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When Rylen woke up, the birds were singing and the sun was shining in a sharp slant through the window. It really should have been a beautiful day. The birds had woken him up abruptly, their twittering piercing through his mind, which ached still as he sat at the foot of the bed, willing himself to head back downstairs and get a mug of water from the kettle.
Cullen was in the parlor of the house, running his hand along the top shelf of the bookcase. Dust filtered down from the path of his hand.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Can’t complain,” he said. Much better than Griffin Wing. He took a seat at the parlor table
Cullen nodded, thinking this over. And then he paused, titling his head. “No complaints? About the food, the beds, the noise? Surely something has pissed you off today.”
Rylen, who, though he admittedly did enjoy a good complaint, fancied himself a perfectly fine tenant, waited with the edge of his cup pressed to his chin, wary.
“What’s your problem?” he asked.
Cullen sighed.
“There are agents of the Divine coming to visit,” he said finally. Rylen looked up from the scratched wood of the table. “And if they like it…” He trailed off, but Rylen was used to these lapses by now. “Things will change, I suppose. More funds to expand the place, to hire on more help.”
“That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes,” Cullen said slowly. “This could be a good thing.” His brow was still furrowed.
“Seems to me you should be more worried about what they’ll do if they don’t like it.” Cullen huffed, and Rylen leaned back in his chair. “What are they looking for, anyway?”
“Just to see that we’re making progress, I suppose. That there’s a good reason they shouldn’t seize the land back. They’ll want to talk with the patients, then,” he murmured.
“I’ll make myself scarce, then,” Rylen said. “Don’t want to get in the way."
“I’m not going to make you do anything, Rylen. This place is for templars at all stages of their recovery.” He looked out at the window, effectively closing off the conversation. Rylen had adapted to this long ago.
When Rylen first came to Cullen’s little retreat, it was with the intention of—well, he wasn’t sure really. Even now, he couldn’t quite clarify the reason in his mind. Curiosity, perhaps. Certainly not to quit.
And he had seen Cullen, whose hands still shook when he took his tea.
“Maybe someday,” he said, and left it at that.
“Have you seen Rutherford?” The woman looked up from her lap, where she was working through some knitting with shaking hands.
“He’s out in the garden, I thought.” Rylen looked out through the window, searching.
“Thanks.”
He found him with a patient, the both of them seated on a block of stone by the large oak. Cullen was twirling a blade of grass between his fingers, while the other man’s lips moved steadily. Every now and then, Cullen would pipe up with something. Rylen chose to stay out of sight, to let them finish the moment, until the man left and it was only Cullen still in the grass.
“Poor guy,” he said. Cullen looked back toward the man, ambling toward the main house.
“He’s doing better these days.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.”
Cullen let the blade of grass go in the wind. “What’d you need?”
He shrugged. “Just wanted to stop by.” Stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling bashful all of a sudden. “This visit has gotten me thinking, I suppose.”
“Aye,” Cullen said. “That it has.” He looked back toward the house, where the other templar’s silhouette had faded away, absorbed into the shadow. “Everyone has their own reasons for coming here.”
Unnerved by how well the man seemed to pick up on these things, Rylen cleared his throat. “Well, why’d you do it?”
“There is so much that I want to remember,” he said simply.
Rylen lay in his cot that night, and he thought. Images swam up from the dark depths. The Inquisitor’s final words to them all. The feel of his first sword in his hand. His sister’s smile. Her eyes, her hair, every bit of her. Fading away. And he thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to start.
Ups and downs. That’s all life was, wasn’t it? In all honesty, it should have been a bad day. That’s what he expected. For the skies to be pouring rain, thunder crackling and lighting flashing.
There were good days. The first day, sure, he felt great. And then not so much, bit by bit. Cullen told him it would be hard, he saw it every day. But somehow, this was worse. He’d never felt so tired before. Like every moment spent out of his cot dragged by, weighing on him. The smallest things began to seem an effort, even on cloudless clear days like this. But sure, he trusted Cullen, working away at his desk, while Rylen sorted through the mail, papers strewn across the wood. He paused on one.
“Mia Rutherford?”
Cullen looked up. “My sister.” He took the letter, already slicing it open with the flat of his knife.
“You have a sister?”
He blinked. “I have two sisters.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He shrugged.
“I didn’t know that, Cullen.”
“Does it matter?”
“No, I suppose not.”
It nagged at him, however. When he was sanding the doorframes and when he was mixing up the paint for them. Rylen continued to think about Cullen’s sisters. It was the lack of sharing this information, he decided, that pissed him off so bad, to the point he had to storm into the room again when Cullen was looking over plans for something or other. Probably some new latrines. “No,” he said, and the other man looked up from his papers with a start. “It does matter.”
“Aren’t we friends, Cullen? Friends,” he pronounced slowly. What was he doing, following the example of someone who didn’t even tell him about his sisters. Little things had been setting him off lately, he knew. Maybe it was nothing, But maybe he made a mistake.
“What is the problem, Rylen?”
“You’re not my commanding officer anymore, Cullen. You can tell me things.”
“You don’t have to act like I’m in charge of you either.” Unflappable calm, the faint tinge of pink creeping up his neck, his cheeks.
“So this is my fault,” Rylen scoffed.
“I’m saying that I did not mean to keep secrets from you. Don't go looking for what's not there.” Didn’t even hear the rest of it, his anger flared so hot again. He left the room and left Cullen with his fine words.
Rylen began to spend more time out in the garden. Too many people inside; too many bodies. Instead, he sweated through his clothes each afternoon; he always sweated too much these days. Yet he couldn’t stop going out, if only to feel the cool dirt filtering through his fingers as a short reprieve. By the time he made it into the kitchen, there would be dark circles under his armpits, and the cotton of his shirt would be plastered to his back. He felt it as he washed up to his forearms in the pail he had set aside.
“What were you doing?”
Rylen jumped in his seat to find Cullen staring at him. Rylen knew what he must be thinking, could see it in his eyes. He was weak. Unable to quit, not even for a day.
“What were you doing,” he repeated. “You’ve sweat all through that shirt.”
“I was weeding the garden.”
“Rylen, have you quit?” he asked. He stiffened, stayed quiet. Picked at a clump of dirt on his forearm. Cullen sighed, moved his papers around. “You don’t have to go off it all in one go,” he said. Something in him rose up, hot and fiery.
“What, you don’t think I can do it?” He tightened his grip on the edge of the pail.
“Rylen.”
“Maker, you’re a bastard,” he huffed, letting his chair scrape across the floor of the kitchen. The sound was so harsh that he winced, and that alone sent his ire spiking once more as he marched out of the room, his bare feet barely making a sound against the floor. This sort of exit was humiliating. There was no gravitas to it. The water was still sloshing in the bucket.
Rylen found himself tossing and turning once more. His body was filled with a restless energy that seemed to vibrate through him. WIth a sigh, he peeled himself off the cot, the sheets sticking to his skin. Already bad enough without the heat that had sunk over them.
He made his way down to the kitchen, hoping for some well water for his face. Worst case, he could go out to get it, take a little trip, Clear his head. All plans went out the window when he saw the blond head slumped over the table, eyes flicking up to his.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Cullen said, ending any lines of questioning in their tracks. Couldn’t sleep. Of course he knew.
Outside, the night was still like a sheet of fabric. Airless, not a single ripple. Rylen leaned a little closer to the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the moons.
“Well, you did it. Just like that.”
“I did it like that because that was all I knew.”
“You’re a stubborn bastard—”
“You’re one to talk,” he grumbled.
“I am sorry, Rylen, if you felt that I had judged you.” The apology was as stilted as he would have expected, which did put him at ease.
“All right,” he said. Cullen ran his finger around the edge of his kneecap, his foot perched up on the chair. “What would you do?”
“Hmm?”
“What would you tell me to do? If I came here?”
“You are here,” he said, but he smiled as he did so, the sort of joke only Cullen could find amusing. Rylen was content to wait, to let him chew over his words until he was ready. “Go slow,” he finally said. “We can make a schedule. Take a little less lyrium each day, you’ll make yourself sick otherwise.”
“I already have.” He toyed with the curtain, smoothed it down. “You ready?”
“Making myself sick over it.”
“It’ll be all right, Cullen.”
“You understand if I don’t feel inclined to believe you.” The laugh that burst out of him was sudden and sharp. Cullen shook his head.
“Just let it happen.”
“Easier said than done.” Cullen slumped back in the chair, limbs a little looser. The sky was beginning to lighten at the far fringe. Rylen lost track of the days; was it tomorrow the Divine’s people would come, the day after? Did it matter? He would have liked to believe there was more to it all than counting days. Cullen liked to reduce things to numbers and sums, but that never suited him. The people would come, Cullen would receive them, and maybe none of this had anything to do with him at all. Comforting.
“I’m heading to bed,” Cullen said. “Giving it another try.” Rylen had to smile. A restless night awaited them both.
“Good luck,” he said. Turned his attention back to the window. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to count, count all the things he didn’t know. How long until the Divine came. How long until he gave up and started over. How long until he felt like he had kicked it for good. On and on and on.