No, he didn’t step off the cliff. He was pushed.
Karis is too tired to be mad at Ronan for taking him, or Vara for playing with his fate. Or Bernard and Dace and the other paladins whose incompetence helped Ronan escape. He’s so tired, his thoughts drift back months, to the last time he was being pushed off a cliff.
A year ago, he was standing in his parents’ shop in Andell, with an inventory book in his hands and numbness crawling down his spine. Customers browsed the ornate jewelry and carved stone idols. His mother polished the same vase over and over again. Every sound and movement fell away around Karis. He watched through the barred glass windows as a troop of gold and white clad horses stopped in the street outside, and a troop of gold and white clad men and women dismounted from them. Even through the bars, Karis could see the suns emblazoned on their tunics and shields.
Paladins of the Radiant Order. Knights wielding magic and swords to fulfill Radiant Vara’s will, uphold justice, and protect the innocent.
The voice in Karis’s head was quiet as shadows.
Three people entered the shop. The first was a female knight with a sword slung over her back and her blond hair braided in a crown around her head. The second was an older man in golden robes that brushed the toes of his white leather boots. His silver hair hung far past his shoulders, and he smiled softly, but his eyes were sharp.
His hand rested on the shoulder of the third person—Karis’s father.
Karis met his father’s eyes, and the excitement he saw there filled him with formless dread. He was suddenly certain his life was about to change forever, and he would have no say in it.
He set the inventory book on the counter with a slap that rang through the shop. Before he could take another step, his father called out, “There’s my son, Exalted One.”
The golden-robed man looked over, and in a strong, aged voice said, “Karis Cooper, is it? Come over here, boy. We’ve traveled a long way to meet you.”
Karis’s mother was still polishing the vase. She wore the same look of expectation as his father. “That’s Archpriest Neradt. Go and speak to him.”
Vara?Karis called silently.Are you there?
No answer.
A few years ago, he might have been grateful for that silence. An end to the voice he couldn’t tell anyone about, for fear his parents would call more doctors to poke and prod at him. To convince him he was crazy, so that they could cure him.
But by age seventeen, he knew he wasn’t crazy, and he’d really appreciate some divine guidance in the face of an archpriest and a paladin and his parents’ expectations.
Fine. No help from his parentsorhis god. If he had to deal with this on his own, he was going to do it with dignity. He lifted his chin, turned around, and met Archpriest Neradt’s kindly gaze head-on. “Nice to meet you.” A slight, impolite pause. “Sir.”
The paladin escort frowned, and Karis’s mother hissed, “Call him Exalted One.”
Archpriest Neradt didn’t respond to the provocation. “Nice to meet you too,” he replied, still smiling. “Is there somewhere we can talk alone?”
And it was in the back storeroom, with a single lamp overhead, Karis sitting on a trunk of antiques and the archpriest standing under a broken coat rack, that Karis was recruited into the Radiant Order. Even in the dim, crowded storeroom, Neradt carried himself like he stood at the pulpit of the Bright Cathedral. Karis couldn’t help but admire the strength in his words, the confidence in his gestures.
“I sense tremendous Radiance in you, young Karis,” Neradt said. “I believe you will be a great asset to the Church of Vara and the Radiant Order, and to everyone who has faith in Radiant Vara, if you are willing to answer your calling.”
Karis remembers glancing at the door and wondering if his parents were pressed against it, listening through the cracks. He remembers thinking that if they were so eager to get rid of him, maybe it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to stay. Maybe it was easier to act like joining the order was his own idea in the first place.
“I’m willing,” he said, his heart like a stone, falling down and down.
***
He’s not sure how long he lies dazed on the unfamiliar bed before a key clicks in the lock. He sits up, cracking his neck, and is surprised when the door opens to reveal the fire witch, Coira, instead of Ronan. “Are you hungry? Karis, right?”
Briefly debating the merits and downsides of a hunger strike, Karis mostly just comes up with downsides. “Yes.”
He expects her to close the door again and come back with food later, but instead, she pushes the door the rest of the way open. “Figured as much. Come on downstairs.” The last sentence floats over her lofty shoulder as she disappears down the hall.
Karis sits for another moment, uncertain about his jail cell suddenly expanding to includedownstairs. Coira seems as confident as Ronan in her ability to turn her back on Karis, which really isn’t flattering.
As he follows her, he pays careful attention to his surroundings. The second floor hosts a hallway of closed doors, then opens on a loft that reeks of lingering incense. The two bookshelves aren’t enough for the stacks of old tomes and notebooks, which overflow onto a dusty floral couch. A sturdy wooden table plays host to more books, herbs, and piles of incense sticks. The tall windows in the loft are all boarded up, only fragments of light peeking through the cracks. Silver markings gleam in Karis’s peripheral vision, but vanish when he looks straight at them.
Above the cold fireplace hangs a family portrait. A seated blond woman with a sword in her lap and a red-headed man standing with one hand on her shoulder. At their side stand two very young girls in white dresses, holding each other’s hands. The woman looks a little like Coira. Karis recognizes the merchant guild crest painted in the backdrop of the portrait, and is certain he’s still in Charain. This manor was owned by lords who became merchants, or merchants who became lords.
Coira’s waiting at the head of the dark wood staircase. Her posture is casual, but she’s clearly examining Karis just as closely as he’s examining the room.
