---RYNE---

My head pounded as I opened my eyes. It was as if my heart beat inside my head. Wilbur would have said I was too young for this, but I think he was beginning to realize that I was not so young for most things anymore. At least, I hoped so.

He was sleeping beside me while Woodrow lay on top of the next sarcophagus. I pried myself off him. As soon as I did, his arms crossed themselves in front of his chest on their own like insects when they keeled. I inspected him. He looked paler and more gaunt. They haven’t fed since last night, I remembered.

I walked out of the crypt, noticing the thick cobwebs strung along the walls, and heard the scurrying and squeaking of rats hurrying to hide. A moth flew from the socket of a skull, leaving a glowing cocoon inside. I sensed one of these skulls was a lever like the torch behind Gaelmar. My hand rested on one with a red tooth and pressed. A machination clicked and the passage opened. The skull with the cocoon was like a pulsing iris that watched me leave.

It was daybreak. The first breath of the world chilled me. I shivered and wrapped my cloak tighter around myself. I sat under Gaelmar’s statue and waited for the sky to blue. Or the bluest hue that it could manage, anyway.

“Do you think you can stop the Chaos from spreading as you hide, child? There is no safe place for you.” Blake mocked within me. I closed my eyes and clasped my hands together. “Do you think your pathetic prayers can keep me out of your head? I will keep tormenting you for all your days.”

“I wouldn’t count on it being otherwise. Now, burn.”

I focused deeply in my heart, on the place where chains trapped Blake within me. I imagined chains made of iron preventing him from escaping, iron that burned with Gaelmar’s flame each time I invoked his name. Blake recoiled into the depths he carved for himself. I knew that I must be vigilant from now on. One missed prayer, just one distraction, and my brothers would be prone to possession. Gaelmar’s strength had left him for now, so there would be no Saint coming to our aid anytime soon. Not like that fateful night at Saint Korbin’s.

I focused on my brother’s faces. I called upon Gaelmar’s name. I called upon the power of sanctuary here. I pulled from the air whatever warmth it offered under the last remaining Saint’s influence. I channeled the warmth into the words that I learned from Knox’s books, thankful that I harnessed something good from the awful months of reading and listening to him blabber. It was the antithesis of the ritual he made me remember. With this warmth, the words turned into a blessing of banishing Blake. Temporarily. I was not sure if I could get stronger somehow and banish him forever.

When I opened my eyes, it was to the gray of a new day. My brow was dotted with sweat. I wiped it away and headed out, skin rejoicing to the cool breeze that relieved my exhaustion.

The dark forest looked as dead as ever under the gray clouds. They looked like my brothers sleeping in the crypts. Like the roots would not reach out at you and stab you in your eyes. The granges meanwhile had a surprise for me.

I hurried towards the soil where fertile brown met sleeping black. Bits of healthy green stuck out from the awakened soil. The burst of joy I felt cleared the remaining exhaustion away. I bent down and slowly touched the tips of what I now realized were turnips and parsnips. Near it were the budding flowers of potatoes. Wilbur must have used all the spring seeds he had.

I wanted to stand up and hop, and that is exactly what I did. In the emptiness of the grounds, my victory call echoed. I did something right. I did something! I looked at my hands and the veins that marked me an oddity. For once I did something good with my frail body! I wanted to wake Wilbur and Woodrow and show them the beginnings of our journey. It was already rewarding us this fast! Maybe it had to do with Wilbur’s fertilizers and Gaelmar’s Blessing, where influences of chaos and harmony worked together.

And I wanted to meet the curious farmer boy who took us into their house and shared their meal with us. My mind brought an image of dark curls and thick brows making funny faces at me on the table. I was not a child, and yet, there was no way to stop myself from pulling those faces at him at his kitchen table and from snickering as many of the children did back at the many monasteries. I prayed he was safe.

I buried my hand in the soil again. Life. I sensed that the ground was impatient to grow. And then, when my hand emerged, I felt the opposite of life. The unmistakable ice-cold chill of the miasma. The same sinister force that emanated from Claude’s farm was already making its way here, through the dark forest. I remembered the black sludge in my hand. I vowed never to let our hard work be wasted.

I knelt on the ground and cast kindflame over the budding crops. Like a blanket.

Gaelmar showed me how. In my heart, I knew what to do with it. I was also aware that it was not in its full force, so the effect would also be temporary. It was like a heatwave as the protective blessing came from the prayers in my heart and onto the soil. A blanket of glowing warmth that the miasma could not breach until the next day. I saw it; the vile ash that hovered like a swarm of pests from the trees. It wanted to land on the crops and eat away the green. But they bounced off my protection and hovered in the air, circling, waiting for an opening.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Hurriedly, I went to the gardens and saw to my delight, that one of the flowers was also sprouting. The one Wilbur called yellowtongues, the improved version of feverflukes. And just like tongues, they were licking away the soil and were about to sprout in the next few days. The shivering maiden and the everbane patch were still on the soil. I cast the net of protection to these three as well.

It sapped from me the strength I had recovered with sleep, and I felt my knees wobble again, and my arm shake. The shade of the oak tree beckoned to me. Under this oak lay my brothers. I suppose I must join them in sleep as well again.

I woke and did this twice more in the afternoons, down to dusk. When Wilbur and Woodrow emerged, they saw me as I prayed, the glow from my chest fading away. I smiled at them and showed them the budding miracles. My brothers traded smiling and surprised looks. Wilbur bent down to touch the healthy crops and garden flowers. But when we went back to the nave, he sighed.

“You look tired,” Wilbur said. And then at that moment, my stomach growled. It was then I realized that I had not yet eaten anything since this morning. Wilbur frowned.

“I’m going to go hunt.” Woodrow, quick as a flash, had the hilt of the dagger in his hand. There are animals there now. "Will the forest let me?”

“I think so, if I allow it.”

We walked closer to the dark woods. I placed my hand on the first bark I saw, just like I did when I awakened the oak tree. “If it’s all right with you, may my brother hunt in your woods? Just enough for this night.”

I sensed nothing in the forest shifted. I shrugged at Woodrow. Uncertain, he held my gaze as he slid through the trees. We waited for him as my body shook with hunger. I avoided Wilbur’s eyes as they jumped from analyzing me to anticipating trouble through the trees.

But Woodrow came back with a limp quail and her eggs. “There were plenty of nests. There would be plenty of numbers to replace this one and her children. Were there pots in the kitchens?”

There was a simple door in the monastery kitchens. Its hinges creaked open and revealed a complete set of old furniture. It had the same scent in the crypt; of centuries of inactivity with old wood and brass. There was a long table at the center and a cupboard above a counter that was attached to the walls.

We were glad to find, once we opened the cupboards, that Rothfield monastery was abandoned with a basic set of kitchenware. Wilbur and Woodrow brought out a big brass cooking pot and cut down a tree with an old rusted axe we found in the toolshed near the cloistered garth. The dead trees may not be used for lord Bahram’s purposes, but they worked enough for us as burning logs.

Woodrow sparked two stones together, and let the fire roar. Wilbur collected enough water in the nearby river. This was the one that Lydia told us about; the spring that ran from the mountain down to this monastery and into their farm. While they were doing those, I plucked the feathers off the quail on the long table and used those feathers as more fuel to the fire. We cooked it in the brass pot along with the eggs, sitting in silence, watching it bubble, our pale faces glowing orange next to the fire.

I touched Wilbur’s arm. “You two haven’t fed.”

Woodrow was the one who answered. “We thought about that. We haven’t done this before, but,” from under his cloak, Woodrow pulled out a dead owl, its talons pointing at the night sky. One less hoot to disturb the night. A few mice will be spared tonight.

As the fire crackled, Woodrow’s fangs lengthened, sharpened, and he sucked the owl of its blood. “It’s rude to watch someone as they sup, you know,” he said after. He tasted his lips and shook his head. “It isn’t filling. I feel none of my strength returning, but it has abated the hunger somewhat. And we need the forest to recuperate, which means that we can only hunt a few animals. Speaking of, I’m going to hunt for another. Just for you, brother,” he said to Wilbur.

Wilbur rinsed my bowl in the stream, even though I could have managed. Without a ladle, he dipped the entire thing in the quail soup and stirred the brass cooking pot with it. He handed me a bowl full of the hot soup. Woodrow emerged as I supped and tossed Wilbur another common barn owl. Wilbur caught it and dug into its stomach. He was about to fling it back to the trees when he stopped and kept it under his cloak. Maybe he would need it for his experiments later.

“You’re right. It’s comparable to drinking soup with just a tiny bit of bone broth. It isn’t nourishing, but it’s enough for now,” Wilbur said.

I didn’t feel like eating anymore. It didn’t feel right that I would replenish my strength when they would still feel weak. “I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could say. Woodrow and Wilbur offered me sympathetic smiles, shaking their heads.

“Nothing you could do about it,” they said. Without anything to do, they stared into the fire and were alone with their thoughts.

I saw Woodrow smiling, though. He caught me looking. “it’s just been so long since I had time to myself. I know that soon enough I will crave other people’s companionship."

“It must be hard for you,” I sympathized. “This silence,” I remember Hollowed Fairstep long ago. I would like to tease him and say that he missed the attention. But centuries, years before me, a life long ago, Woodrow had always loved human interaction.

He shrugged. Wilbur nudged me. “How’s the meal?”

“Lacking without your delicious herbs. But I suppose it will have to do.” I winked. The fire burned deep into the night, and when it burned low, the logs crackling faintly, I felt Blake push against the chains. I breathed deep, warmed my hands in the remaining fire, closed my eyes, and uttered Gaelmar’s prayer. My brothers were less surprised by the glow that emanated this time, though they were still watchful.

“We feel it too when he stirs.”

Twice more, I prayed after supper. I woke again to the crypts under the nave, Wilbur sleeping beside me again, his long arm in front of my body like he was shielding me from dust and debris. I sighed and leaned into him. It did feel nice sometimes—only sometimes—to have an overprotective bigger brother.

The next morning, it was the same, with Woodrow hunting farther, and us reminding him to ration. I cast the protective warmth over the crops and the emerging yellowtongue flowers. The next morning, the same routine.

The sky saw it fit to reward me with a single beam of sunlight the next day, falling right over the area of the forest path leading to the granges. I stooped low and talked to the turnips now halfway emerging from the ground. “There now, how about a wee bit of sunlight for you?”

I was smiling, following where the sunlight pointed to the path. It was there I saw a small figure standing still, just emerging from the forest with a knapsack on his back. He had a head full of dark curls.