Chapter Three

Caelan awakened in a shaft of sunlight that streamed in over his cot. The air smelled warm and aromatic with herbs. Dragging open his eyes, he blinked slowly until the room began to make sense. It smelled like the infirmary at school, only he was surrounded by screens that blocked his view of the rest of the ward.

He felt strangely light-headed and lethargic. A warm blanket of moag wool covered him, and a little brazier on a stand flickered with a small fire that kept his area comfortable.

“You’re awake.”

The voice startled him. Caelan lifted his head slightly, finding the effort exhausting, and smiled at his cousin’s serious face. “Agel,” he said, his voice sounding thin.

Agel did not smile back. The sleeves of his robe were rolled up above the elbow, and he was carrying a tray of items that he set upon a small table next to Caelan’s cot. A lock of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead, and his blue eyes were as cold as a winter lake.

In silence he set out a roll of bandages, small crocks of ointment, and bronze scissors.

Frowning, Caelan tried to make sense of things. He had the feeling of time lost, and his memories all seemed hazy and confused. “How did I get here?” he asked. “What happened?”

“Sit up, please,” Agel said coldly. “If you’re too weak, I’ll assist you.”

Caelan levered himself slowly upright, finding himself absurdly weak. Pain flared across his back, making him suck in a sharp breath, and with it came clear recollection of his attempt to join the army, the soldiers who had robbed him and speared him, leaving him for dead in a ditch.

Meanwhile Agel had started undoing his dressings. Caelan tried to catch his cousin’s eye.

“I remember,” he said. “The soldiers tried to kill me.”

Agel’s hands went on working with gentle skill.

“How did I get back?” Caelan asked.

Agel said nothing.

Caelan sighed, then winced. At once Agel stopped and reached for a damp sponge to soak a place where the dressing had stuck to skin.

“I asked you a question,” Caelan said.

Agel evaded his gaze and made no answer.

Footsteps outside the screen made both boys look up. Master Grigori entered with his hands tucked austerely inside his sleeves. His white robe was stained with blood splatters. His eyes held the cool blankness of severance.

Agel stepped aside, and in silence Master Grigori examined Caelan’s back. His fingers were warm on Caelan’s skin. His probing was gentle, pausing at each place when Caelan winced. His touch drew away the pain, leaving behind a gentle tingle. A sense of well-being seeped through Caelan. He felt stronger already.

Finally Master Grigori stepped back. “That will do,” he said, glancing at Agel. ‘The wound is closed and will finish healing quickly in a day or two. Bandage him so he doesn’t forget to protect the area, then arrange his release from the infirmary.”

Agel bowed. “Yes.”

“Thank you, Master Grigori,” Caelan said, but the healer turned on his heel and left without another glance at Caelan.

“So it’s to be the silent treatment, is it?” Caelan muttered angrily.

Saying nothing, Agel rebandaged him with quick  efficiency. “Your clothes are in the basket,” he said, pointing at the foot of the cot.

Resentfully Caelan flung off his blanket and dug out his clothing. He found a fresh shirt and leggings and a replacement novice robe, all clean items from his quarters.

He dressed while Agel stripped the bedding from the cot and removed it. By the time Agel returned, rolling down his sleeves, Caelan was ready.

In silence they left the infirmary and walked across the courtyard. The day held the warm golden light of mid- afternoon. Serfs were baking bread in the large, outdoor ovens. The fragrance of the loaves was intoxicating. Caelan closed his eyes and drank it in.

“I could swoon from hunger,” he said. “How long have I been unconscious?”

Agel walked steadily beside him, not looking at him, not replying.

Caelan’s anger flamed higher. He grabbed an apple from a basket and munched on it as they entered the hall, shadowy and silent, its vaulted ceiling soaring high above their heads.

Novices were arranging the long trestle tables and benches for the evening meal as part of after-class chores. Some of them looked up at Caelan with open mouths and astonished eyes. Others turned away with frowns.

At the entrance to the quarters stood a hooded proctor. Caelan tensed involuntarily, but the proctor let them pass without question. They climbed the broad staircase to the fourth floor and walked down the silent corridor. Agel pushed open the door to Caelan’s room, and Caelan walked inside.

Agel started to shut the door on him without entering, but Caelan gripped him by the front of his robe and pulled him inside. Slamming the door with a bang that echoed down the corridor, Caelan released Agel and stood with his back to the door.

“Now you can talk,” Caelan said, glaring at him. “How was I found? How long have I been unconscious?”

Agel compressed his lips, but Caelan strode over to him and gripped him by the arm. Agel jerked away from his touch, and the two boys glared at each other, nostrils flaring and eyes hot, for a long moment.

“Talk!” Caelan said.

“It’s forbidden.”

Caelan snorted and swung away. “So I’m to be shunned now by everyone. Even you.”

Agel’s face whitened with rage. “What you did was unforgivable.”

Caelan shrugged, but doing so brought a faint twinge to his shoulder. “I ran away. What of it? Anything was better than freezing to death.”

“Even now you have no shame, no remorse,” Agel marveled. He sent Caelan a horrified look. “I thought I knew you. But your kind heart and decency are gone.” Shaking his head, he stepped past Caelan. “There is nothing to say to you.”

“Wait!” Caelan said, reaching for his sleeve.

Agel shoved him hard against the wall.

Pain shot a sickly web of yellow and gray across the world. Caelan caught his breath and sagged against the wall, trying to hide how much it hurt. The expression of contempt on Agel’s face made it hurt even more.

“Agel,” he said, making it a plea.

His cousin averted his eyes. “You have shamed your father,” he whispered, his throat working. “You have shamed me. I cannot forgive you. No one can.”

“But—”

Wrenching open the door, Agel stormed out and left Caelan there, too stunned and bewildered to go after him.

Caelan rubbed his face with his hands and slowly straightened himself. Agel was only overreacting like everyone else around here. Running away was a worse offense than most, but it was hardly a calamity.

A faint rustle of sound made him look up. Me saw a proctor standing in the open doorway.

Warily Caelan faced it. “What do you want?” he asked rudely.

The proctor said nothing, but only closed and bolted the door. The sound of the lock shooting home made Caelan bite his lip.

His temper heated up, and he paced slowly around his small room twice before plopping down on his cot. He didn’t care what kind of punishment they handed out this time, he told himself. As soon as he got the chance, he was running away again. And this time he would be properly prepared.

In the morning Caelan awakened to the sound of silence. The usual dawn bell was not ringing. He listened a long while, his body attuned to the regimen of Rieschelhold.

Silence. No work in the courtyard. No shuffling of sleepy boys along to the washrooms. No bell of assembly. No smell of breakfast cooking.

Getting up, Caelan dressed and paced the floor hungrily. He felt stiff and sore this morning, but when he flexed his right shoulder there was no discomfort from his wound.

The continued quiet made him nervous and uneasy. So what were the proctors doing, punishing all the boys for his infraction?

Defiance and resentment hardened in Caelan. If they thought to make him penitent, they had misjudged him. Caelan could be persuaded, but he did not like to be pushed. The more they tried to break him, the more he vowed to defy them.

Outside in the corridor, he heard doors opening slowly, the hinges creaking with hesitation. Boys shuffled out, their queries to each other low and apprehensive.

Caelan listened at his door with derision. No bell, he thought. Without a bell to tell them what to do, the novices were stupid and helpless.

That’s what the masters wanted them to be. But he wasn’t ever going to become mindless and blindly obedient. Rote learning, cruelty, and fear were the tools of lazy teachers. They didn’t want the novices to think or grow. They considered inquiring minds dangerous. Instead, the masters wanted trained monkeys, silent and respectful monkeys, who would heal only the simple cases and be baffled by anything requiring innovation.

He hated them, hated them all.

“Watch out! Proctor on the floor!” called someone in warning.

The voices and footsteps outside hushed immediately as though everyone had frozen in place. Caelan pressed his ear to his door gain.

“No bell. No breakfast,” a proctor’s hollow, unnatural voice said into the quiet.

Voices broke out in consternation and protest.

“Silence!” the proctor ordered, and they quieted at once. “No classes are held. You will remain in quarters until further notification. That is all.”

There came the repeated slam of doors up and down the corridor. Caelan heard the bolt to his own door slide back, and he stepped away from it just as the door was pushed open.

Two proctors stood looking in, their faces hidden deep within their cerulean hoods.

One of them pointed at Caelan with his carved staff.

“Come.”

Wary, expecting a beating, Caelan made no move to obey.

“You have been summoned to the chambers of Elder Sobna. Come.”

Caelan’s mouth went dry, and for a moment he was frightened. He’d actually spoke to Elder Sobna only once, on the day he first came to be enrolled. The Elder had eyes like glaciers, a white beard, and a soft voice as quiet as falling snow. He had made a dry little speech about welcoming the son of Master Beva. Caelan, anxious to avoid favoritism, had said all the wrong things. Since then, the Elder had not acknowledged his presence again.

Caelan straightened his shoulders and told himself not to worry. There was no punishment worse than what he’d already faced. Maybe he was going to be expelled. But as soon as that hope was born in Caelan, it died. No one was ever disrobed from Rieschelhold. He’d probably have to poison a master or something.

Wearing defiance like a cloak, he swaggered out into the corridor with his silent escort.

It was strange walking down the staircase at that hour of morning to find the place still and empty. The air smelled of peat fires and wood polish. But not even the serfs were to be seen.

Caelan looked around. “Has everyone been confined to quarters?”

“All,” said the proctor on his left.

The other glided stoically on his right, close by, his staff held out as though to steer Caelan.

“But why?” Caelan asked. He’d never expected to find himself grateful to be talking to proctors, but even they were better than no one. “What’s going on?”

The proctor on his left turned slightly toward him. “None is to look upon a transgressor.”

“But—”

The proctor on his right lifted its hand. “Silence.”

They walked on, pausing only while the proctors unlocked the doors to the building without touching them. Outside, they paused again, and Caelan heard the bolts shoot home without being touched by the proctor’s hand. He shivered, feeling spooked and increasingly nervous about this.

Caelan gazed up at a pewter-gray sky, then across the snow-draped expanse of garden and courtyard. The air lay still, not a whisper of wind stirring the quietness. The courtyard had been swept of the fresh snow that had fallen in the night, but it might have been twilight instead of day, for not a soul was to be seen anywhere.

I have vanished, Caelan thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold sinking through his wool robe. They can do anything to me now, and no one will ever know.

With difficulty he forced his alarm away, drawing on his own anger for strength. This place thrived on fear, using it as a tool, a weapon to coerce the students into obedience. There was no joy here, no light. Dreams and ambitions faded into the mind-dulling miasma of hard work, stern threats, and punishment.

Caelan refused to let fear conquer him now. He had faced soldiers and lurkers and the unknown. He had even risked meeting a wind spirit. Yet somehow, the silence surrounding him now seemed far worse. For courage he sought memories of his home, E’nonhold, which shone like a refuge in his mind. He thought of days of unhampered freedom when he’d raced his pony up through the valley pass of the Cascades and climbed out on top of the glacier. He thought of the cold wind whipping his hair back from his face and the feathery soft feel of snowflakes on his eyelashes. He thought of hawking—his version of it, not the swift bloody sport of the rich. No, to reach out and share identity with the great predator bird. To feel the rush of wind through its wings. To feel the weightlessness of its body on the air currents, circling, circling, keen eyes alert. To dive in one great, swift, heady rush, the earth hurtling straight at him. Then pulling out seconds before the strike, earthbound and separate once again, gasping with the forbidden exhilaration of it.

Ah, sevaisin, the joining. So different from severance. So much fun, yet absolutely denied. It was supposed to take years of training among the Vindicants in order to learn the technique. Caelan didn’t know how he did it, and he didn’t care. It seemed to be as natural as breathing, unlike severance, which was a strain.

At that moment they passed near the gates. He saw no warding key hanging over the small pass gate. A momentary pang of guilt shot through him, yet at the same time he had to bite the inside of his lips to keep from grinning. Wonder what old Master Mygar thought of him now? Who said he couldn’t sever? He could when he had to. He’d proven it.

With a swagger back in his step, Caelan entered the Elder’s house. The entry was lined with the burled wood of Carpassian walnut, very rare and costly to import. No carving adorned it. The lovely grain of the wood was its only ornamentation. Large oil lamps of plain silver cast a steady illumination to supplement the weak morning light crawling in through the narrow windows.

A servant attired in a plain tunic of heavy fawn-colored wool with a narrow band of dark fur at collar and cuffs stood by to receive them. The servant was clean-shaven and old. His blue eyes regarded Caelan without expression.

In silence the servant led Caelan and the proctors up a staircase. Lamps hung from brackets on the walls, lighting their way.

On the second floor, the air hung heavy with the scents of snow-dampened wool, old carpets, and crushed borage. The same oppressive silence was to be found here as every where else. It seemed, as Caelan’s feet moved soundlessly over the carpet running the full length of the hallway, that all he could hear was the loud lub-dub of his own heartbeat, growing louder and faster with every step.

He swallowed, but his mouth grew no less dry. His confidence wavered, but he forced himself to keep his shoulders straight and his head high. He was the son of a master healer without equal in all of Trauland, not some nobody they could frighten.

The servant tapped softly on a heavy door at the very end of the passage. Caelan heard no response, but the servant opened the door, then stepped aside. Caelan entered alone, the proctors and servant remaining outside. The door closed quietly behind him.

The Elder sat at his desk, writing on parchment. He did not look up at Caelan’s entry.

Sighing, Caelan looked around. The walls of the office were smooth white plaster, very austere. Cold northern light from large windows on one side made the room seem even bleaker. A modest fire hissed and crackled on a small hearth. It failed to warm the room.

The Elder’s desk, fashioned from plain native spruce- wood, held tidy scrolls of parchment rowed up on one side. His ink stand was carved simply from buta horn, as was his pen. On the other side of the desk, balancing the harmony, stood a small triangle, the symbol of severance.

Finally the Elder’s pen stopped scratching across the parchment. He read what he had just written, sanded the ink to dry it, then shook the grains away into a small receptacle and rolled up the parchment.

Only then did he lift his gaze to Caelan. He quirked up one eyebrow, and Caelan walked forward.

The Elder was a thin, white-haired man. His robe was white, indicating the level of his powers as well as his rank. His face curved in a crescent, ending in a pointed chin made more prominent by his short white beard. His skin was very pale, translucent enough to show a faint tracery of veins pulsing at his temple.

It was said that any follower of severance eventually grew progressively paler throughout life, until the very ancient practitioners were practically transparent. They were said to die like beams of light, shining bright, then slowly fading as they finally achieved total severance from life.

“You do not answer my question, Novice Caelan E’non,” the Elder said in a displeased voice.

Caelan blinked and realized he’d heard nothing. He flushed. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I did not hear.”

“It seems you make a habit of living with your mind unfocused.”

Caelan lowered his gaze. He could not protest.

“You have caused much trouble since your arrival here last term.”

Caelan kept his head bowed. So far, this wasn’t too bad.

The Elder’s pale thin hand fluttered over certain of the scrolls on his desk. “These are lists of your various transgressions, offenses, and errors. They have been compiled by the masters who have charge of you.”

Caelan looked up. “I guess there’s a lot of them.”

The Elder’s expression grew even more severe. “This is not a matter of amusement, Novice Caelan.”

Caelan hastily rearranged his own expression. “No, sir.”

“Nor pride.”

“No, sir.”

“You are from one of the finest Traulander families. You have been brought up according to principles of harmony and perfection. You have been taught severance, witnessed it practiced in your home. You have enjoyed the advantages of private tutors. You have never known want or lack. Is this true?”

Caelan shifted uneasily. He wasn’t enjoying this. “It’s true, Elder Sobna.”

Harmony and perfection, he thought bitterly. Yes ... if he made no noise, asked no questions, never ran or leaped or stretched, never sought independence, never searched for different answers. Private tutors like jailers, droning on and on, holding accounts like money changers, running to share the results with Beva, telling, tattling fools. No, Caelan had never known any lack at home, unless to crave love and understanding was a lack.

He could feel his emotions churning up, stinging his eyes. Furiously he held them back.

“Why did you run away?”

Caelan lifted his chin. He didn’t answer.

“Have we mistreated you here, Novice Caelan?”

Caelan opened his mouth, then checked the hot words on his tongue.

When he said nothing, the Elder’s gaze moved sharply to his. “Did you fail again to hear my question?”

“No, I heard it,” Caelan said.

“Then give me your reply. Have we mistreated you here?”

Caelan set his jaw. There was no going back now. “I think so.”

“You think so. You are not sure?”

Damn him. Caelan flushed. “I’m sure,” he said curtly.

“Please go on.”

“You know,” Caelan said, struggling against his anger. “You probably have it on a list.”

“You are impertinent, Novice Caelan. I am waiting for a reply to my question.”

“Why?” Caelan burst out. “You know the answer. What I say isn’t going to make any difference. You already have your mind made up.”

The Elder’s face might have been carved from stone.

“Ah, so you have the ability to read minds, Novice Caelan. Interesting. What other talents do you possess?”

Seething at his cool mockery, Caelan glared at him and said nothing.

“Your failure to answer my question indicates you have no answer. Therefore, I can only conclude that you do not truly believe we have mistreated you.”

“You want to see my bruises?” Caelan retorted.

The Elder raised his brows. “You have been disciplined, Novice Caelan, when you transgressed. You have been placed under a discipline conducive to study, no doubt for the first time in your life. You have fought that, as many wild or untamed creatures must fight at first. But neither have you learned.”

Caelan glared at the floor, his ears roaring against this lecture he didn’t want to hear.

“We are tolerant here,” the Elder went on, “but tolerance has limits. Because of your father, we were willing to continue our efforts to train you, even allowing you to remain in the novice class for an unprecedented third term if necessary.”

Caelan looked up in dismay. He should have known they wouldn’t kick him out. His anger welled up anew. “I’ll run away again.”

“It will not be necessary.”

Caelan caught his breath in hope.

“Boyish pranks and rebelliousness are an annoyance, nothing more. Endangering the entire hold is something else entirely.”

Caelan thought about the destroyed warding key and dropped his gaze. He hadn’t meant to put anyone in danger.

“How did you remove it?”

Caelan frowned and said nothing.

The Elder rose to his feet. “How?” he demanded.

“I—I just took it off.”

A look of alarm crossed the Elder’s face, then was gone. His eyes were bleak. “Impossible.”

Caelan shrugged. “Then believe what you want.”

The door behind him opened, and the proctors glided inside. Glancing at them, Caelan shifted uneasily on his feet. He didn’t like the idea of them standing behind him, and both held truth-lights in their hands.

“How did you remove the warding key?” the Elder asked again.

There was something awful in his tone, something that compelled Caelan to answer. Casting a resentful glance at the proctors, he scowled and tucked his hands inside his sleeves. “I entered severance and pulled the key off the gate. I just wanted out.”

“You were not injured from touching the key?”

Caelan shook his head. “My hand felt burned, but it really wasn’t. That’s the way severance is supposed to work, isn’t it? So for once I did it right.”

The Elder did not meet his gaze directly. “You show no remorse for this action.”

“Oh. Well, I didn’t mean to leave the hold unprotected. The soldiers could have come looting, I guess. But they didn’t.” As he spoke, he looked up with a question in his gaze.

“No, they didn’t,” the Elder said heavily. “We have nothing here which they would consider of value.”

Caelan nodded. “So it worked out. Except for—” He broke off, remembering.

“Yes, except for the fact that you were attacked and nearly killed.”

“I—” But there was nothing for Caelan to say. He thought about the soldiers who had jeered at him, robbed him, then tried to kill him for sport. Their laughter still rang in his ears. Humiliation still burned inside him, fueled by his shame.

“We are responsible for your life while you are entrusted to our care,” the Elder said sternly. “We keep you inside our walls for a reason, to guarantee your safety.”

“I’m not a baby,” Caelan said. “I don’t need—”

“Help?” the Elder said softly.

Caelan bit his lip and scuffed his toe against the floor. “I guess I did need some.”

“We have warding keys for good reason. How you twisted the purity of severance to shatter the spell of a key is blasphemous enough.”

“But—”

“You have done far worse. You left us vulnerable to attack, whether from this world or the other. You exposed our throats, and only by the grace of Gault were we not attacked.”

Shame filled Caelan. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“Running away to join the army,” the Elder said, contempt like ice in his voice. “Wanting to become a butcher, a defiler, a taker of life. This is abhorrent to us and all we stand for.”

“But I—”

The Elder lifted his hand for silence. “If you had died out there in the forest, what could we have said to your father? How could we explain our mistake in letting harm befall you?”

“It wasn’t your responsibility,” Caelan said. “I chose to leave. I took the risk, and I’ll—”

“It is our responsibility. You are underage, and we are entrusted with your safety. You put us in an untenable position.”

Feeling cornered, Caelan turned and pointed at the proctors. “Your proctor locked me outdoors for the night. What was I supposed to do, freeze or be clawed by wind spirits? I chose neither. Blame your proctors as much as me.”

“You would not have been left outside all night,” the Elder said dismissively.

“How was I to know that?”

“At Taul Bell your absence was discovered. Harmony was broken. Disorder filled the darkness. The serfs had to brave the night to search the hold for you. The proctors found the open gate. That told its own story, and by the quick wits of your cousin we were able to determine which direction you had fled.”

The Elder came around his desk, frowning with daunting severity. He pointed his finger at Caelan. “Men risked their lives to find you in the dark forest. They searched all night, before at last you were found, half-dead of exposure and blood loss.”

Remorse touched Caelan. “I didn’t mean to put anyone at risk,” he said softly. “I just wanted to get away.”

“You were brought in at dawn. Master Grigori and Master Hierst labored hard within severance to save your life. Had anyone been lost to lurkers or worse out there, what could you have done to repay your debt to them?”

“I don’t know,” Caelan said miserably. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology is not enough.” The Elder beckoned to the proctors. “Cast the truth-light over him.”

Caelan turned around in protest. “But I haven’t been lying about any of this. I swear.”

“It is not your words they will test. It is you.”

The Elder nodded at the proctors. They glided forward and tossed the tiny balls of blue light at Caelan. Light burst against his forehead and sprayed down to his feet in a shimmer. It changed color from blue to yellow to green, then faded to white and seemed to vanish altogether.

“Enough!” the Elder said, sounding shaken.

The proctors stretched forth their hands, and the light flickered feebly back into existence at Caelan’s feet. It surged away from him, split into two halves, then reformed itself into two tiny glowing balls of light.

“It is decided,” the Elder said.

“What?” Caelan demanded, puzzled. “What’s decided?”

The Elder gestured, and the proctors stepped back. “You, Caelan E’non, are in grave danger of losing your soul. You have deliberately sought the ways of shadow.”

Caelan gasped in shock. “I haven’t—”

“By your own confession you wrongfully used severance. You betrayed the safety of this hold. You willfully exposed every inhabitant to possible death or worse. That crime is attempted murder.”

“But I didn’t mean—”

The Elder held up his hand. “Rebellion is as much a gateway to the center of the soul as is obedience. By your actions, you prove you are becoming a vessel for that which is foul and otherworldly.”

“No!”

“We want no part of you here among us, infecting the other boys.”

“Fine!” Caelan said furiously. “Then let me leave.”

“We have laid the matter before your father,” the Elder said as though Caelan had not spoken. “He has asked us to purify you.”

Caelan stared at him. He felt frozen with growing apprehension. “I don’t believe you,” he said through stiff lips.

“Do you understand purification?” the Elder asked. “It means to enter with the masters for forty days of fasting and surrender. They will sever you completely from everything, root out the evil from your mind and soul, and then allow you to return to your body.”

Long ago, as a child, Caelan had heard the servants talk about someone possessed at another hold. Healers had been called in—not his father, but others—to cleanse and purify the man. The fellow had been quite mad when they finished. Nor did he ever regain his sanity. The healers said the possession was so strong it could not be driven from him. Others whispered that he had been severed too long and could not be made whole again.

A shudder ran through Caelan. He knew he wasn’t evil. Not in the sense the Elder claimed. He’d never tried to harm anyone here. He wouldn’t knowingly expose them to danger. Yes, he’d been foolish and selfish, thinking only of himself when he ran away, but his carelessness didn’t warrant this. As for having Master Mygar—so cruel, so heartless— walking through his mind, reshaping him—

“No!” he cried. “I won’t let you touch me, none of you! Not like that. You’ll kill me, or make me insane. I’d rather you’d let me die in that ditch than face—”

“Enough,” the Elder said icily. “You have made your refusal quite clear.”

“Father didn’t request this,” Caelan went on. “I don’t believe that. He wouldn’t.”

“Beva E’non was my star pupil,” the Elder said, his voice as sharp and cold as the icicles hanging off the roof outside. “Aside from the principles of severance which teach us to place no man above another, I loved him as a son. For his sake, for the memory of how eagerly he took learning from me, I offer you this final chance to redeem yourself. Accept the purification, Caelan E’non, and remain with us as your father wishes.”

Caelan’s heart was pounding. Without hesitation he looked the Elder square in the eye. “Never,” he said. “I don’t want to remain here. I deny your charges. I refuse purification.”

The Elder stared at him for several moments without speaking. The room grew still and oppressively quiet except for the fire hissing on the hearth.

“Master Beva wanted to teach you himself, but you were not a willing pupil at home. No doubt a father’s love for his son has clouded his usually clear perceptions. He sent you to us with a father’s pride and a father’s hope, expressing special concern that we might be able to teach you where he had failed. He thought our discipline would be more effective than his own. We have also failed.”

Caelan knew no way to make this old man understand. “It isn’t Rieschelhold,” he said. “It’s me. I belong elsewhere, in another kind of life. I was not meant to be a healer.”

“You were born,” the Elder said gravely, “to be nothing else.”

He waited, but Caelan faced him without flinching.

At last the Elder bowed his head. “Very well. I expel you now from Rieschelhold, that you can cause no more harm to the other novices by example or by deed, that you can spread your evil influence no longer within these walls, that you can never again commit blasphemous acts to disrupt our harmony. In this expulsion, I pity your father, for the son he has, for the son he must again deal with.”

Caelan realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out now, hardly able to believe his ears. Jubilation lifted like skyrockets. Was this all there was to expulsion? What a relief. He barely held back a grin.

The Elder picked up the scrolls from his desk and threw them on the fire. The parchment caught, sending up sparks and curling into black cinders as the fire ate through it eagerly.

He looked past Caelan at the proctors. “Prepare him.”

The proctor opened the door. One of them beckoned to Caelan. He rushed out, grinning broadly now, almost skipping with joy. All he had to do now was gather his belongings. They were few enough. A pair of soft traveling boots, fur-lined for winter. His thick cloak. A book of music and his flute. A drawing made for him by his sister Lea. A smooth, fist-sized stone of marble which he’d gathered in Ornselag at the seashore when his mother still lived. These things had been taken by the purser upon his admittance, locked away for the day on which he would leave.

That day had finally come. He couldn’t believe it.

But as he stepped out of Elder Sobna’s office, he heard a bell start ringing, a deep somber bell he’d never heard before.

At the foot of the stairs, the same servant waited for them. But instead of leading them to the door, the man pointed at a narrow hallway.

Caelan’s high spirits dropped. “What now?” he asked suspiciously. “Where are you taking me? I just want to get my things, then go.”

The proctors shoved him down the hallway and into a tiny room containing only a tin basin and a stool. There was no heat and no window. Only a small, face-sized hole cut high in the door provided any kind of dim illumination.

Caelan took in these details with one glance as he spun around. “But why do I—”

One of the proctors drove him back with its staff. “You will remain here until you are prepared.”

“No!” Caelan shouted. “It’s a trick! You won’t purify me. Do you hear? You won’t—”

But they slammed the door, bolting him into the gloom.