Blood of the Righteous

High Initiate

Gabriel's eyes shot open as the three-toned bells of the Cathedral filled the small room. Four times they rang, indicating it was four hours after sunrise. He had had another nightmare, making at least one each night for the last four nights. He tried to focus on it to and force it to make sense, but it slipped away from his grasp as sand through his fingers.

Gabriel stretched on his bed, taking in a deep breath of the cool morning air. Pushing his blanket aside, he sat up and placed his feet upon the cold stone of his initiate's room. Since his window faced west, the morning sun was not a problem. He had not been sleeping well lately, which was probably why he had overslept by three hours. He had missed the morning meal, and the empty feeling in his stomach painfully reminded him of that fact. It was two hours before high noon. Tobias would be deep in his test of knowledge now, trying his best to prove his worthiness to become knighted, and thus a full brother.

This was the first time in as long as he could remember that he had been able to sleep late. Usually he was awakened by a taskmaster before the first bell, being ordered to do some sort of manual labor before the morning meal. He had learned a long time ago to stay out of trouble in general, or he would find himself collecting and cleaning the priests' and nuns' chamber pots, scrubbing the lavatories, or hauling the rotten food from behind the kitchen to the middens. Young initiates were often rudely awakened to the realities of the order's training, it being nothing like what they expected. On good days, he would haul and chop wood for the kitchens, polish armor and weapons, wax the floors in the Defender's Hall or the Cathedral, or read to the old, retired, bed-ridden knights and clergy who no longer had use of their eyes.

But now that he was a mentor, those days were behind him. Within a few weeks, he would be assigned initiates of his own, sons of nobles and merchants from all of the surrounding countries. Although the war waged on between Elgannan and the Caledonia / Gylinia alliance, once a young man decided to join the Order, he gave up all claims to family and country. Tobias, his mentor, was a prime example, who it turns out had given up the chance to be King of Aragil. When Gabriel had asked him about whether he regretted his decision to join the Holy Defenders, Tobias thought for a moment, then confidently answered that it was well worth all he had given up, and more.

Gabriel decided to try and find Eleenia. It was two days until the Sabbath, and he remembered that his sister didn't have classes today. He hoped she was making her rounds at the infirmary, although given the time, she may have already completed them. Gabriel decided to check her room first, then the infirmary. If she were not there... His stomach tied itself in knots as he realized where else she could possibly be.

Dressing quickly and wetting down and straightening his midnight black hair, Gabriel rushed to his sister's room.