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The night always brought with it howling winds and bitter blizzards in Stormhail, Glacis’s hatred turning the darkness into an unforgiving mistress. “Return to your quarters before dusk,” said the captains of the Sacred Guard to those not assigned patrol. “Do not let yourself be caught short in the frozen drifts. You will regret it otherwise.”
Crick had always listened. It was what he was best at: following orders, carrying out his duties, deferring to authority. He wondered now if that had been a mistake. After dark, it wasn’t Stormhail’s violent weather that he’d needed to shelter himself from. It had been the Sacred Guard itself, striking like a storm in the night, its shadowed blade sliding between the gaps in his armour with intent to kill.
Perhaps that was what the captains had been trying to say all along, their warnings hiding something far more sinister. ‘Return to your quarters’, meaning, ‘keep your nose out of places it doesn’t belong.’ ‘You will regret it otherwise,’ meaning, ‘we will kill you if you don’t.’
Crick had the wounds to prove that fact. A gash at the back of his head where it had been slammed against the wall with intent to stun, or kill, it hasn’t mattered much at that point. A barely mended collection of holes in his chest where a sword had slipped in and out, missing his heart by only breaths. Holy magic still swam in his blood, knitting, healing, soothing. Aelfric’s blessing, bestowed by the Inquisitor himself.
By the gods, he was lucky to be alive and he knew it.
Tonight in Stormhail was no different to any other. Outside, the winds roared, snow whipping around in a frenzy. Even within the warm library where Crick had set himself up the candles flickered at its might, the wooden ceiling creaking above. Still, the gauzy, comforting light didn’t go out. The Sacred Flame itself could only feel like this, he imagined. Safe. Inviting. Gentle.
His fingers touched the spines of musty books that had long since been abandoned, some cracked from where they’d once been read over and over. Not so much anymore; this section of the library, tucked away beneath ground, had grown dusty with disuse. Old texts filled with archaic folklore made their homes here, not quite forbidden enough to have been squirrelled away by the Sanctum Knights, but not quite appetising enough for scholars to want to devour.
Nothing quite called out to him, either. He stepped back from the shelf in quiet frustration, wincing as the slight movement jarred his wounds. He was not supposed to be up, not yet. That apothecary wearing Eir’s uniform had warned him as much. “You’re very fortunate. Had Temenos not found you when he did, we might be looking at a much more unfortunate outcome.”
She meant well. When stacked up against death, any other option seemed more appealing, but now Crick looked forward to a life where his faith was shattered, where he had to live with the knowledge that Captain Kaldena wanted him dead. There was no future with the Sanctum Knights anymore. No future as a Godsblade. Everything he’d worked for, built up, pledged his life to, lost the moment he put his nose where they’d not wanted it.
He didn’t regret it—not when his sacrifice had been for a cause more noble than even the knights he’d always admired—but the wound still ran deep. He’d always tried to believe in a better world yet it seemed determined to prove him wrong at every step. Seemed to want to choke the very life from his lungs with its oppressive nature.
Footsteps drew his attention, light, uneven, nearly lost beneath Glacis’ howling. Crick didn’t miss them. He turned in an instant, hand reaching for a sword he’d left behind at the inn. One near death experience had taught him to be wary of unexpected company. His heart raced as he realised he was trapped, back to a wall of shelves and nothing else.
A ghostly figure ambled down the steps, a staff in one hand functioning as a support while their other clutched the railing. White robes, silvery hair, a thin smile on a pale face. Not a threat, but a concern nonetheless. Crick started forward, only to wince as pain lanced through his chest.
The figure laughed. “Ah, ah, no sudden movements, Crick. Isn’t that what the bonemender ordered?”
“Temenos,” Crick felt exposed beneath his crafty gaze. His armour still remained at the inn alongside his sword, piled up in a heap which Ochette had taken possession of. In his plainclothes, just a simple white shirt and dark set of trousers, he had no shield. “You’re a fine one to talk of listening to bonemenders. The apothecary warned you too, did she not? You are too wounded to be out and about! What are you doing here?”
“Looking for a lost little lamb. I noticed he wasn’t quite where I left him, and I would be a terrible shepherd if I were to just leave him to it.” Temenos planted his staff against the wooden floor as he reached the bottom of the stairs, his breath coming a little too quickly. Cubaryi had done a number on him too; though he’d emerged the victor, it had not been without cost. Crick hadn’t seen the wounds, Temenos wouldn’t let him look, but he knew they existed nonetheless. “I thought we had an agreement, that you wouldn’t attempt to do this on your own again.”
“I wanted to do something,” Crick argued. “You and your companions, you’ve all been doing so much, while I—”
“You found evidence so valuable that it endangered your very life,” Temenos cut him off sharply. “Don’t try to tell me that was nothing. I know better.”
Crick knew, of course, that Temenos was right. Rarely was he anything but. It didn’t help Crick much; knowing he’d been unable to defend himself when it had mattered most haunted him. How would he be able to protect anything else if he'd already failed at the first step? He’d thought his last words were to be Temenos’s own name, rasped through bloodied breath. It was only through pure happenstance that he’d lived to speak again.
“You are angry with me,” Crick observed, noting the curve of his companion’s eyebrows, how they dipped inwards in a near-frown.
“Is that what it looks like to you?” Temenos shook his head stiffly. “Not in the slightest, Crick.”
He stepped forward, movement stilted like he was favouring his right side. Crick offered him an arm, which he declined. “No, no. We are both too injured to be leaning on one another, which is why we should very much still be in our rooms at the inn.”
“But you’re here anyway.” Crick glanced around. They were alone down here, the hour too late for anyone to risk their fingers in the cold for a couple of books. “You walked here in the snow?”
“No, I rode on a Cait across the drifts.”
“You found a Cait and caught it?”
“Oh, dear me. No, Crick, of course I walked here.” Temenos paused. “A Cait would be far too small to ride, you realise?”
Embarrassment tinged Crick’s cheeks red. “You are terrible, Temenos.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Temenos looked towards the shelf that Crick had previously occupied. “You were looking for more clues? You need not—I already know my next destination. Toto’haha is where I will find Kaldena. I told you this.”
Just recalling her, cloaked in the darkness, the gale at her back, was enough to send chills down Crick’s spine. His would-be murderer, stalking him like prey. “I just…wanted to be of assistance to you somehow.”
“Have you not already?”
It was a difficult question to answer, more so when Temenos stood injured before him. A cleric of the church should never have been on the front lines, an Inquisitor even less. The very fact he’d taken up his staff in search of battle meant that it fell to Crick to do his duty as a Godsblade and protect him, yet he’d failed. Instead, his cleric had become a knight in his own stead, stepping in to save Crick from the ravenous dark.
There was a bench between the wide spaced shelves. Crick dropped onto it, hunched forwards, hands clasped in front of him. Such a small movement, yet it sent tearing pains through his wounds. His head thumped unpleasantly; he’d had a mild headache ever since he’d woken in the apothecary’s care all those days ago. She’d washed his hair clean of blood, but he still imagined it there, crusted in the strands. Kaldena’s fingers, gripping hard at the roots as she dragged him by it.
“This is unlike you,” Temenos said. Crick looked up, meeting his cool gaze. He looked smaller in the hushed light, not quite the bombastic man who’d asked him to break down the door of a man’s home without any kind of warrant. He recalled, faintly, a hazy memory of ice and snow and desperation, familiar hands pressed to one of the holes in his chest and inciting fire despite the incantation calling on Aelfric. Temenos’s voice, a violin string on the verge of snapping beneath the stress, caught up in the early morning winds.
“I could say the same about you,” Crick replied. “You do not seem so…Temenos-like, to me.”
“Is that so?” A gentle silence filled the gaps between thought and speech. “Perhaps we do not know each other as well as we assumed.”
Temenos moved, stumbled lightly as something clearly gave him pains, but righted himself quickly enough. Crick didn’t get a chance to offer assistance; by the time he’d made to move, Temenos had reached the bench for himself. He sat at Crick’s side, resting his shoulder against his, the candles casting their oversized shadows against the wall.
“Shall I tell you a secret?” Temenos said. He followed up before Crick could answer. “Cubaryi saw no mercy from me. I would say I am sorry, but…it would only be a lie.”
Implications that Crick wasn’t fond of played on his mind. Not because he judged Temenos for taking lives—he knew now that the world was not so kind for that—but because it meant that Temenos had dirtied his hands for him. “You should have reported it to the captains.”
“And have them cover it up? When Kaldena herself is our suspect? You’re not truly so naïve to think that we would not have gone the way of Vados had I done anything else, are you?”
Corruption was a contagion, and it spread like pestilence. The Sacred Guard could no longer be trusted, but Crick had wanted to believe in good. He’d held on until the very last moment, only to be proven a fool. “I just hoped it would be better. Was that so wrong?”
“Not at all, but I've found that reality is not so kind.” Temenos sighed. He was warm against Crick, shoulders bony, but solid. “I think I prefer this lamb without his armour.”
The comment threw Crick’s thoughts off their well-worn tracks. “What?”
“Do you remember crashing into me?” Temenos wore his bladed smile once more, a grin that never boded well for Crick but warmed him through regardless. “Pounds and pounds of heavy metal, slamming into this poor shepherd with nary a care! Castti told me I was fortunate to not have broken more of my ribs!”
“You—!” Crick sat upright, pain forgotten in the moment. “I injured you? By the gods Temenos, I didn’t mean to—”
Temenos erupted into a cackle that echoed through the empty shelves, only to clutch at his side at the movement. Crick, realising that he’d been tricked, huffed quietly, turning his head away. “I thought clerics were supposed to be honest, good men.”
“I was, once,” Temenos said, his smile dulling, hand still pressed into his side. “A quiet, unassuming little lamb myself. But, sometimes, Crick, wolves come into the flock and make a dreadful mess. And sometimes, lambs have no choice but to grow teeth of their own, to stop hiding behind their fears and take matters into their own hands.”
It was as close as Temenos had ever gotten to speaking of himself. For all the time they’d spent together, Crick still knew so little about him. He teased, made fun, deducted, became terrifying at night, but those were all surface-level details. His past was much a mystery; where Crick had laid his out plainly, Temenos had told him nothing at all.
But now, he had a feeling he knew why that was. “So that makes you a wolf in sheep’s clothing now?”
“If I were a wolf, Crick, I fear you wouldn’t have survived me.” There was that mischief-making grin again, a lilt to the words that heated Crick’s cheeks anew. “Rather, I’m the opposite. I prefer it that way. I’ll protect the flock on my own, even if they know not quite what I am.”
“You do not have to do it alone,” Crick spoke before he could think it through. “I…there is nothing left for me here. There cannot be, anymore. All that I have is the truth, which we must find. I am at your side, I can even be your blade, your shield, if you will have me. When I have nothing else now to put my faith in, please, Temenos, allow me this.”
Temenos wore so many faces, but the one he showed now was not one that Crick was familiar with. His smile, vanishing like ice beneath flame. His eyes, a fraction too wide, vivid green in the candle’s glow. His jaw tense. Some despairing flavour of horror had scrawled itself across his features, and Crick suddenly feared something worse than death itself; rejection.
“No,” Temenos said, voice caught on that single word in the same tenuous tone as it had been when Crick had lain dying, when Temenos had driven all of himself into the magic that had saved his life. Heart crushed, Crick retreated from him now, distance opening between them. “No, Crick, you will not do this to me. I have no need of a blade, no need of a shield—”
“I must apologise then, I fear I misread—”
“No.” Temenos’s fingers gripped his arm, then his shirt, his staff clattering to the floor as he abandoned it in favour of keeping Crick from escaping. “Stop running from me. I am your guide, am I not? Come back to me. Listen.”
Crick hesitated, his heartbeat on a rampage but now for a different reason entirely. Fear, but also want. He wanted this so badly it hurt, to have a place to belong, to believe the world could be better, to know there was someone who would take his faith and prove it was not misplaced.
Temenos moved, arms wrapping around Crick’s middle, head dipping down to rest against his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was terrifyingly close. “I want you as you are, Crick. Not as some weapon to be wielded, not as some armour to hide behind. You are not made for that. Stand at my side as yourself.”
Warm. Temenos blazed as the Sacred Flame did itself against him, Crick instinctively seeking his heat. Their shadows melded together on the wall, larger than both of them. Uncertain what exactly to do, he returned the embrace, feeling his pulse in his own throat.
“What can I offer you, Temenos?” he asked. “If I am not with you as a Godsblade, then…?”
“I thought you were dead,” Temenos said, which hardly seemed like an answer. “Even after I took you to Castti, she told me that you might not survive. Do you know what it feels like, Crick? To stand as witness to losing everything. Because I have lost time and time again. When she said those words, I was certain that there would be no might. I doubted your survival because that is what I’ve been taught. There is no hope in this world.”
“Temenos—”
“I took up my staff. Osvald caught up to me before I went inside. Throné and Partitio too. No words, they let me have my moment. I forgot my place in that battle, Crick. Healing? Aelfric’s blessing? I forgot all of it. I wanted answers more than I wanted anything else. I wanted the truth, and I got it. Then, I wanted her gone from this world for what she did. These wounds? I cared little.”
“Temenos—”
“You wanted an answer. Let this be it. You are a comfort I did not realise I needed.” Temenos’s full weight was against him now, arms lax but still encircling Crick’s waist, head pressed into the crook of Crick’s neck. “The very fact that you are here now is proof. Perhaps this world is not so hollow as I thought. Perhaps there is something worth trusting. I do not know yet, but, if you want to believe in good, I can try also.”
Crick’s eyes burned. An emotion he didn’t quite recognise swept him, throat closing. It became hard to speak, his voice made thick beneath the weight of his own words. “I would want nothing more than to stay at your side then, if you will have me.”
Temenos pushed himself from Crick’s embrace, hissing softly as he caught himself again. Crick touched his arm carefully. “Temenos?”
There was that familiar gleam in those green eyes, daring and teasing, but with a hint of something more. Desperation. “I want a promise worth more than words, little lamb. Forgive me, but as you know, doubt is what I do.”
So he wanted action, then. Crick hesitated, not entirely certain of how to show something so weighty. “What would prove it to you?”
“I want to see what your answer is, one you've decided for yourself.”
It was suddenly difficult to meet his eyes. Crick’s mind flittered through a hundred different, wild options before settling on something that seemed both outlandish yet infallible. He stammered as he spoke. “Would you allow anything?”
A snicker, so light that it could have been mistaken for the wind itself. “If it were you, I suppose I would.”
Crick took a breath, the act of steadying himself sending splintering pain through him, but he no longer cared. His hands travelled up, reaching for the hood of Temenos’s cloak. The fabric was thick yet soft between his fingers as he pulled it up and over his silver hair. There was nobody to watch, nobody to lay eyes on this, but he wanted nothing to pry on them regardless.
“Ah,” Temenos caught his gaze, touching his own hand to the back of Crick’s trembling one, slender fingers pressing in. “So it would seem you do understand what I want.”
“Temenos,” Crick said, voice thin. “Please. I will lose my nerve if you tease me.”
“Alright, alright.” He paused. “But I must know, is this what you want, Crick? Do not feel like you’re being coerced. It is not my intention to misread this, nor to ask for something you wouldn’t want to give.”
He’d seen Temenos corner people in the darkness, information gotten in ways ill-befitting a cleric. Here, soft in the candle's glow, he didn't look anything like the man who took his staff to those who would not speak. “It is nothing of the sort. I—I give myself willingly.”
“Good. I would ask nothing else.”
The winds outside picked up. The candles flickered. Their shadows danced against the wall as Crick pulled Temenos’s hood forward and pressed their lips together, a silent promise, a hefty dedication. Hyperaware as he was, Crick heard and felt everything; the thudding of his own heart, the delicate push of his mouth against Temenos’s, the blood rushing in his own ears that overpowered Glacis’s cries.
It felt like prayer, like dropping down to his knees in worship. If the Sacred Guard were no longer the altar to which he could offer his life to, then this would be a worthy trade. When they broke apart for breath, Crick ducked his head, tears brimming in the corner of his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Not quite the response I expected,” Temenos said, his gentle laugh suggesting that, despite that fact, he was entertained. “But, you’re very welcome, my dear Crick. Now, we should away from here. If Castti wakes and finds us gone, we’ll be due an earful that I’m not quite up to.”
"No, I don't think I am either."
Temenos laughed. When he stood, he took Crick by the hand. "We must keep warm on our way back. Stay close."
Crick followed without complaint; he knew now he would do so the ends of the earth if Temenos asked him to. The heat that warmed him thoroughly told him so; this was his place. There was nowhere else he would fit any longer.
He could learn to live with that.