Chapter Text
Aleksander remains hoisted on the barbed branches of the Thorn Wood, waiting eternally for the universe to swoop down on its prey, but the shrike never comes. He has a thousand thousand sunrises to pit against the painful agony that threatens madness, but the pitiful mortal has no more than twenty summers and most of those have been overshadowed by torment.
Aleksander can feel him diminishing. He used to burn with conviction. Now he barely smolders; a wisp of himself that has become a quieter and quieter voice in the dark. It is rare to hear him mumble his prayers, which used to come with irritating regularity, and it has become rarer still for him to contradict Aleksander with his childish arguments.
Is martyrdom all you could wish for?
Silence answers Aleksander.
Surely you thought your fellow saints would descend to crown you in glory?
Nothing echoes back within the cavern of his mind.
Aleksander has never cared for holy fools, but he does care about his own loneliness. It terrifies him to think he will spend these empty, endless moments in uninterrupted solitude.
There is still the door.
He presses his ear against it, but the boy-king-consort has barred it firmly shut from the other side. Only when their joint melancholy resonates like the sympathetic strings of a violin does the key turn in the lock. It is not enough to sustain someone cursed with Aleksander’s greed for companionship.
Yuri.
He tries again to rouse his host because his choices have been whittled down to none.
Yura. Were you named for Sankt Juris?
No, a meek, hoarse voice answers. My mother named me for Sankt Yuri of Balakirev, the Stylite.
Of course she did.
Did you know him?
The question manages to surprise Aleksander and it earns the boy the tiniest bit of gratitude in return.
No, I am not that old.
Oh.
Don't be so disappointed. My mother said he was—a madman bound in chains—dedicated. Ravkans came from all directions to hear him preach.
Aleksander can almost hear an intake of hushed awe.
To think of all you have seen. That you both saw.
The reverence is palatable, enough so, that Aleksander can picture the boy’s enraptured face and he discovers he is not immune to devotion, even misplaced and ill-directed.
Would you like to hear of my travels?
Yes!
So, the little monk does fight his own battles with greed.
I expect an attentive audience. Do not disappoint me.
Aleksander does not begin at the beginning. It is too painful to think of the woman who raised him, and how she raised him. He starts instead with the first time he ran from her, when the world seemed wide and wondrous...