By M.J. Austin
The first time I met Julias Rez, it was a cold spring day and he was wearing white. I remember the goosebumps on his arms, the fine loose cloth whipped up by the strong upwind that left ocean salt on both of us. He smiled at me and said something I didn’t hear over the frenzy of waves at the bottom of the tall cliffs behind me. The sun glittered into my eyes off the perfect windows of the monastery behind him so that I could barely make him out.
He was so clean, barefoot in too-green grass, hair soft and dancing around his face. I was buried in travel dust, in the most stitched-together of the rags my family had sent me off in. Beside me, Father Garrus towered like an iron statue, his hooked visage twisted with calm disdain. He gripped my small shoulder with one talon-like hand, and when he beckoned Julias rushed forward without hesitation.
He grabbed my hand. His was cold, mine frightfully warm. “Pleased to meet you! We’re going to be best friends, alright?”
He didn’t even ask my name.
***
From spring into winter, I settled into the monastery with Julias an everpresent companion. We roomed together at his insistence, which was no hard feat; his room was the size of my family’s home, which was only a statement on my shamefully modest upbringing. The seclusion was odd, the monastery quiet and peaceful because of it – I was used to the crude bustle of city streets, loud voices, anger and the filth of poverty. Julias dragged me through sunlit gardens where flowers bloomed, climbed trees with me, sat with me during the insufferable lessons on reading, writing, arithmetic and drew pictures in the margins of my notes.
During the first snow of the year, he woke me earlier than the sun and gestured me outside with whispers, slipping the watchful eye of even Father Garrus, who was our ever-attending minder. The grounds were thick with snow, the air bitter cold, and the predawn all lit up with that soft wintery glow of diffused light. On the horizon, gentle vestiges of green, blue, purple danced, almost invisible against the blue-black sky.
Julias held my hand. I waded into the cold snowdrifts with him, all the way to the very edge of the powerful cliffs. Our breaths came out as clouds. His hands and cheeks and nose turned pink, his lips losing color and I wrapped my fingers around his. In the early morning silence, the only noise was the muted, constant rush of the waves below us.
He leaned forward, up, to whisper in my ear. “We’re going to be friends forever, aren’t we, Brutus?” His hand tightened around mine and the anxiety in his voice made something in my stomach wrench.
“Of course,” I told him.
***
Two years passed in rapid succession. Before I knew it, Julias and I weren’t the only children in the monastery. Another couple Fathers from edges of the map I now knew from my extensive studies came, bringing new faces with then. Ainwyn, a scrawny freckled boy who clung to Julias wherever we went, Taris, a glum soft boy who flinched when I scowled at him, and Nox, who didn’t speak a word and spent most of his time in the rafters covered in cobwebs. I didn’t mind Nox.
Father Garrus took me in hand and began my personal training with the fervor only he was capable of, and suddenly Julias and I saw very little of each other. Swordsmanship in the morning turned into horsemanship and then tactical studies and then meditation, prayer, scribe work, chores. Julias’s teacher, Father Lemuel, was a narrow man with an easy smile, who watched me with an unpleasant expression whenever I dropped in.
“Come on, spar with me,” Julias begged, but his teacher shook his head, gray eyes hard.
I shot him a dirty look, just on principal. “Another time, Julias. I’m still figuring out Master Garrus’s forms.”
Julias had taken to swordplay like a fish to water. Truthfully, I was already leagues behind him in skill, even when he skipped half his lessons to play by the cliffs with Ainwyn and Taris.
I watched them, sometimes, from the safety of the practice yard. The bright sky turned them into moving black silhouettes and did nothing for the furious frustration in my stomach.
“Focus on your work, Brutus,” Garrus said, hand suddenly a vice on the back of my neck. “Your swordwork will not improve while you are distracted.”
I scowled at him, not quite willing to tell him off, but unable to do anything about my strong desire to see him burst into flames in front of me. “They’re all skiving off. Why don’t you go hunt them down?”
“They are not my responsibility. You are. Perhaps if you applied yourself to your lessons as much as you applied yourself to sneaking out of your rooms with young Julias, you would have free time to use at your discretion.”
With a frustrated yell, I attacked him with my practice sword and he then soundly thrashed me.
He was right, though.
***
The year I turned twelve, Julias and I were summoned to the bishop’s antechamber and spoken to by Father Hope, a man who looked about ready to turn into dust. I was tempted to yell just to see if he’d crumble from surprise, but Father Garrus and Father Lemuel stood behind us with equally severe expressions, so when I was told to kneel and stay silent, I did.
Father Hope sat on a stool and read to us from a dull, ancient book, stuttering and stumbling over his words in a way that set my teeth on edge. I clenched my jaw as hard as I could to keep from saying anything, until my mind caught up with what was being read and my stomach dropped instead.
The ancient religious text outlined the war currently being waged outside, the war I’d been taken away from, which had killed Julias’s parents and presumably the families of the other three apprentices.
The war of Ruin, the book called it, and predestined, whatever that meant. And then it talked at length about a force of great evil and a force of powerful good, destined to change the course of the war. Chosen warriors. Fated, whose futures were intertwined and impossible to separate from each other.
Julias and I were the chosen two.
The exact moment my life fell apart at the seams involved itchy trousers and cold, bruised knees and blood on my palms from my nails digging in so hard. Next to me, Julias started crying.“But I don’t want to be evil,” he said, looking up at Father Lemuel like the man would be able to somehow fix something that apparently god had put into place.
I risked a glance at Garrus, whose face was as unreadable and harsh as ever. It was faintly comforting, in a way.
“Obviously, my sweet boys,” Father Hope said tremulously, “I believe in the et-t-ternal salvation of our god. You two were b-b-rought here to be raised t-t-together, t-t-to overc-c-come the path you’ve b-b-been placed up-p-pon.”
Maybe it was the cold flagstones under me, or the still air only interrupted by Julias’s sniffling. Maybe it was something else altogether. My body went numb, my breathing slowed. It was difficult to think. The adults talked over me, but I simply sat there and stared at the frayed hem of Father Hope’s robes, feeling like I’d drunk a gallon of ice.
Afterward, Father Garrus sent me into the garden with Julias.
We sat in the grass, the warm sun doing nothing to improve my state. Julias cried a little more, although it was obvious he was trying not to.
“So, what’s going to happen? Does this mean we won’t be friends anymore?” He stared up at me, his blue eyes bright and swimming.
In the past, his insistence that we would always be friends had been comforting, pleasant. I had grown up being chased off by other kids for being scary, violent, angry, mean.
Now, I felt sick to my stomach and the urge to shove Julias away and run mounted in my throat and tasted like bile. “Of course,” I said. “Of course we’ll always be friends.”
***
That wasn’t the last time I felt that way. Over the next few years, Julias clung to my side more often than not, more determined than ever to not lose me to whatever imagined dark forces he seemed to be convinced I had. A pattern had emerged, in the grand cloth of the threaded universe, and once again I was on the cliffs and Julias was in a white shirt.
We sparred now, since I had gained the speed and tactic necessary to stand up against his formidable instincts. Garrus watched us sometimes, and I won then. When Lemuel watched, I lost. Today, Lemuel stood just inside the ring, leaning against the fence with his hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword, and Julias was thrashing me.
“Come on, Brutus,” he cried, hair loose from it’s ribbon and floating around him as he moved, all liquid, one with his sword. “I know you can do better than that!”
I wiped blood off my face and tried to end the match gracefully. And of course, I ended up on my butt in the dirt with Julias grinning over me.
Lemuel clapped politely. “Excellent form, Julias. Brutus, your footwork is… well, shall we say it isn’t.”
I hauled myself up and scowled at him. “Thank you for the feedback.” Any other, less savory, comments, I kept to myself. Julias hated it when I fought with Father Lemuel, even if Lemuel deserved it.
“Perhaps you should spend more time sparring with someone closer to your own skill level,” Lemuel continued, eyes cold despite his light tone. “I believe Ainwyn is in need of a practice partner.”
I looked between Julias, lightly sweaty and smiling, and Lemuel, and suddenly the idea of pulverizing Ainwyn sounded very appealing. “Yes, sir,” I managed to grit out, and Julias’s face fell at my tone but I turned sharply and vaulted out of the ring instead of apologizing to him, and the shame I felt warred with my relief.
***
Julias came to the stables after my inevitable victory over Ainwyn to help me scoop manure – my punishment for having thrashed him hard enough to break his collarbone.
“You don’t have to help,” I growled for the fourth time, stabbing at a pile of filthy hay. The smell reminded me unpleasantly of my childhood, and my skin itched.
“But we’re friends!” Julias responded, and then peered at me with wide eyes. “Aren’t we?” His needy tone grated on me like nails on chalkboard. My hands tightened around the handle of my fork.
“Yeah,” I forced myself to say. “Of course. But I’m the one who got in trouble. If you help, Father Lemuel might think I forced you to.”
Julias faltered and frowned at the work. “But…”
“Go on, Jules. I can take care of this myself.” I needed him to leave before I snapped and lashed out at him, because right now all I could think about was how badly I wanted to break his collarbone.
Julias drooped anyway, like he could sense my feelings, and I scowled at his back as he walked away.
“I thought you two preferred to be attached at the hip.” Father Garrus growled from the corner.
I shoved back into the muck. “Yeah, well.” This wasn’t the first time I’d taken out my anger on Ainwyn, only the most recent. “It’s kind of his fault, though.”
“This is the consequence of your own actions, Brutus,” Garrus said. “No one else did this to you. The fault is your own.”
And of course, he was right.
***
Summer, and winter, and summer again came to the monastery; Julias was as close to me as ever, despite getting on my nerves more often than not. His swordwork improved enough that most days he sparred Garrus, the only person on the island who could currently overpower him.
I tried not to be jealous, and spent a lot of time in the library.
Nox, who still didn’t speak, didn’t get in my way when I broke into the restricted section, and when I started reading through the rest of the ancient texts about the war of Ruin, he brought me candles late into the night.
I didn’t find any answers in the pages, but the empty space next to me where Julias might have been was comforting nonetheless.
The ancient texts described holy crusades and guiding mages – magic that had been lost to time, and for a little while I imagined what it would be like to have that power. The thought was heady, interesting. Th same exciting rush I got during sparring, the tipping point when I went just a little too far. The win.
I closed the book firmly and stood. “I need some fresh air.”
Nox silently went to the far wall and pushed an ancient, dusty tapestry aside, revealing a small door. It opened into a narrow stairway that, to my surprise, led up into the roofs of the monastery.
Outside, the cold night air was a shock. I’d spent the evening in the library again and now the sun was well under the ocean-swell of the horizon.
A light caught my eye, the faintest of glimmer across the roof.
With a tremor of excitement, I slipped closer. From a nearer vantage point, I could see that the two figures were the right height to be Lemuel and Julias.
A little closer, and I could hear them. I’d always had good hearing.
“You know for certain he’s the great evil?” Julias said, voice soft and wavering, like he was on the verge of tears.
Lemuel reached out, although his gesture was concealed by the flickering darkness. “Look at him, Julias. One of you two is meant to betray us all, to plunge the world into darkness. Do you really think it’s going to be you?”
And of course, he was right.
***
Garrus noticed the change in me, even if no one else did. For the next few months that eavesdropped conversation haunted me; for the first time, I was forced to consider that Father Hope might be wrong. It was my fault, and there was nothing I could do.
My sword rang from the force with which I hit Garrus’s. I pushed my advantage, slamming him back. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t had a choice. I didn’t get a say in the matter.
Garrus said something I didn’t hear over the rush of blood in my head. It was all there in the proof. I had exactly one friend, a good friend, who loved me, and all I could do was seethe with jealousy toward him. I destroyed everything I touched.
According to the text, my birth was what had started the war in the first place.
The war that had killed thousands.
The spar itself was nothing but background movement at this point; a series of flashing movements, sword, impact, the perfect action.
The blade swung.
It had been my fault. My family’s death was my fault. Julias’s family’s death was my fault.
Garrus had been right. Garrus had been right the whole time.
I didn’t hear the scream until the blood hit my face.I was the one screaming. It wasn’t my blood.
***
The last time I saw Julias Rez was on a cold spring day and he was wearing white. I remember he stood with his back toward me, speaking to one of the guiding mages that had arrived. She was smiling at him, head tipped up. I remember the wind whipped his hair into a golden wave, that she reached up and brushed a strand of it out of his face.
In my hand was a letter, in dark script. Julias and I were eighteen, and our paths were meant to have been avoided, but here we were. I leaned back against the stone wall of the monastery, well aware that I was hidden from most peoples’ eyes, but I felt exposed anyway. Raw, like a skinned nerve.
Nox had given me the letter last night after the arrival of the mages.
“It’s an invitation,” he had said.
I knew what kind of invitation it was. I knew what side of the war it was from.
In the garden, Julias threw his head back and laughed, and the guiding mage put her hand on his arm and laughed too.
I folded the letter, put it in my pocket, and turned, feeling that all-too-familiar rush.
Octopencil 