Soren rubbed at his eyes and looked up from his diagram. The sun was just starting to peek out from the eastern horizon, making the sky glow and turning the clouds to odd colors. Master Alred glanced up as well. “First light,” he declared, “Soren, you’d better get to your bed. You have an important night coming and it’s best if you are rested for it.”
Soren’s stomach began to jump again. He had just finally managed to forget about that. He nodded and thanked the master for staying up all night to help him study.
“Nonsense, boy. In two days we’ll be mentor and acolyte. I have no desire to mentor an uneducated simpleton.”
Soren glanced away from the older man’s kind eyes. “You say that like you know it for certain,” he muttered.
Master Alred laid a gentle hand on Soren’s shoulder. “That’s because it is certain. And don’t you doubt it.”
Soren smiled for him and stood up to leave. His fourteen-year-old bones creaked and popped like an elder’s as he unfolded his legs and straightened his back. He had been sitting by Master Alred’s fire, bent over his studies, since first light the day before.
If he was still alive by first light tomorrow, he would already have almost everything he needed for his Binding, and he would be preparing to kill a man for the first time.
And by first light the next day, he would be known to everyone as either an acolyte . . . or a failure.
He left the master feeling nauseous and jittery and not at all sleepy, but even so he headed for the other side of the camp, toward his uncle’s tent and the bed that waited for him there.
The sky was gradually lightening, but it was filtered through all the trees so that it barely touched the ground, leaving Soren to walk in the dark. This would be a problem for most, but Soren was different. The children of those who were Covenant-bound were what his people called “fae-blessed”, and in addition to having a sort of inhuman-looking beauty about their features, being fae-blessed also had other slight advantages, like sharper hearing, and being able to see better than most when it was dark out. For Soren, whose parents had both been bound by the Covenant, the difference was even more pronounced than it was for those who had only one Covenant-bound parent.
And that was how, for all their shallow breathing and careful sneaking, Soren knew he was being followed. He stopped and sighed. He decided he might as well just get this over with. Even if he were close enough to his uncle’s tent to make a dash for it– which he wasn’t– he would be easily outrun by the others. Soren wasn’t the fastest or most athletic of boys, by any means.
“I know you’re there,” he called. “Why don’t you just come on out?”
He found himself surrounded by the usual four boys. They worked with the herds alongside Soren’s uncle, but that had never stopped them from doing things like this. The leader of the gang was Cowan, a big stupid hunk of muscle who was three years older than Soren. He was popular with the girls and was friends with most of the boys, but for some reason he had always hated Soren.
“I heard your Binding is coming up,” Cowan smirked. “What a joke.”
The others all laughed as they closed in around him.
“I guess in a couple days everyone will know what a big fraud you are.” He shoved Soren up against a tree and two of his friends grabbed his arms to hold him in place. Cowan leaned in so that his face was a mere finger’s width away from Soren’s, and Soren could smell the stench of the herds mixed with the odor of Cowan’s sweat, all overpowered by the stink of his breath. “Not that anyone will be surprised.”
Soren’s breath was knocked out of him as Cowan’s fist collided with his abdomen. Soren doubled over, struggling to take another breath as all four boys began kicking him. He curled into a ball and waited for it to be over. He’d learned long ago not to fight back. It only made them angrier, and he only ended up getting beaten up worse. Even if it weren’t four against one, Soren wasn’t nearly strong enough to beat any of them in a fight. There was no way to win.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more, the beating slowed to a stop. “You can’t be fae-blessed and Covenant-bound,” Cowan told him. “No one can be both.” Soren felt a wad of spit land in his ear, then heard the boys’ footsteps as they trudged off toward the herds, laughing along the way at how pathetic he was.
Soren lay there for a long time before he tried to move. After a while, he slowly reached up to wipe the spit from his ear. His entire body was hurting. He didn’t think he had the strength to walk the rest of the way to his uncle’s tent now. Instead he managed to pull himself up onto his hands and knees and crawl just a short distance to take shelter under a large bush. He curled up in the cool darkness and closed his eyes. His fae-blessed body would heal up quickly if he could just get some sleep.
No one can be both.
It was true. Among his people, it had always been a well-known fact that the children of the Covenant-bound were not eligible to be bound themselves. The fae-blessed didn’t have the potential inside them. That was why everyone had been so confused when Elder Maebys had declared that four-year-old Soren had the potential. No one had believed her. The elder herself had double- and triple-checked to make certain it wasn’t a mistake. But in the end she had insisted that it was so. Soren the Twice-Blessed, who had two Covenant-bound parents, was somehow eligible for a Binding himself.
Master Alred, who had been mentored by Elder Maebys when he was just an acolyte and who had been a close friend of Soren’s father, had taken Soren on as one of his pupils, despite the fact that he didn’t really believe that a fae-blessed child could be bound. And even now, when the time for Soren’s Binding had finally come, none of the other Covenant-bound were willing to mentor him. That was why Master Alred had taken it upon himself to be his mentor. The master now claimed that he had been convinced. He said he believed now that Soren had the potential and that his Binding would be successful. But Soren could tell that Master Alred still had his doubts. He could tell that, just like everyone else, the master wouldn’t really believe in Soren’s potential until he actually saw Soren bound.
Still, the master was kind to him, and Soren loved him like a father. His uncle Rudan had also been very good to him. When Soren’s parents were killed by the Paters, his mother’s brother had taken him in as a baby and raised him as his own son. Rudan didn’t really believe Soren had the potential either, but he had enough respect for the Covenant that he had allowed Soren to go to lessons with Master Alred all these years instead of making him tend the herds with him.
Just thinking of going through all the preparations for the Binding ritual, of risking his life to sneak those herbs out of the Paters’ garden, of cutting open a man’s flesh with his own hands and watching his life go out of him, of standing there naked in front of everyone he’d ever known and reciting the sacred oaths while he was burned and bled, of having all the power and responsibility that came with being bound– all of those things made him plenty anxious enough. But the thought of doing all of that . . . and then nothing happening– that was Soren’s greatest fear. He had nightmares about standing before everyone, naked and covered in blood and ashes, and hearing Elder Maebys saying, “I guess I was wrong about him after all . . .” That fear was enough to make him think of just running away.
If only he weren’t so obviously fae-blessed, then he might actually leave. But as he was, the Paters would take one look at him and know where he came from. Soren was sure of that. Then again, perhaps being burned alive would be preferable to being known for the rest of his life as that stupid fae-blessed boy who actually thought he could be bound.
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