished the ordeal breathless and sputtering. His chest heaved with effort. His eyes were bloodshot and weary, but he offered a small smile.

“I did it,” Ryne croaked. Wilbur and Woodrow only looked back. Ryne arranged himself and sat on the stone slab, legs dangling. “I think Blake would want to fight his way out when I fall asleep.”

Wilbur lost his composure. “What, you would need to abandon sleep? How can you—”

“I can still sleep, Wilbur, just in small bursts. I can feel him when he’s stirring awake. Before that happens, I would invoke Gaelmar’s name and burn him back.”

“How often will he try to escape?”

Ryne shrugged. “Who knows? But he doesn’t have much strength to begin with. Not as long as we’re here, united.”

Woodrow turned back from Ryne and stepped away. His fingers pinched his brows. This won’t do. He was not sure that Ryne could bear this, but Woodrow entered his field of vision, giving him a stern look. He is not a child, Wilbur, Woodrow had said.

Wilbur breathed out. He needed to trust Ryne. He must believe he was strong enough. But he felt so frustrated that he was powerless to do anything. And now, Ryne had the power to protect them all, but at great cost to his own body. He wondered at this moment if he felt that he was uncomfortable with the change in dynamics. He shook his head, of course not. It would be silly.

“We would take turns watching you. Are you thirsty? Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, Wilbur. I’m fine.” Ryne looked back at him, his blue eyes serious. “This is my burden now and I accept it with grace. We all need to do our part. I’m glad I’m doing mine.”

After a moment, Ryne yawned and smiled at them both. He looked at the ceiling and at the roots that curled from the oak tree above their heads. “Am I in the crypt?” He looked at the four stone sarcophagi that were supposed to be the Saint’s final resting place. “Am I lying on top of a grave?” He looked at the passage out of the crypt. “Are those skulls? Are they from the fallen soldiers?” Ryne must not have seen them in the small visions he had.

Ryne laid his head on his arms. He slept not long after. Wilbur again arranged his hair, sitting close to him, waiting for dawn, waiting if Ryne would again be woken by Blake and pray. When he and Woodrow felt sleep seize them, he struggled to stay awake. He kept fighting until his head fell on the stone surface next to Ryne, his hand bracing Ryne’s cheek, his nose pressed to Ryne’s wispy hair.