His secret illuminations, p.1
His Secret Illuminations, page 1
His Secret Illuminations
The Warrior's Guild, Volume 1
Scarlett Gale
Published by Unnatural Redhead Creations, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
HIS SECRET ILLUMINATIONS
First edition. October 30, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Scarlett Gale.
ISBN: 978-1393846741
Written by Scarlett Gale.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments
The adventure continues in His Sacred Incantations!
Sneak Peek at His Sacred Incantations
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About the Author
About the Publisher
For Crystal, my beautiful elf wife and greatest supporter.
Chapter 1
SHE’S HERE. Again. Lucían desperately focuses on his calligraphy, trying to use the manuscript he’s painstakingly copying to block out his awareness of her. It’s almost effective for thirty seconds, and then she laughs, the sound carrying easily across the workshop, and he drops his quill.
Okay. This is fine. He just has to lean down and pick up his quill off the floor, without looking up and seeing her. He keeps his eyes on the quill, and then on his desk, and the vellum he’s carefully filling with script, and definitely isn’t betrayed by his own eyeballs as she laughs again and he automatically looks at the source of the sound—oh hells.
She’s still mid-laugh, her face crinkled with amusement, and it makes her shine like gold leaf on a page. Her white-blond hair is braided back away from her face, the sides looking freshly shorn. (Lucían curses himself. He shouldn’t be paying close enough attention to note her haircuts.) She stands easily head and shoulders above anyone else in the room, leaning her broad frame against the edge of the doorway and somehow still filling the entire entrance. The Abbot is trying to shoo her away from the workshop (presumably toward his office, where they can discuss whatever brought her here again), and it’s like watching a pony try to herd a draft horse. She crosses her arms, somehow managing to emphasize both her tattooed biceps and the curve of her chest, and says something to the Abbot. The words don’t carry but the rumble of her voice does, and Lucían’s mouth goes dry. The Abbot gestures at her more emphatically, and with a heavy sigh and a roll of her eyes, she stands up from her casual lean and lets the Abbot lead her out of the workshop. Lucían lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding, and then
she
looks
right
at
him.
Her clear green eyes lock directly onto his, and he knows she knows he was looking at her. Her gaze pins him to the spot, and he freezes like a terrified rabbit. The eye contact goes on for just a touch too long, long enough to stop being a glance and start being a stare, and she arches one brow at him in a silent question. Lucían, hovering on a blush at the best of times, feels the color rise in his cheeks in a hot shameful flash. Her other eyebrow climbs to join the first as she cocks her head at him slightly, and it’s all worth it for a terrible instant as one side of her mouth curls up in a half-grin, her green eyes glinting with amusement. It’s embarrassing but Lucían finds he doesn’t mind terribly, because she doesn’t seem to be laughing at him, but rather finds the whole situation similarly absurd. Is he still staring? Oh Lord, he’s still staring.
The Abbot says something and she turns away, breaking the spell and leaving him breathless, half grateful and half cursing the old man for interrupting. Lucían is trying to get his heartbeat under control when she glances back into the room and winks at him, flashing that sharp, amused half-grin again. The power of it snaps through him like lightning, and Lucían strangles a startled sound as she finally, thankfully, disappears around the corner. He drops his head into his hands and breathes for a long moment, trembling like he’d just sprinted the length of the monastery. How does she do this to him? How can anyone have that much power with a smile and a glance? Who is she?
Once he’s sure his hand is under control, Lucían reaches for his tea mug (carefully placed on a small shelf to the side of the desk, a precautionary measure they all take now ever since Brother “Loose-Fingers” Leroy ruined four copies of the bestiary he was assigned to illuminate) and swallows a long, calming draught. He sets the mug back down, shakes out his shoulders, stretches his wrists, and looks for his quill—
Which he apparently tore in half while she was smiling at him. He must have then crushed each half during the wink. It’s the clearest explanation, and also the one he is least equipped to explain to Storemaster Tobias.
Lucían doesn’t actually start beating his head against his desk, but it’s a close call.
“DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT warrior woman is?” he asks Brother Carnahan over the evening meal, trying to sound casual about it. Tonight is not a meal requiring silent reflection, so his question melts into the overall surrusus of a hundred-odd monks and clerics chatting quietly about the day’s events (and complaining even more quietly about the quality of the food now that Brother Theodore is on kitchen rotation).
Brother Carnahan snorts into his soup. “The one who looks like she could eat the Abbot in one bite? No idea. She might do some outwork for him.” He waves the hand holding his bread roll vaguely in the direction of the monastery gates, narrowly avoiding Brother Jan’s face. “I wish she’d just meet him in his study instead of coming to find him in the workshop every time. It’s disrespectful. I don’t understand why she gets to be the exception to the monastery rules.”
“I hear she’s been blessed by the gods and that’s why she gets special permission,” Brother Jan chimes in, leaning over Brother Carnahan and stealing his second bread roll. “The Abbot didn’t even want to hire her, but then a spirit spoke through her and he didn’t have a choice.”
“Yeah, well, I heard she just beat up every other sword for hire in the region and now she’s the only one left.” Brother Yarlstan sketches in the air with his spoon from across the table, outlining the suggestion of a muscular form. “She’s built like an ox in human form, I bet she could do it.”
“I just hope that whatever she is, she stops coming back,” Brother Carnahan grumbles, snatching his now sad looking bread roll back from Jan’s plate. “She’s incredibly distracting.”
“I guess she is pretty disruptive, huh?” Lucían says, keeping his voice under control with a valiant effort and pretending like he wasn’t the one being distracted earlier that afternoon. “I just wonder—”
The Abbot stands up at the head table, signaling the evening announcements, so Lucían thankfully doesn’t have to figure out a way to finish his sentence. His evening chore assignments keep him busy enough to push thoughts of that woman out of his head as he grinds ingredients for potions and sets up the overnight infusions and tisanes. The laboratories prepped for the morning work, he heads back to the living quarters after three-bells releases the monastery from the day’s labor. Using studious attention to detail as he washes up and cleans his teeth, he manages to keep not thinking about her until he climbs into his cot after his evening prayers and finds himself alone with his thoughts. His thoughts, it should be noted, are not at all cowed by the presence of Brothers Lee, Yarlstan, and Timothy in their cots, which Lucían finds quite rude. He allows himself a silent mental groan and covers his face, grateful for the darkness of their shared quarters. All he sees is her, that wicked half-smile, those green eyes. His stomach is full from dinner but there’s a yawning sort of hunger behind his ribs, one he’s usually able to ignore except in these moments when all he can think of is her.
Hells. It’s always like this when she comes. It’s been over two years since she first started showing up (that’s a lie, it’s been two years and twenty-one days, he knows, he first saw her the day after the vernal equinox, it was a sunny day and the air smelled like apple blossoms) and it’s maddening how easily Lucían finds himself driven to distraction. No one has ever spoken to her but the Abbot! She just appears in the door to the workshop and destroys all the equilibrium in his life. She disappears for however long it takes for him to build back up some semblance of calm and piety (this is also a lie, he knows exactly how long it is between each visit, the shortest time was two weeks, the longest was six months) and then, just when he’s starting to think he’ll be able to manage, she saunters back in and kicks it all down. It’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even know her name. She doesn’t even know he exists!
But she looked at you today, a traitorous voice in the back of his head says. She looked at you and she smiled. She’s never smiled at anyone like that before, not even the Abbot.
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/> No one smiles at the Abbot, he argues. Smiling indicates you’re about to sin or something else ridiculous written in a holy book no one else is allowed to read.
That’s not the point, the voice says. You’re being deliberately dense. She smiled at you specifically. And then she winked! She’s never winked at anyone. You know this, you watch her.
I do not watch her! Lucían thinks furiously. I just... make sure she’s behaving in a responsible manner. And I use my eyes to do that. It has nothing to do with watching her.
You stare at her face and also her legs and also her chest, the voice continues, because the voice is a dirty traitor. You think about whether she could pick you up with one hand. You wish you could ride by her side out in the rest of the world. You dream about taking her hair down from that braid and running your fingers through it. You wonder what it would be like if she—
No, no, no, we are not going there! Lucían rolls over, shoving his head under his pillow and crushing it to his ears, like that will be any help in blocking out his internal argument. It is not like that and we are not continuing this conversation.
Fine, the voice in his head says snidely. But if it’s not like that, why are you hard right now?
Well... hells. Lucían rolls over onto his back, unearthing his head from under the pillow, and stares at the stone ceiling. This again. He inhales deeply, holds the breath until it starts to hurt, and exhales. He can handle this. It’s a natural part of being a monk with a healthy, functioning body. He just has to meditate on his vows until it goes away and he can sleep.
You could just... the voice in his head starts, and he squeezes his eyes shut viciously. No. He took a vow of celibacy when he was ordained at twelve. He hasn’t broken it once in the fifteen years since, and he’s certainly not going to sneak out of bed to break it now just because of her. This is his own fault for being weak. He just needs a distraction is all.
Lucían cautiously lifts his head from his pillow and scans the room, listening hard as he does. Brother Timothy is snoring, the gentle rumble of it familiar and almost soothing. Brother Yarlstan doesn’t snore, but he’s face-down on his cot and to judge by the breathing, he’s fast asleep. Brother Lee sounds like he’s probably still awake, but he’s also trustworthy so Lucían sees no real issues there. He rolls over onto his side, making the movement seem like a natural part of getting comfortable in bed, and when another moment passes of normal nighttime noises, he reaches out and carefully, silently, takes the finial dome off the top of his bedpost, extracts the volume inside, and replaces the finial. He slides the book under his pillow and waits what seems like an appropriate amount of time before pulling the blankets up over his head, curling into a ball on his side and summoning a tiny magelight. He practically doesn’t need the light at this point—he’s read the book so many times he has the stories memorized—but thinking about reading it isn’t the same as actually reading it. Lucían takes a moment to run his fingertips gently over the cover, the ink faded a bit after all these years, and lets himself feel a tiny sense of pride at the evenness of the lettering. It’s an absolute mess compared to his current skills, of course, but he still considers it impressive for a thirteen year old novice. He pauses to listen hard, again, but there’s still nothing but the usual sounds of his roommates sleeping, so he opens to the first page, eager to distract himself—
Ah. Hm. Somehow Lucían forgot that this book started with a collection of stories from the Vikun lands to the north, and that the frontspiece for it is an illustration of a massive, armored warrior woman with silver hair and an axe that, proportionally, is probably the size of him. That won’t do, not when massive warrior women are exactly the current problem. Lucían hurriedly and silently flips to the next section of the book, where the stories are from the Lengua speakers to the south and mostly about clever children getting advice from brightly colored magical animals. That’s much better. Lucían settles in to read about their adventures and, deep in the secret, quiet part of his soul, wonders what it might be like to have some of his own.
Chapter 2
SHE DOESN’T COME BACK for a while, and life in the monastery goes on, as it ever does, in strictly regimented routine. Lucían wakes before the dawn, dresses, prays at the morning services, and then goes to his daily work assignments. He copies manuscripts and illustrations, brews and enchants potions, takes his turns teaching the foundling boys in the monastery creche, eats the evening meal, attends evening services, and climbs into his cot to sleep before waking and doing it all again. It’s a comfortable, safe life. He understands his place in it, and he enjoys his work, finds it pleasing to watch a book take shape under his hands as he carefully coaxes blank vellum and dry pigments into something better than the sum of its parts, but... Lucían tries to put it out of his mind, but his eyes still find their way to the sky above the monastery wall and he can’t help but wonder what lies beyond it.
Probably just farms, he reminds himself sharply. Farms and temptation and danger. That’s what the Abbot tells them, anyway, that the world outside the monastery is harsh, unforgiving, and unholy. After all, weren’t they all here because the outside world proved too much to bear? Didn’t the monastery take them in and keep them safe when their parents were unable to? Isn’t it by the Lord’s grace that they have work, and purpose, and His Blessing? And doesn’t He demand so little from them in exchange? Just their vows and obedience and holy piety? Who would be so ungrateful as to throw the Lord’s love back in His face by rejecting this holy place and this holy work?
These and similar tenets are the subject of the Abbot’s sermon one morning in midsummer, and Lucían listens dutifully and prays sincerely and sings the hymns with joy in his heart and still finds himself with questions lurking half-hidden in the back of his mind, like a cat that wants to be in the same room with people but doesn’t want to be touched. He lingers after the service long enough to light a candle at the prayer wall and bow his head over it. The plea he sends to the Lord is just as familiar as the book he hides in his bedframe, and just as secret.
I don’t know where he is, Lord, he prays quickly, urgently, but if he is with You, then please treat him with the kindness and love I know You have for all Your children. If he is still among us, then please keep him safe with all the fire in Your heart. Please, Lord, take care of him.
“Still?” Brother Lee hisses from the door, startling Lucían out of his half-trance. He has one dark brow raised on his golden face, and looks like he wants to put his fists on his hips disapprovingly but can’t, on account of having a large basket in each hand.
“Every chance I get,” Lucían replies, just as quietly, crossing the chapel with quick steps and accepting one of the baskets from Lee as they both hurry in the direction of the garden.
“You know if he catches you—” Brother Lee starts to say and then stops as Brother Timothy passes them going the other direction. Lucían leaves the silence unbroken as they shoulder open the garden door and exit, blinking, into the midsummer morning sunlight.
“I know it’s a risk,” Lucían says quietly, not making eye contact with Lee as he sets down his basket and busies himself putting on the leather gloves inside. “I just feel like I owe it to him. He was my apprentice. I just...” He lifts and drops one shoulder in half a shrug. “I just wish I knew. What do you think happened to him?”
“He’s dead,” Brother Lee says flatly, looking over his shoulder to make sure they won’t be overheard. “Look, if you insist on talking about Brother Eric, at least do it in a way that won’t get us both Shunned.” It still sounds like Lee is whispering even in mindspeech, which they both know is completely unnecessary, but it’s a hard habit to break.
“If he was dead he’d be in the graveyard though,” Lucían insists, keeping the conversation going silently even as he leans in to investigate the pea vines for ripe pods. “I’ve checked more than once. He’s not there. I think he might be... Out.” He throws a little emphasis on the last word and tips his head toward the monastery wall.
