Chapter 13: Part 13: The Price of Success

As for his part, Sebastian tried his best to stay out of it. Took on more stints cleaning the moss off the north tower, or catching trout in the nearby streams; the water high with the snow melt and the fish fat with eggs.

Made him feel a bit cowardly maybe, avoiding his only friends like that.

But even after all these years he still felt far too aware of how much younger he was than they, how much later he had been absorbed into their group. The shadow of rejection was always ever-present in his mind, despite the decades he could now count of calling the older Relicts his friends.

Call it a side effect of a Relict's inhumanly long lifespan. Hard to feel equal perhaps, when the Relict sitting next to you could conceivably have changed your great grandfather's nappies.

Who knows, maybe in another decade that feeling would finally go away and he could tell Oskarl and Emrick they were both being idiots.

Someone should.

Gods knew Destan wouldn't, or he would have done it ages ago. Instead he would slink along after Sebastian, offering to lend a hand with the fishing. They both knew it was just to escape the pre-spring bickering though, even if neither would ever come right out and actually say it.

It was almost as if they were all trying to find ways to ignore that itchy feeling they could all feel growing under their skin.

A sense of cabin fever, maybe.

Relicts who spent most of the year subjected to the vagaries of traveling the Path were bound to enjoy the novelty of three square meals and a warm dry bed at night. No surprise there. Not to mention the camaraderie of folk who wouldn't flinch at the sight of their eyes, the knowledge of what they all were.

Safety, friendship, and all the little creature comforts Eldfäst could offer? It was a heady drought after a hard year out on the Path.

But still, it was one that could only satisfy so long. Eventually the mind forgot all the pains and aches, the cold nights spent sleeping in the rain and sting of an empty belly.

Soon enough the memory of choosing your own course, your own jobs, your own direction out on the Path began to take on the kind of shine that only time and distance could give it.

Only so long before every Relict started to feel in their bones the call of the world they had been created to walk waiting for them, just outside.

Before the press of Eldfäst's stone all around became less about protection from what waited without, and instead felt too much like containment within.

Feels like a fucking mausoleum in here some days, Sebastian grumbled to himself. He quickly yanked his porridge out of the way of two brawling Relicts, both of who had just decided Sebastian deserved a ringside seat. Just…with a slightly livelier crowd.

Too many of us packed in here in a too-small space, with not nearly enough to do that isn't cleaning or fighting…

And soon there might be even more Relicts to join them.

The oldest of the trainees were making their last preparations even now, ready to go through their Ordeal in just a few short days.

Or at least, as ready as anyone ever could be. Which is to say; not ever, not at all.

But the day was fixed and on it's way, whether they were ready for it or not.

When they would be stripped of their natural birthrights; turned from regular human children into something that could challenge the very creatures that haunted their nightmares. Something that was straight out of the nightmares of so many. Something that could possibly even have half a chance of winning such a fight. Presuming they managed to Graduate and earn the right to walk out Eldfäst's main gate.

Vörsdag marked when the second of a Relict's Ordeals was traditionally held, the entire keep a flurry of activity the whole of the fortnight ahead of it.

Not for the sake of the trainees though, no.

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Though the pass down from Eldfäst couldn't yet be called clear even by the most optimistic among them, it was often by that point manageable. At least, given the number of Relicts hellbent on brute forcing their way down en masse. All grimly determined to escape the horrific reminder of their own Ordeals, rushing to get out of range of the keep before the screaming started.

Vörsdag marked the end of winter, and the turning of the year's wheel into spring.

Sebastian wasn't sure about over on Östran, or any of the islands that lay between. But across almost all of Västran and The Crown of Jewels it was celebrated as the time for cleansing and renewal. The time to get rid of what's broken and clean what remained. To shake out the last wisps of winter, and to set things to rights for the upcoming year.

Jarlsmen and knights would be renewing their vows and oaths, herdsfolk preparing for the coming of new animals, and farmers for the spring planting.

Priests of every faith encouraged their flocks on that day to donate their hand-me-downs and castoffs to those in need.

And in most villages and towns you could find a bonfire going, fed by things too far gone to salvage. They didn't go to waste though. On Sebastian's street, everyone would turn out to roast whatever bits comprised their dinner over the resulting fire. The whole neighborhood would bring more than enough to share, turning it into a big party.

At least…that's how he remembered he used to celebrate the day, his mom and siblings and aunties and uncles all around.

But it was a day that felt like the wold world held it's breath, like something great was ready to begin.

Here at Eldfäst however, there would be a cleansing of a different sort.

For Vörsdag — the day honoring the Triple Goddess in Her aspect as Vör, The Crone; Goddess of Wisdom and Caution Hard-Won, The Calculator, The Precise — was the day that the mages swore allowed the trainees' their greatest chance of surviving the Ordeal.

That day, they said, would see the fewest failures among the boys who would never be men; not human ones, at least. But with some small amount of luck, they might — might — become Relicts.

Hell of a booby prize, Sebastian thought sourly; feeling like a coward as he roughly tied his rucksack closed. He shoved it against his bulging saddlebags, scowling at the sight of them all packed and ready for his own rush down the pass come the morning.

He hated this feeling, this knowledge of what was to come next for those boys. Hated more that he couldn't stop it from happening.

But most of all, Sebastian hated that he had stopped trying.

There were only two ways out of Eldfäst, you see, for those poor bastards that weren't a mage.

Either as a Relict; surviving the Ordeals to walk the Path for the rest of your life, however long — or short — that might be. Traveling the world killing monsters, right up until you found the one that killed you first.

Or as smoke and ash; billowing in their gentle curls, rising from the pyres of the failed dead.

 

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Author's Notes:

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