The morning passed in its usual dull rhythm. Rain thinned against the tall windows of the refectory, barely more than a mist now. The kind that seemed to hang in the air rather than fall. Cal stood at the back of the room, drying his hands on his robe. A chill lived in the stone and crawled through the seams of his sleeves. He'd been assigned to serve today, a task he didn't mind—better than tending the root cellars.
He watched the novices eat in silence. Most were young, some barely twelve, heads bowed, mouths moving in prayer between spoonfuls. The older boys kept to their corner, murmuring about hunting dogs and saddlework. Cal had no corner. He didn't speak unless spoken to. It was safer that way.
The door opened.
A figure stepped in—tall, dry despite the weather, his clothes too fine for anyone born here. Black wool cloak. Polished boots. A boy, yes, but of a different kind. His hair was parted with intention. No mud on his hem. No hurry in his walk.
A noble's son, most likely. Sent here for "humility." Cal had seen a few like him before. They never stayed long.
Brother Alwin rose from his seat and offered a short bow. The noble boy gave the room a cursory glance and sat without a word. Cal had already started moving.
He poured a cup of tea from the pitcher. Steam licked at his knuckles. A lemon peel floated near the edge—he remembered that noble types preferred it that way. He lifted the cup carefully, placed it on a small tray, and began to cross the room.
He wasn't nervous, not really. But he was aware—too aware—of the way his hands gripped the tray. Aware of the weight of it, the balance. The sound of his steps. It wasn't fear of punishment that made his throat tight. It was something older. Something about being seen.
He approached the boy.
Then something shifted.
A novice at the corner table jolted up from his seat—chair leg scraping loud across the stone. Cal turned instinctively, just for a second.
His foot slid. A wet patch, maybe. His heel lost grip. The tray tilted.
Time did not stop.
But it softened.
The cup wobbled in the air like a leaf caught in a breath of wind, its contents caught mid-sway—an amber tremble at the lip. The tray shifted, and his fingers corrected without thinking. A twitch of muscle. A pivot of weight.
Cal's world narrowed to the glint of porcelain, the hush of cloth sliding over skin, the briefest sharp intake of breath. The warmth of the ring against his skin pulsed—not hot, not cold, just present—as if reacting to the spill of his thoughts.
And in that moment—so brief it would vanish in telling—he knew where everything was. Every angle. Every balance. He did not see the cup fall because it never would. He had already moved before the thought finished forming.
The tray leveled. The cup landed. Nothing spilled.
The room did not notice. Not Brother Alwin, not the novices, not even the noble boy who sat unmoved, chin slightly lifted, eyes on nothing at all.
But Cal noticed.
His pulse beat behind his eyes. He stood still for a second longer than he should have. Just enough to feel it wasn't just reflex. Not luck. Not grace. Something else.
He placed the cup down, careful, deliberate. The lemon floated, untouched.
The noble boy did not thank him.
Cal stepped back and walked away, and only when he reached the basin again—hands braced on its edge, breath steadying—did he glance down at the ring.
Copper, worn smooth at the edges. Unremarkable to any other gaze. But to him, it was a held breath. A thought whispered louder than the rest.
Something had passed through him. Not like a dream, and not like magic. Like instinct. Like some part of him knew the shape of a second better than the rest of the world.
And for the first time since coming here, since the cold stone of this place became home, he felt something unfurl. Not joy. Not even pride.
But curiosity.
A dangerous, glinting thing.
He stayed busy for the rest of the meal, hands moving on habit alone—stacking trays, gathering spoons, wiping the long oak tables where bread crumbs gathered like dust. No one spoke to him. No one looked at him twice.
But something inside him wouldn't settle.
By the time the benches had emptied and the last bowl was rinsed, Cal's breath had gone shallow. His hands trembled as he dried them again on the hem of his robe, and it wasn't the cold.
He slipped out before anyone could assign him elsewhere. Down the corridor, past the cloister's arched windows and into the narrow stairwell that led below. The stone steps wound down in a tight spiral, cold and damp, slick with the seep of old rain. He counted them like he always did—twelve down, two turns, duck under the beam. Into the cellar.
It smelled of root vegetables, dust, and old wool. The kind of place light didn't like to linger in.
Cal shut the door behind him. Not all the way. Just enough. Enough to feel hidden.
And then it hit him.
He pressed his back against the wall, the ring-hand held out like it might burn him.
What was that?
Not luck. Not reflex. Not something normal. He had moved before the cup tilted. He had known before there was anything to know.
His breath grew sharper. He turned the ring around his finger, eyes wide.
He had felt it click into place, like some invisible key turning in his blood. Like he'd slipped a second ahead of time, just enough to steer things back into line. But that wasn't something people did.
And it wasn't the sort of thing people were allowed to have.
His mind raced to the stories whispered in the novice halls—of boys caught with unlicensed charms, of men who vanished after confessing dreams that came true. Of the Inquisitors, pale-robed and patient, who did not knock when they came.
"What if someone saw?" he whispered aloud. His voice sounded wrong in the thick cellar air.
His hands gripped his hair. He crouched, head against his knees, trying to stop the thrum in his skull. His thoughts spiraled—what if the noble boy noticed? What if Brother Alwin had been watching?
What if the ring had chosen him?
Or worse—what if it hadn't?
Cal wanted to scream but didn't. Screaming was for boys who could be saved. He knew better.
Instead, he pressed his palm to the ring and made a deal with it, quiet and trembling:
"Just... stop. Don't do it again. Please. No more."
The ring did nothing. Of course it didn't. It was just copper and silence.
But Cal stayed there in the cellar a long while—long enough for his panic to cool into a kind of low, crouching fear.
The rain had stopped. But the monastery still held the scent of it—wet stone, damp linen, and that earthy cold that clung to everything like a second skin. Cal left the cellar in silence, slipping back into the corridors as though returning from a crime scene.
His feet moved without aim. One corridor bled into the next—arches yawning like the ribs of some great beast long dead. Candles burned low in their sconces, halos of weak gold flickering against the grey daylight that seeped through high windows.
The world felt thinner now. Like glass stretched too wide.
He passed novices kneeling in prayer, their mouths moving in silent rhythm, heads bowed like stalks bent beneath the weight of rain. He passed Brother Halric muttering to himself while sorting herbs into jars, his fingers stained with the ochre of dried calendula. Even he—odd, half-deaf Halric—looked up as Cal passed.
Does he know?
Cal looked away. His heart beat like a knuckle rapped on wood—quiet, insistent.
He reached the old cloister garden and stepped into the open. Mud pooled in the stone cracks. The vines along the walls had grown bold with the season, clinging like desperate prayers. A raven croaked once from the rafters above, then took wing with a sound like torn parchment.
What if they saw? What if the noble boy tells someone?
His thoughts chased each other in circles—rats in a barrel, gnawing at the same old fear.
He walked past the dormitory doors, each marked with a symbol of the divine. They stared back at him like a jury.
The ring on his finger had never felt so heavy.
Somewhere behind the refectory, a bell rang to mark the hour. The sound echoed long and hollow through the stone, like a whisper stretched to breaking. Cal paused under the bell tower, its shadow cutting across him like a blade. The sound seemed louder today. Clearer. Accusing.
He pulled his robe tighter, as if it could guard against what he had become. A boy with time stitched under his skin.
A thief of seconds.
The thought made him sick. He stopped at the well and stared into its dark mouth, as if answers might float there—written in the water's reflection. But it only stared back, still and silent. He looked older in it. Or maybe just more alone.
Cal wandered until his legs ached and his thoughts felt scalded. He passed by Brother Alwin again, who nodded faintly in greeting. But his smile was too even. Too knowing.
Everyone seemed to watch him. Or maybe no one did. It didn't matter.
The Inquisitors don't always come in daylight, he remembered.
Sometimes they come as voices in your dreams, asking questions no boy should know how to answer.
The chapel sat at the far end of the monastery grounds, tucked beneath an overhang of ivy and stone like a secret the world had forgotten. Its doors were old, blackened by time, and always slightly ajar—as if waiting for the kind of soul that didn't knock.
Cal stepped inside.
The silence swallowed him whole.
Here, the air held the cold of ancient things—of breath never spoken, of prayers sealed into mortar. The stained glass wept colors onto the floor, slow-moving pools of crimson and blue and gold, as if the saints themselves had been bled of light.
He made his way to the altar, past rows of worn pews, their wood polished by the devotion of ghosts. The statue of Divine Moar stood at the far end, veiled in candlelight—her form cloaked and faceless, carved from ash-gray stone. No eyes, no hands. Just a presence. An outline. A wound in the shape of a god.
Cal fell to his knees.
Not gently. Not in ceremony.
He dropped as if felled, his bones hollowed out by fear, by weight, by the silence between heartbeats.
He bowed his head and whispered—not words at first, but sounds. Shaky breaths. The language of someone too frightened to speak aloud.
"Divine Moar… if you hear me…"
His voice trembled, soft and bitter as a winter wind.
"I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. I'm just a page. I scrub pots, I wash floors—I don't steal time..."
He clutched the sleeve of his robe like it might unravel him otherwise. His eyes stung.
"I don't want to be taken. I don't want the Inquisitors to find me. I don't want to burn."
The silence deepened. The candles seemed to hold their breath.
"Please…" he whispered, voice cracking. "If this is some curse, take it back. If it's a sin, forgive it. If it's not… if it's something else…"
His throat closed.
"If it's something from you… show me, please, someone... just find me."
The wind moaned through the rafters above, low and long, like a song hummed through hollow wood. One of the candles flickered—then righted. A shadow on the statue's hood shifted. Just once. As if something had leaned close to listen.
And in that moment, Cal felt it.
Not a voice. Not words.
A presence.
Not warm. Not cruel.
Cold as still water. Deep as dark stone. But watching.
Something had heard.
A thought bloomed unbidden in his mind—not a message, but a weightless sense, like snow resting on bare skin:
"You are not punished."
"You are seen."
The feeling passed like a breath. The chapel dimmed again. The shadows settled.
Cal exhaled slowly, tears still cold on his cheeks. His hands, clenched in prayer, had gone white at the knuckles.
He did not feel safer.
But he no longer felt alone.