Tommy’s smile broadened.
Elizabeth reached over and tousled his warm, thick hair. That was what he had always wanted — to be an ordinary boy.
After a few pleasantries and promises, Elizabeth followed Rhun out into the hall, trailed by the cub.
“I am glad that you did not turn him,” Rhun said, once they were out of earshot.
“You thought that I would?” Elizabeth widened her eyes in a show of innocence that she knew he did not believe.
“I feared that you might,” he answered.
“I am stronger than you think,” she said.
“What will become of the boy?”
“He must be returned to his aunt and uncle, and I will see that done,” Elizabeth said. “One such as I will not be fit to mother him.”
“Can you simply give him up, then?”
“It will not be simple.” She lifted her chin. “And I shall not give him up entirely. I shall watch over him, come when he needs me, and leave him alone when he does not.”
“I doubt the order will allow you to have further contact with him.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I am not their chattel. I will come and go as I like.”
“You would leave the order, then?” He swallowed. “And me?”
“I cannot stay bound to the Church. You must know this better than any other. So long as you remain here, we can never be together.”
“Then we should say our good-byes soon,” Rhun said, touching her on the arm, drawing her to a stop. She turned to him. “I’ve been given permission to enter Solitude, to begin a period of seclusion and reflection within the order’s Sanctuary.”
She wanted to scoff at him, deride him for turning his back upon the world, but upon hearing the true joy in his voice, she could only look sadly upon him.
“Go then, Rhun, find your peace.”
Rhun descended through the halls of the Sanctuary with a quiet sense of joy, ready at last to forsake his earthly cares. He walked alone, his footsteps echoing through the vast chambers and passageways. With his sharp ears, he could hear whispers of distant prayers, marking the beginning of vespers.
He continued deeper, to levels where even such whispers would fade.
The bright world above had nothing more to offer him. Before Cardinal Bernard had sent him to Masada to search for the Blood Gospel, Rhun had been ready to live a cloistered life in the Sanctuary. He was even wearier now.
It is time.
From this moment on, the soaring ceilings of the Sanctuary would be his sky. Lost in meditation, Sanguinist priests would bring him wine, as he had once brought wine to others. He could rest here, in the bosom of the Church that had saved him so many years before. His role as the Knight of Christ was finished, and he did not need to serve the Church again. He was free of those responsibilities now.
Rhun bowed his head as he passed into the domain of the Cloistered Ones. Here his brothers and sisters rested in peace, standing in niches or lying on cold stone, forgoing matters of the flesh for eternal contemplation and reflection. He had been assigned a cell down here, where for an entire year he would not speak, where his prayers would be his own.
But first he stopped and lit a candle before a frieze of a patron saint, one of hundreds of such small moments of worship to be found throughout the Sanctuary. He knelt as the glow of the taper flickered over the features of a robed figure standing under a tree, with birds perched both on the branches and on the saint’s shoulder — St. Francis of Assisi. He bowed his head, remembering Hugh de Payens and the sacrifice he committed to save them and so many others.
Rhun had said his good-byes to Jordan and Erin at the airport this morning, before their flight back to the States, heading to happy lives. They still lived because such heroes had died. Though the hermit had turned his back on the order, Rhun intended that he be honored, if only in this small way.
Thank you, my friend.
He closed his eyes and moved his lips in prayers. After a time, long past the end of vespers, a hand touched his shoulder, as light as the wing of a butterfly.
Rhun turned to a tall, robed figure standing behind him.
Surprised by the visitation, Rhun bowed his head even farther. “You honor me,” he whispered before the Risen One, the first of their order.
“Stand,” Lazarus said, his voice hoarse with age.
Rhun obeyed, but he kept his gaze lowered.
“Why are you here, my son?” Lazarus asked.
Rhun gestured to the silent figures nearby, covered in dust, unmoving as statues. “I have come to share the peace of the Sanctuary.”
“You have given everything to the order,” said Lazarus. “Your life, your soul, and your service. Would you now give the sum of your days?”
“I would. I gave these things willingly to a higher cause. I exist only to serve Him with a simple, honest heart.”
“Yet you came into this life through a lie. You were not meant to serve so. You might have walked a different path, and you might still.”
Rhun lifted his head, hearing not accusation, but only sorrow in the other’s voice. He did not understand. Lazarus turned from him and walked away, drawing Rhun after him.
Lazarus shuffled past the motionless forms of nuns and priests who had come here to seek respite.
“Have I not paid enough for my sins?” Rhun asked, fearing he would be denied such peace.
“You have not sinned,” Lazarus answered. “You have been sinned against.”
Rhun continued after the somber figure, his mind whirling, numbering the sins he had committed in his long life and those that had been committed against him. Yet, he found no enlightenment.
Lazarus led him deeper, to darker halls, where forms were clad in ancient robes, with heads downcast or raised to the ceiling. Rhun had heard of this region, where those who came sought not just eternal reflection but also absolution, reflecting upon the meaning of sin — both their own and those of others.
Rhun looked around, staring at these faces shadowed by mortification.
Why was I brought here?
At last, Lazarus stopped in front of a priest who stood with his face downcast. He wore the simple brown robes that Rhun had donned long ago in his mortal life. Even though he could not see that face, Rhun sensed a familiarity.
It must be one of my brothers from long ago, also retired to a life of contemplation.
Lazarus leaned at the man’s cheek, his breath disturbing the dust atop the figure’s ear.
Finally, the man raised his head — revealing a visage that had haunted Rhun’s nightmares for over four hundred years. Rhun staggered back, as if struck a hard blow.
It cannot be…
Rhun studied the long dark hair, the high pale brow, those full lips. He remembered those lips upon his throat, those teeth in his flesh. He could still taste the man’s blood on his tongue. Even now, his body remembered that bliss. Even now, they were still connected.
Here was the strigoi who had attacked him by his sister’s gravesite, who ripped his soul from his body, ending his life as a mortal. Rhun had thought the beast had been killed. He remembered seeing the creature being dragged away by Sanguinist guards loyal to Bernard.
But now that monster wore the robes of the order.
The man opened his eyes and looked on Rhun with great tenderness. He touched the side of Rhun’s neck, where his teeth had pierced Rhun’s flesh. His fingers lingered there. “I thought I served when I committed this sin upon you.”
“Served? Served whom?”
That arm dropped away, and those eyes drifted closed again, awareness fading. “Forgive me, my son,” the man said, his voice whispering away. “I knew not what I did.”