He awoke with words in his throat he didn't know how to say. Words that tasted like rust and honey—ancient and sweet, yet metallic and strange, like they belonged in someone else's mouth. The dawn had not yet broken. Only the cold glow of the moon filtered through the high, narrow window of his chamber, casting silver bars across the stone floor like the ribs of a sleeping giant.
Cal sat up slowly, breath fogging in the air, the rough wool blanket falling from his shoulders. His hand went instinctively to the ring—cold as always, fused to the flesh of his index finger. It pulsed once, not in pain, but like something breathing in rhythm with him.
Without thinking, he reached for the small, battered journal he kept hidden under the bedframe. The quill moved almost before his thoughts could catch it. He wrote in a hand both his own and not his own—slender, deliberate strokes, ink staining page after page with lines he couldn't translate. Curved glyphs, fragments of unfamiliar stanzas, and then—sentences, in his language, but woven with peculiar rhythm:
"Moar sees."
"She waits beyond the white, her song bent through snow and sorrow."
"The flame is older than faith."
"We are not meant to remember. But the she does."
The candle flickered as though exhaling.
Cal stopped, breathing hard. His heart beat like a fist in his chest.
These words weren't his. And yet... they were beautiful. Terrifyingly beautiful.
He touched the ink with trembling fingers.
A sharp knock echoed through the stone hallway beyond his chamber door—measured, deliberate. Cal tucked the journal away beneath the cot, its pages still open and damp with ink, the words drying like blood on parchment. He straightened his tunic, brushed cold fingers through his hair, and opened the door.
A novice stood there, robes crisp, eyes lowered. "The Headmaster wishes to speak with you, page."
Cal nodded once, and followed.
The walk through the cloisters was silent but full. Sunlight was just beginning to pierce the mist that clung to the inner gardens, catching on the frost that jeweled the hedges. The great bell hadn't yet sounded the morning hour, but the world was beginning to stir—distant footsteps, a whispered psalm carried through the corridors, a crow's cry on the roofbeams.
Headmaster Brewyn stood waiting at the far end of the Sacristy Hall, where candlelight met shadow. He was robed in the deeper maroon of the upper clergy, his thin, liver-spotted hands resting atop a polished cane. His face, lined by age and practice, broke into a smile that was both kind and austere.
"You have a gift, boy," Brewyn said, voice like parchment folding. "The morning prayers—your voice held them like incense. Weighted. Full of reverence."
Cal lowered his head slightly, as was expected. "Thank you, Father Brewyn."
"And the censorships in yesterday's confessional copies—flawless," the old man added, turning slightly as though to admire some imagined script hanging in the air. "You cleanse impurity with a careful hand. Many young men your age would rush. You do not rush."
He paused, then met Cal's eyes, something keener flickering behind his own.
"It's good. To see a young one so... aligned with the divine path."
He smiled again, though this one didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Come," he said softly, "walk with me."
They walked side by side through the inner corridors of the monastery, where tall stained glass windows blurred the outside world into hues of violet and gold. The storm beyond was still raging—snow whipping past in horizontal sheets, scratching faintly against the old, bubbled glass. The world outside looked like it had been erased and repainted in ghostly whites.
Cal's boots echoed softly on the stone floor, softened by the worn tapestries lining the corridor walls. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back, eyes forward, face composed—but his mind moved like a river beneath ice, ever-watchful, measuring.
Brewyn's cane struck the stone with rhythmic patience as he walked. The older man did not speak at first. He let the silence stretch between them, like a rope drawn taut.
Finally, as they passed beneath a mural of Divine Moar's ascension—robes billowing, eyes like suns—the Headmaster's voice returned, mild but heavy.
"Tell me, Cal. What is it you fear most in this world?"
A pause.
Cal didn't flinch. He answered like he was pulling something from deep water.
"Not understanding something I should have."
Brewyn hummed, slow and approving. "Not pain? Not punishment?"
Cal gave a thin, thoughtful smile. "Pain teaches. Punishment is rarely eternal. But ignorance… it lingers."
The old man studied him sidelong
A flicker of something passed through Headmaster Brewyn's eyes—surprise, perhaps, or a glint of deeper interest. He didn't stop walking, but his gaze lingered on Cal a moment longer than necessary, as if turning over a coin in his palm and finding a mark he hadn't expected.
"It's really that impactful," he murmured, half to himself, half aloud.
Cal inclined his head slightly, offering nothing in return but a respectful silence. He knew better than to speak when the old carried thoughts; especially one like Brewyn, whose words were measured not just for weight, but for consequence.
Outside, the blizzard clawed against the glass, howling in long, distant vowels—like the wind was mourning something it had lost centuries ago. The candlelight trembled with each gust. The corridor ahead stretched endlessly, lined with pillars the color of bone.
Brewyn stopped at a tall, arching window overlooking the inner cloister, where snow had buried the statues to their waists. He tapped the cane lightly against the sill.
"There are things," he said softly, "that one should never speak aloud. Things meant to remain prayers, or secrets." His gaze didn't leave the storm. "Do you believe, Cal, that thought alone can wound the soul?"
Cal stepped closer, careful not to cast his shadow over the elder. His voice, when it came, was quiet but clear.
"Only if the soul is listening."
Brewyn turned to him slowly, his eyes narrowing with something not quite suspicion, not quite admiration. "And if it's listening always?"
Cal held his stare. "Then it learns."
The old man exhaled, a long breath like the settling of dust in an ancient room.
"Cunning," Brewyn said. "But not cunning for its own sake. There's restraint in you. A weight. You carry it carefully."
Cal didn't answer. He didn't need to.
The ring on his finger—a silent prisoner to his hand—felt colder than it had before. Not in a way that bit, but in a way that reminded. A presence without voice. A knot with no thread.
Brewyn resumed walking, slower now, as if letting the silence test the shape of their exchange.
"I do not trust ambition in young men," he said. "It burns too fast. Too hungry. But you… you carry ambition like an ember in wet cloth."
Cal's steps were soundless beside him. "Then you believe I'm hiding something?"
Brewyn's chuckle was dry as the winter air. "Of course you are. All the best ones do."
They turned down another corridor, narrower now, lit only by sconces flickering with low, golden flames. The air grew stiller. Quieter.
"Tell me, Cal," Brewyn said, eyes forward, tone suddenly gentler. "Do you feel the presence of Divine Moar when you pray? Truly feel it? Not in the way of recitation, but in the marrow of your bones?"
Cal's answer came after a pause. "I feel something. Not always presence. Sometimes only silence."
"And what do you make of that silence?"
Cal looked straight ahead. "That maybe silence is what the Divine sounds like when it's listening."
This time, Brewyn did stop walking. He turned fully toward him now, eyes sharp beneath their age.
"You speak as though you've known it."
Cal's expression did not change. But he met the gaze evenly, then shrugged.
The Headmaster watched him, like a scholar considering a dangerous book. Then he smiled—not warmly, but thoughtfully, like a man who'd just glimpsed the beginning of something he wouldn't be able to control.
"Come," he said at last. "There's something I want you to see."
He turned again and continued walking, slower now, more deliberate. And Cal followed—heart quiet, eyes keen, the ghost of the harp still haunting the edges of his memory.
As they walked, the snowstorm howling outside felt distant now, its fury muted by the thick walls of the monastery. The pale light from the narrow windows danced with the shadows, casting odd shapes on the stone floors, like the lingering memories of the past.
Brewyn's slow, deliberate steps were steady, unhurried, and Cal couldn't help but notice the way the Headmaster's robes swayed with an eerie grace, as though he moved between the present and something far older. His eyes, usually sharp and piercing, now seemed to carry a weight, as if he were trying to see more than what was before him.
The corridor they passed through was familiar, cold stone and wooden beams, with the faint smell of incense lingering in the air. But there was something in the silence now—something thick in the air that made the hairs on the back of Cal's neck rise. Brewyn's presence, usually a reassuring constant, felt heavy, as if there were layers of meaning between each of his steps.
Finally, the Headmaster paused in front of a door—a plain, unremarkable one, except for the symbols engraved in the wood. Cal had seen it before but had never been allowed to enter. It was one of the many locked places in the monastery, places that spoke of old rituals, long-forgotten secrets, and prayers that only the highest of the Church's members could understand.
Without a word, Brewyn turned the key in the lock. The door creaked open, revealing a dim room, its walls lined with bookshelves filled with old texts. But it wasn't the books that caught Cal's attention—it was the large wooden harp sitting in the corner of the room. It stood alone, as if abandoned, its strings dull and untouched. The same haunting melody he had heard in the storm swirled in his mind again, and for a fleeting moment, he could almost see the figure in the snow, her long hair blending with the storm, her hands moving deftly over the strings.
"The harp," Brewyn said softly, "has not sung in a long time."
Cal stepped into the room, his eyes scanning the worn, dusty space. The air was still, thick with the kind of silence that only old things could know. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something here, something not entirely of this world, waiting to be understood.
"Do you know why this room is kept locked, Cal?" Brewyn's voice was low, almost a whisper, as if the room itself could hear them.
Cal looked up, meeting the Headmaster's gaze. He had always been a man of few words, but now, there was something different in his eyes—something like a challenge, or perhaps a test.
Cal thought for a moment before answering. "Because some things are not meant to be seen. Or perhaps they are meant to be forgotten."
Brewyn nodded slowly, as though he had been expecting that answer. "Exactly. Some things are locked away for a reason. But others… others are simply waiting for the right time to be seen again."
Cal's fingers brushed against the harp's strings, and for a moment, it felt as though the entire room held its breath. The haunting melody from the storm whispered in his mind again, but this time, it felt closer, sharper. The weight of it pressed against his chest, as if it were pulling him deeper into something he couldn't yet understand.
"You've been hearing the song, haven't you?" Brewyn asked, his tone careful, but still probing.