(THOB) Chapter 87: Religious? (Patreon)

Ezril rested uncomfortably beneath the tent fashioned for him by the soldiers. His wounds beneath their bandages ached in severe discomfort. He had been patched up by a healer whose name he neither remembered nor was bothered to attempt reminiscence of. The man having done a great job of stitching him up and bandaging him properly had moved on to other men.

He turned to observe his Sunders embedded in the grass. The lost twin had been found by Salem.

“It is too aesthetic a piece to let go of, brother,” Salem had said, handing it to him along with his bow which now rested against the tent wall.

Lenaria had spent that night, as well as the nights after it, in his tent, regardless of the tent the soldiers had set up for her. Ezril couldn’t help but suspect they had labored over its construction knowing they labored in vain. Tonight, she spent within his tent too.

“What did you mean when you said it was for your safety?” Ezril asked, wiping himself down with a wet cloth dipped in a pail of water the soldiers had provided him at his request. He assessed his injuries fairly pleased with the development noticed. Nixarv would’ve done a better job, he thought. However, he couldn’t fault the healer’s skill.

“The abbess once told me that there are those who would seek to use me for religious gains,” Lenaria replied from her make shift bed at the corner of the tent. The tent was large enough to present Ezril with more comfort than was necessary. It proved—with her around—a perfect fit for two people.

“… and there are those who would seek to kill me for religious reasons,” she added after a moment’s pause, her tone tinged with a hint of sadness.

Ezril ceased his inspection of his wound to afford her a questioning gaze. “Religious?”

Lenaria sat up, legs crossed. She twirled a strand of hair around one finger, a whisper of regret coloring the action. “Yes. Religious.”

Ezril finished his inspection then turned to face her. Her face was cast in the soft golden glow of a lantern that hung from a wooden bar spanning the roof of the tent. It gave her the visage of something from a dream he wouldn’t have wished to wake from.

“And what does your hair have to do with any of it?” he asked.

“The birth of a child with hair the white of snow, and eyes the green of the forests,” she said. The words seemed like something memorized from a tome. It irked him that it reminded him of Jazabil. “A child born of war, dedicated to the course of greater deeds come her third decade shall bring with her the glory of the beginning, and the end of the one from whom time continues to run.”

Ezril found he didn’t like what he heard. “A prophecy,” he said, skeptical.

Lenaria barked a short derisory laugh, one he noticed was directed at herself and not the prophecy she had just recited. “Yes,” she answered. “They all think me a vessel for Rin.”

Ezril’s brows furrowed. “Rin?”

“The goddess of war,” she explained. “The stories say she once came to fight an evil that was to bring death to Vayla and won, but the evil had failed to be vanquished. Then she had possessed a whisper of her powers but if she inhabits her vessel she can bear down her full might should the evil return.”

She believes the prophecy, Ezril realized. His memory drew back to her prowess on the battlefield. It was something that could make anyone believe her something more than human on the battlefield. “If this is true, then why would anyone want you dead?”

Lenaria shrugged. “Because there are those who would rather the evil return.”

“And what is the Abbess’ part in all this?”

Lenaria smiled. “You could say she wants me to grow old and die as myself.” Her hand moved deftly, tying her hair up in a messy bun. “She went through it, you know,” she added. Her smile grew fonder. “The white hair, the green eyes. Then in her seventeenth year she grew blonde, and the green of her eyes dulled. They left her then.” She sighed now but maintained her smile. “She suspects they may do the same in my case. But there was no war during her time, and everyone thought her not Hallowed. I won’t be so lucky.”

“Abbess Lyniah is a Hallowed?” Ezril asked, astonished. He thought all the Hallowed of the convent became priestesses.

“Yes,” Lenaria answered. “One of her many secrets. One of the many she trusted me with.”

And you are telling me because…

“She often took me away from the sisters to talk,” she continued. “She would teach me the beliefs of the heathens about Rin. A great goddess who held the souls of those who died in battle. Do you know they believe the dead know the end?” she asked. “They believe that is how Rin won against the evil, she predicted the end. But the Abbess doesn’t believe that’s what happened. She says Rin is not that kind of goddess. I always thought her delusional, but I knew enough to keep the things she told me a secret without having to be asked to.” Her smile faded now. “Then she started acting different. She would come to me sometimes in the dark of night not very much herself, the green of her eyes not so dull. It was on nights like these that she would teach me to fight, working me to the bone, telling me to let myself be free. ‘You are battle incarnate,’ she would say, ‘give yourself to what you are’. Each night she came, she would teach me new ways to fight, sometimes picking up from where Carlva stopped in the strange techniques he’d been teaching me before his death.

“The first time I spoke about it with her during the day she’d seemed visibly confused. All she’d said in the end was that I be careful whenever she came for me at night and do as she said and never anger her then. The night lessons began before the test of snow, and continued till I left the convent. It was the test that gave me the name the sisters call me. It wasn’t until the test that I let loose and gave myself to the battle.” She looked at him now, her eyes imploring, begging him to understand something he didn’t know.

“At first there was rage,” she continued, her thoughts clearly falling back to that cold evening, “Then there was nothing; just a calm, like everything was how it had always been intended. It was peaceful, Ezril; too peaceful. When the peace comes, I never want to return from the calm. The peace makes the calm scary, Ezril. I feel nothing; just an unimaginable peace,” she sobbed.

She drew the back of her hand across her eyes, cleaning little of the tears he saw there. “It wasn’t long after the test that I learned what exactly was happening each night she came for me. I had always suspected, but I never allowed myself to believe. The Abbess was not the vessel. But Rin commanded her body every now and then. It was Rin that came to me each night not her.

“The arts she taught me were ancient ones lost in history; things no one should remember. Carlva was a collector of ancient weapons and, not long after he’d adopted me, I’d come to learn the weapons were not the only things he took from history. And even he didn’t… couldn’t have known most of the things she taught me.” Her gaze refocusing on Ezril, she asked, “Do you know that there are over a million ways to kill a man on the battlefield with just one hand.” A Takan smile danced on her lips. “She made sure I left the convent able to perfect at least half of them in my sleep. I’ve learned a few on the battlefield on my own. They just always seem to come to me.” She fell silent. It was weighed by a sense of self-pity.

“You say she was Rin,” Ezril said after a while. “But how could you have been so certain? Abbess Lyniah is a woman of demanding age, perhaps her age didn’t allow her remember the things she did during those nights.”

Lenaria simply shook her head, saying nothing.

Carlva, Ezril recalled the name, burning it into memory. It was the first time he had heard her adoptive father’s name. It was also the first time he’d heard her speak of the man with a voice void of love or gratitude. Tonight she spoke of him as a person would a stranger.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked her.

This time she frowned and Ezril knew that what she was about to tell him had been an important moment in her life.

“Because she showed me.” She laid back down, avoiding his scrutinizing gaze, looking up to the ceiling of their tent. “I voiced my doubts one night. She’d simply looked at me like I was a child saying the sun was pink.” She made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a snort. “She said she didn’t like to use her powers in the Abbess’ body, that it couldn’t handle it but that one day she would.” She looked at him. In her eyes he saw horror. “She kept her promise. A year before my ordination she took me to her chambers, and when she was certain of our privacy her eyes glowed the brightest green I’d ever seen them, and the room grew strong with the smell of decay.”

Again she grew quiet, compelling Ezril to ask, “What did she show you, Aria?”

“Not what,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Who.”

Although her voice remained level as she spoke, it dripped with a malice he hadn’t known she had. “Three men, fashioned from nothing, stepped out of thin air. One held a lance with a gash at the side of his head. The other carried a broad sword with no visible wounds. But it was the third that was truly compelling. His form was grotesque and words seemed difficult for him, and he found it difficult to stay, unlike the rest.”

Ezril stared in silence, enamored by her tale. “Why?”

“She said it was the effect of being burned in shadows. It feeds on the soul and, when a man is killed by it, it breaks his soul. Carlva was burned to death and I saw what it did to his soul.” She shook her head violently, banishing whatever image the memory conjured. “They addressed her as Rin with greater reverence than I thought possible. At her behest Carlva told the tale of how he’d found me, and she thanked him for his services. I saw it in his eyes as he told his story. I had been his duty, and he had carried me out to the best of his obligation.”

Ezril felt a mild panic swelling inside him. His lips twisted into a frown. How many people know this? He swore under his breath. If the church finds out, or even the seminary, she’s sure to burn.

“Do you remember what you told me the first night I took your bed when you came to the orphanage, Ezril?” Lenaria asked, pulling him from his thought.

Ezril nodded, then sighed. “I promised that no matter what, I’d take care of you.”

Lenaria smiled softly. “And I promised to wait, even if you’d have to find me, first. I’d wait no matter how long it takes you.”

Ezril knew it to be nothing more than promises made by children. A promise from a child who couldn’t protect Fen.

Lenaria sighed heavily. “Everyone to ever show me kindness did so because of what I am.” Her voice carried a weight of import. “Carlva adopted and cared for me out of his duty to Rin. Abbess Lyniah helped me because I was a vessel; something she understood. Even the goddess concerns herself with me because I am useful to her. But you, you fought for me without knowing who I was. You knew nothing about me, but you fought. There are no secrets between you and I, Ezril. Any secret I know, you’ll know, too. You’re the only family I’ve ever had. You’re the only family I ever want.”

Even after all the years apart, she still trusted him. Ezril chuckled at her naiveté.

“What?” she asked, embarrassed.

“Nothing.”

“Besides,” she stuck her tongue out at him, “you should have some faith in me. You’re the only one I’ve told this, and I have no plans of telling anyone else.”

“I never—”

“Oh, shut up,” she cut him off, chuckling. “I could see it on your face. Besides, you’re a terrible liar; you’ve always been.” She grew serious again, austere. “Do you have faith in me?”

Ezril sighed. “I do…” he told her. A smile stretched his lips …More than you’d think.

As the night aged, sleep took Lenaria first. While she slumbered and the lantern burned itself out, drowning them in darkness, he found her faith in him quite amusing. It was a very blind one.

He chuckled a second time…

So was his faith in her.