Kanrel shifted his position on the chair, trying to find a comfortable posture. All the while, he thought about her question... Why was he here? Not at Atarkan, but in Yviev's office, today and not any other day? He glanced at Yviev, who still leaned against the door, her arms akimbo; her hair as black as ever, falling just short of her shoulders.
She was lean, or skinny, rather. She seemed to not have slept well for a while; the dark circles under her eyes were a testament to that. She stared at Kanrel and waited, refusing to say another word unless she received the truth.
"I..." Kanrel began, then licked his lips. There were many things he wanted to tell her. Many things he couldn't say outright. "I suppose, first, I'd like to hear about your life. I've long wondered what your life has become like after... everything," he managed to say.
Yviev tapped her finger against her hand. With a sigh, she stepped away from the door, toward the table and around it, sitting down on her very own cushioned chair. For a moment she looked around. At the shelves around her, all filled to the brim with books and journals, with loose sheets of paper, all filled with text and anatomical illustrations. She reached for one of them, feeling its leatherbound spine. She skimmed through it, then placed it onto the table, then, and only then did she look at Kanrel again. She met his gaze, which had followed hers around the room.
"Isn't it obvious? I've worked. I've served. I've made an effort to become someone; to leave something behind. I've healed people, I've saved some, and I've watched many depart, and I've had to deal with my own failures regarding the death of those I ought to have saved. And the things here, everything within this Hospital, within this room, within my private chambers, they all depict the work that I have done."
"I've only done what I've vowed to do. And in it, I have found no joy, no answers that rectify or quench a thirst for knowledge. Only more questions, only more frustration with myself, my lack of knowledge, my lack of ability, the lack of ability of others, as well as the innate unfairness of illnesses and disease."
"I am not satisfied; I am far from it. Thus, I cannot stop my service; I cannot change my calling or go anywhere else. I simply cannot. To do otherwise would feel like heresy. This is all I have; this is all that I will have. You should know this, Kanrel." Yviev's expression remained flat; her intense gaze kept itself locked with Kanrel's. She had spoken the truth.
Kanrel could only nod. He couldn't argue against her. Not against her reasons, not against what she had done, not what she might have achieved. Not against anything at all. Who was he to critique or question someone who had, by all means, done more for all of humanity than he could ever do?
"And how have you... felt?"
Yviev scoffed. "Ask yourself instead, how would you have felt?"
"So you have regretted?"
"Everything."
Kanrel tried his best to keep his own eyes on hers. "And if you were a novice today, knowing what would come after the Ritual... Would you still accept it?"
Yviev frowned, and she looked away. Her gaze had found a book that lay on top of a stack of papers. Kanrel followed her gaze and found her personal copy of the Book of the Heralds.
Yviev stayed silent for a while, and she must have searched for an answer from somewhere deep within. Her intense expression suddenly faded and her brows unfurrowed. "Belief is such a funny thing... Isn't it?" She met Kanrel's gaze again.
"It is something so inexplicable, something that barely makes sense... yet a thing we all have an ability toward. For don't we believe in a thousand or more things that might not actually exist? Justice, for one."
"I've long thought about it. What if I hadn't gone with the Ritual? What if I had truly known the existence of a priest? What and who might I be instead?"
"I've doubted, Kanrel... I've doubted so much that it aches." Her breath wavered as she exhaled. "But I've found that this doubt of mine feeds the faith; it feeds the belief I have in the words of the Angels and the Heralds..."
Yviev leaned toward the holy book and laid her hand gently on it, feeling its worn leather covers. "Years back I only wanted to study; I wished to shed my earthly desires and give myself to austerity. I wanted an ascetic life." A short breath came out of her, as though laughter might. If only she were someone else, then that is what it might have been. "How foolish was I?"
Her hands lingered on the book, but soon departed. "For a long time after, even now, I wish for the opposite. I wish to know what it feels like to love without the ache. I wish to feel the warmth of a lover's kiss. The ecstasy of our most carnal desires. To be drunk on the sweetest of wines." She listed as though she were diagnosing another patient. Not a hint of useless emotion. Terrible it was; to say such things, of wanting and of desire, and have it not inspire or move her.
Kanrel's hand had found the arm of his chair at some point; he noticed it gripping the wood, and forced himself to stop. He moved his hands to his lap.
"But even then," Yviev said, and finally a hint of color found its way into her otherwise withered tone. "I'd choose to make the same choice. I'd willingly descend the staircase again, knowing all of it, all this desire. I'd find the same despair, and I'd jump." Her eyes, at last, glistened; they trembled. "I'd take that leap of faith. I'd do it a thousand times over."
Yviev finished. Then she breathed in and out a few times, and soon her eyes stopped trembling, soon her posture loosened, soon she stared at Kanrel, and awaited his reply.
But Kanrel could only barely look at her. His shame was too immense. Yet even then he wished to argue with her; to go against her notion; her belief... He wanted to dispel what she knew about the Angels... That they were, in fact, nothing more than false gods they had placed their faith in.
But... Had her faith not done good? If the papers and the books and the journals were a report of her goodness, of the goodness that she had done... and if it were, truly, inspired by her devotion to said gods, who was he to say a thing about it? Who was he to argue with someone who had truly lived such a life, married to her faith, when he himself had thrown it away, regretted it at every turn, and even renounced his gods?
How could he who had done worse than she ever did condemn her faith? Thus, he found nothing to say against her or for her. He only nodded, and tried to smile.
Yviev scoffed at his poor attempt at an expression. She opened a drawer, and without doing much searching, she drew out a small hand mirror, its silver backing worn dull at the edges where a thumb had held it countless times.
For a moment she looked into it herself. At the dark circles, the lines, the face of a woman who couldn't remember the last good night's rest she'd had. She did it out of habit more than anything, perhaps having expected nothing to have changed and only confirming something already known.
Then, without a word, she turned it around and held it up to Kanrel.
What he had produced was nothing like a smile, and instead a horrid grimace as though he were in pain, his face pulled into a shape that meant nothing. He stopped it.
"Some things never change," Yviev said. She did not take the mirror away at once. She let him face himself for a moment longer. Then she set it back in the drawer and slid it shut.
She sighed. "Now then... Is it my turn to ask the same questions?"
Kanrel shrugged. "If you'd like."
She stared at him, then shook her head. "What would be the point? I can already tell just by looking at you that you've long ago lost your faith. For why else would you ask such a question? You've grown beyond doubt and reached, instead of enduring faith, resentment against it all," she said. And all the while she spoke, she observed Kanrel's expressions. How his face suddenly darkened; how his eyes looked past her...
"Instead of regretting it all, you loathe your choices. Instead of making peace with everything, you blame it. Instead of simply accepting what you are, and what made you into who you now are, you hold contempt against it."
"You loathe the Priesthood. You loathe the Angels..." She said, then added, "and perhaps you loathe the Herald as well." Only then did Kanrel's gaze refocus. He stared at Yviev, and the woman snorted. "I see... That, you cannot do." She shook her head.
"You forgot to list something important..." Kanrel suddenly spoke.
"Oh? And what might that be?"
Kanrel let out a long, wavering sigh. "I loathe myself more than I could ever loathe anyone else."
Yviev nodded. "So you haven't changed, is what you're trying to say."
Kanrel blinked. "I suppose I have not."
They both went silent, and not another word was spoken until a knock came at the door and a bald woman burst through it with another at her heel, trying to calm her down.
For a moment she stared at Kanrel, but quickly turned her attention toward Yviev. "You've gone too far, Professor Yviev! You can't just summon me as you please—not with your lackeys! At least have the decency to come yourself, and politely ask for my attention. Think of the seniority! Think of how much I have to lower myself to come see you, in your office, when you're just another student I once taught!"
Yviev stared at her and blinked. She opened her mouth to say something, but Kanrel got up from his chair and said, "Professor Oidus, there is no need to blame Yviev for this. Direct your anger toward this humble student of yours, who just wanted to see his old mentor..."
Oidus side-eyed him. "And who's this, then? A student of mine? That is hardly special! I've taught thousands of priests through my tenure."
Kanrel coughed. "Well, this once-student of yours, many, many years ago, is partially the reason for the higher funds that you received for your research."
Oidus's brow arched. "Oh? And you think that you're so special, when it is known throughout the Priesthood just how important my contributions to magic and its general theory have been. Get off your high horse!"
Kanrel took a step toward her. "Professor... Have you forgotten me?"
Oidus scoffed. "Of course I have; otherwise I'd recall your name just based on what you look like. But nothing comes up. You must have been insignificant, all things considered."
Kanrel placed his hand on his chest. "You're breaking my heart here... I thought that I was your favorite!"
Oidus grimaced. "I have no favorites... Only obligation to teach for the sake of funds..."
"But it is me... Kanrel Iduldian," Kanrel said, stopping right before her.
Oidus blinked, and then frowned. She glanced at Yviev. "Really? You believe him on his word? I thought you to be at least somewhat sentient!"
"Professor," Yviev said, then sighed. "He really is who he claims to be."
Oidus's brows furrowed, then she peered at Kanrel. "Then you must know the reason for said funding..."
"Well..." Kanrel managed to look sheepish. "We might have lured you out of the city, to a nearby hill, and constrained you, then questioned you about things you really had no idea about."
Oidus shook her head. "Oh, the foolishness of youth... And ironically, as you mentioned, I was the only one who garnered any benefit from any of it," she said, and soon patted Kanrel on the shoulder. "No hard feelings... and don't go around saying that you're my favorite student, or that I owe you anything."
The priests looked at one another for a moment, after which Oidus managed an expression that could perhaps be perceived as a smile. "Well then, we've seen one another..." She turned around to leave, but Kanrel grabbed her arm. Oidus looked at the hand, then slowly raised her eyes to meet Kanrel's. She frowned further. "Don't tell me..."
"Tell you what?"
"I am too old for this... I don't need another student coming my way, professing some form of love they think that they have..."
Kanrel let go of her hand instantly. "Professor... Do not place your own fantasies onto others... Lest I have to file a complaint to the High Priest!"
Oidus snorted. "Then tell me what you want to say and stop wasting my time."
Kanrel glanced at Yviev, then at Oidus again. "I'd like to go for a walk, as there are many things I'd like to discuss with you two."
Oidus lifted her hand. "Sounds like a waste of time to me..."
"Really? Then I suppose you've not looked at the sky recently? Nor heard about shadows that linger and then approach? Nor read the newest addition to the Book of the Heralds?"
Oidus's eyes narrowed. "And that should interest me, because?"
She sighed before he could answer. "I must confess... I'm hardly interested in such things. I didn't really ever think about you, or wonder where you had gone. Frankly, it is none of my business. I have only ever cared about one thing in this lifetime, and you should know all too well what that might be..."
"Yes, of course. Magic..." Kanrel said. "Wouldn't you want to learn of my discoveries in the field of magic?"
She rolled her eyes. "What could a third-rate magician like you know about magic? The last I heard of your talents was some tavern trickery you'd partaken in..."
"Oh... So you have heard and thought about me since. Curious."
She sighed. "Sure. But I doubt whatever you're about to tell me is something I'd have any interest in," she said, and turned around to leave. But before she could, Kanrel let magic flow through him; he felt it crawl as though he was suddenly inhabited by a creature so sickening that it could bring the plague with it. He then released a code. White flames appeared, bright and devouring. All else fell dark around it; the other lights were nothing against it. It was the only light that there was, that could matter.
And when the three other priests laid their eyes upon it, they must have felt it as well. Yviev pushed her chair backward, to be as far as she could be from it. Roslyn shrank behind Oidus, reaching for the door she had closed to open it again, to run away as far as she could go.
Oidus frowned, and soon after vomited toward the floor, but before it could touch the papers or the carpet that covered it, Kanrel burned the vomit away with the Unholy Light, leaving not even dust as a reminder of its existence. Then he extinguished the flame, and the room felt like it had gone dark, even though candles still lit the room. It took a while before it all felt normal again.
The three women now peered at Kanrel with horror. And Kanrel could only accept their disgust toward him and what he had unleashed for but a moment.
"What have you done?" Oidus whispered; her voice trembled, and her eyes had gone wide.
Kanrel shook his head. "We'll get there," he said, stepping toward Oidus, who now took a step back, but Kanrel stepped past her, helped Roslyn up from the floor, opened the door, and walked out. He did not wait for any of them. He could only hope that they might follow him and find out what he meant... Yet he pondered whether it would have been for the best to not show his discovery...