The hall back was long, demarcated by constantly repeating archways that went on forever.
It was new to Sethlzaar, and he had no memory of ever being in this part of the seminary. In fact, neither was the room he had stepped out of. But what caught his attention was the ever present mist that spanned the floor, covering it so that his feet disappeared beneath it. He was surprised it hadn't overrun the seminary.
The test had taken up the whole day, but the darkness proved more of a shock. The night was pitch black, without star or moon.
Sethlzaar increased his pace and soon found himself in a panicked run as the darkness seemed to chase him. The archway went on forever, heralding something new with each passing. The mist rose above the ground. It wetted the calves of his trousers, and crawled up to his knee.
Then he heard it. The growl, accompanied by the sound of paws on the ground.
No, fear consumed his mind, it's not possible.
The hallway went straight, with no discernable intersection. He ran with all the power he had, consumed by a fear he understood all too well. The possibility of sound was unfathomable, but here it was, present in the growl and paws on dirt. He knew what came next. It was something he had dreaded for so long.
The words echoed all around him.
"You cannot save her from what is to come."
Sethlzaar ran faster, and harder. The hallway finally disgorged him into an open field.
Running into it, he stumbled, and crashed into a rolling fall. He roused himself to his feet quickly. Before him stood a smiling face all too familiar. Blood dripped from its lips. It mouthed a soundless word.
It's coming.
Sethlzaar rounded on it with the fury of a mistreated child. "YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE!" He turned, faced the bear as it came charging towards him. He roared louder. "NONE OF YOU BELONG HERE! YOU CAN HAVE MY DREAMS, BUT YOU CANNOT HAVE THIS!"
the night dropped, and everything was swallowed in darkness. The only other element present was the mist, and it seemed to take up all the space.
Sethlzaar, still feeling the presence of the open field, found the world congested. How did this happen? Tears wetted his cheek. He found himself mourning a loss he could not understand.
What are we?
He turned abruptly, panicked. The words echoed around him. It came from everywhere. It came from everything.
It did not come from him.
Fen was the first person to ask him. He had hidden himself in the closet one night after Groc had struck him. Fearing what he might do to him, he had found himself running for his space in the attic. It had taken barely thirty minutes before Fen had found him. But with every word Fen had offered he'd refused to leave the attic. Then Fen had uttered the words. "What are we?"
His answer had been delayed, hesitant. For fear of a displaced trust he had bitten down on his lips to hold back the words, but Fen's patience coerced them out of him.
"We are family," Sethlzaar murmured, just as he had done then.
The air shifted and he felt the presence of someone else... something else. He was no longer alone with the mist. He focused in the dark and saw it. It seemed to be a seat in the middle of the field, something high, something grand... or at least something that used to be.
Its back rest that—for reasons unknown to him—he knew spanned high enough to challenge the skies had come crumbling down. It left a wide slab the height of a man and a seat wide enough to hold two.
Sethlzaar found himself drawn closer to it with no recollection of having moved his legs. A throne? he wondered.
The seat of stone was surrounded by rubbles of itself. They served as a stairway, elevating its position, narrating a tale of loss and defeat. And yet, Sethlzaar found himself craving such a loss, craving such a defeat. Craving such a throne.
Something about the throne before him proved forbidden; something he was not ready to have. Two hilts protruded from each side of it, black as night. He knew them well enough. Here they presented themselves as not to be drawn, but something he would return for. He turned away from it to face his nightmares. As they retook their forms he found himself with an answer he couldn't imagine he had forgotten.
No, Fen, he took a step towards them, authority compelled him, and the mist swirled around his feet, you will have to forgive me.
We are not family.
He was well aware of what stood behind him as the answer came to him. He wasn't a boy turning his back on a mere throne. He was a boy who had a shattered throne behind him. And in all the truth of what it entailed, there was no disregarding that it was exactly what it was, and it did nothing to diminish the weight of its presence. It was a shattered throne in all its glory. It might have been something else once, but this was what it was now.
Fueled by its presence, he gave his answer. I am Blessed, a sacrifice of Truth.
Sethlzaar awoke, gasping a deep breath of fresh air. He was welcomed to the sight of a dark hole.
"An eye?" he asked without thinking.
"No, boy," a voice came from beneath a hood. "That one is lost for good," it assured him.
A silence hovered over them. He laid on the ground, propped up in the man's arms.
"It would seem you have passed." There was a smile with the words. A sad smile. The man's face was marred in burn marks Sethlzaar recognized. He had been burned by shadows.
Sethlzaar rose to his feet, wobbled ever so slightly, and reached for the man. He was surprised to find a hand waiting for him.
The man's smile was replaced by a complete sadness. "You were gone for a while," he said, then paused. After the span of two breaths he spoke again. "I don't think anyone can help you with what haunts you. I fear it is an unending part of you."
Sethlzaar always knew. So offering his helper a smile he knew was all too weak, he said, "At least I'll never be alone in the dark."
The man tried for a friendly smile and failed. It came out as strained, and not really even a smile. Perhaps it could be mistaken for a grimace.
Sethlzaar walked the dark compound of the seminary. Finding the silence of the night discomforting, he wondered if he had only liked it because it was against the rules.
The dining hall proved unfavorable. Being the only one left, his mates had left him something, be it cold. He had no appetite for a meal but forced himself to eat.
"Yer never know when yer next meal will be," Father Ordan often told them. "Always eat like it may be yer last."
He didn't like the priest, but sometimes the man said reasonable things.
The test of the mist had everyone sitting and lying in silence when Sethlzaar got to the room. Understanding all too well, he retired to his bed in silence, noting the added distance between it and Narvi's.
Canabi seemed to have taken a greater blow from it, and Sethlzaar found himself wondering what Soartin had experienced that he was not comforting the boy, or if it was Canabi's choice to remain alone.
The room was austere, gloom. Tonight his brothers were not the boys he knew. They were not the boys he'd grown to understand. These tests will make monsters of us.
Before long they all slept.
Sethlzaar wondered how they could sleep so easily after what they had been through. He was fully aware of what awaited him in his dreams, and he cursed the tests in silence.
Deep into the night he heard the scraping sound of bamboo against stone and knew someone had risen. At one end Canabi sobbed. It seemed it was what roused Soartin. Canabi cried in silence and Soartin joined him in his bed.
Sethlzaar listened to sounds of murmured consolation from Soartin calming Canabi and felt guilty for thinking sleep had been anything but easy for any of his brothers. He wondered how many more laid awake. He turned to check on Cenam.
Cenam slept with the wild abandon of a dead thing.
In time, Canabi's sobbing ceased, and so did Soartin's consolations. Sethlzaar found himself with the silence of the night again. Canabi's bed creaked, slow and constant. It filled the room like a gentle murmur, like lies untold in the minds of men. Sethlzaar succumbed to sleep. To him the sound served as an obscured lullaby; a lullaby nonetheless.
Morning saw the exit of more children from the seminary. They were left at the gate with no guidance through the mist, as was the way of the seminary, and Sethlzaar found himself wondering how ironic it was that upon failing a test they would have to undergo the first test.
Those who learned to return home would have to leave with the same knowledge.
Beside him, Cenam whispered. "I guess the worst is over."
It was a collective agreement. They didn't believe the seminary could subject them to worse than it just had, but Sethlzaar believed the worst was yet to come.
"Let's hope so," he whispered softly. So softly that no one heard him.
As they made their way to the dining hall for breakfast, he walked with Narvi. All Narvi chose to speak of was the training they underwent. He said nothing of the test, and Sethlzaar indulged him. He spoke, and smiled, and gestured, and lied. He did things that were unlike him. The calm and collected boy was missing, hidden in the rubbles of what the test had razed in him. Sethlzaar did not hold it against him. People handle things in different ways.
Alsipin walked past him with Tamael as they climbed the tower stairs. Gently he uttered words Sethlzaar believed were intended for him.
"I got to see her again," Alsipin said quietly.
In the words, Sethlzaar heard gratitude.