Chapter Thirty-One
“My faith was dead, my hope was gone
But then they called for me.
My mind was troubled, my heart was hard
But my eyes were made to see
A place of truth, a place of love
A place with sovereign beauty
For the Verdunn, for a new home
They call it Sanctuary.”
-Poet Iris of House Chasina, 812 Age of Sanctum
“Still standing, then.”
I jumped. I’d had my nose buried in a book full of words I could hardly read for the past two hours.
It gave me an excuse not to talk to anyone, to sit alone with my thoughts in the middle of the day and look like I was doing something worthwhile so Dante wouldn’t drag me away for training or Myrine wouldn’t give me her disappointed, accusatory head shake.
But if anyone had been watching, they would have noticed that I hadn’t turned the page in those two hours.
So lost in thought was I, that Milo sitting beside me nearly gave me a heart attack.
“Sorry,” he said with a grin.
I sighed and set the book down. “You nearly killed me.”
“Wow, to think a girl who survived eight Trials could be killed by a whisper in a library.” He snorted.
I narrowed my gaze. “What are you doing here? How did you get in here?”
Typically, every major house’s library was reserved for family members and privileged guests only. They guarded their secrets like they guarded their wealth, so Milo, a young man from House Avus, in the Viper family library posed a lot of questions.
“Cosmo gave me permission,” he told me with a shrug. Milo laid out all of the books he must have gathered from the shelves on the table. I stared at them, stunned. Ancient tomes, every one of them.
“And why would he do that?” I asked carefully.
“Maybe because I claimed to have exhausted my own library in my search to assist you and Dante in your next two Trials.” He smirked.
I looked at the book nearest me and held it up with a raised brow. I wasn’t certain how Viper & Valin: A Hero’s Tale of Conquest was going to give us any information on the coming Trials.
Milo cleared his throat, his cheeks coloring a bit as he reached out and snagged the book from my hands. “That one may be for a bit of, er, fun reading in the evening.”
I chuckled. Even Milo’s leisure time was spent reading.
“Do you think you’ll find anything?” I asked, my smile fading as I looked over the titles of the various books arranged in front of us.
Milo sighed. “Truthfully? No.”
He gauged my reaction. That was one thing I had always liked about Milo, his brutal honestly. Though, at the moment, I might have appreciated a little white lie.
“But that isn’t to say I’m not going to try,” he added quickly.
“Cosmo has given me full use of the library, excluding the books in his personal collection in his office, of course. Though I doubt there’s anything in them if he’s scrutinized them so over the years.
And I’ve extended a request to House Lynx, but I don’t expect as warm a welcome from them. ”
“Thank you,” I blurted, realizing for the first time that I’d never shown him any gratitude for all the research he'd been doing on our behalf.
He smiled at me, then turned his attention back to the books. Milo flipped open the cover of the first one, A Complete History of Sanctuary: As told by Ishaan of House Viper. Something about the title reminded me of a question I’d been meaning to ask him.
“In all your studies, have you come across anything about the origination of the Trials?”
Milo frowned.
“You mean, how they began?” he asked. I nodded. He blew out a breath as though I’d just asked the most complicated question of all time. “Well, among the major houses, there’s an accepted answer to that question, but I’m sure you know that so—”
“Yes, yes,” I waved him off. “The Trials were created by the Geist to test us and determine who among us is worthy to…something or other.”
“Something or other, indeed.” Milo smiled.
“There’s the religious explanation, that you’ve so elegantly summarized, and then there are academic queries.
Your friend Bria would say religion and academia are one in the same, that they go hand in hand, but I would argue that academic study seeks to expand upon religion, perhaps at times even to question it. ”
I looked around us.
“Blasphemous, I know,” Milo whispered, still smiling.
“Your religious explanation is the accepted answer for many other questions here in Sanctuary. Why are there Trials? Because the Geist made them to prove we’re worthy of…
whatever they determine we’re worthy of.
Your gifts fall into that category, I imagine.
Why is there a Culling? Because the Geist need those pure of heart to serve them in another realm.
Why are there Rings in Sanctuary? Because the Geist made it that way.
Where do the tunnels go? Where the Geist want them to go. On and on, you see?
“If every answer to every question is 'because it is what the Geist say’ sooner or later, people stop asking questions. And that’s the point, isn’t it?
That’s the religion. Or so the priests and acolytes believe.
Because it’s easier to blind people with faith than to guide them to the truth and the beauty it beholds. ”
Something about his words made my skin crawl. And I couldn’t help continuously looking around as if expecting an acolyte to burst forth from the shelves and brand us heretics.
“I’m a religious man, Adrian,” Milo said, as if he felt it necessary to clarify.
“I believe in the Geist and their status as supreme beings as much as the next guy. There’s too much mention of them, too much history devoted to their worship, for it to be otherwise.
What I question is our interpretation of them.
“I think every man and woman should have the right to question their faith, to question the Geist, as you have. Because if we’re right, and I do believe we are, they’ll never be able to find evidence to dispute our religion.
That’s how academia and religion coincide.
That’s why it’s okay to be a little blasphemous from time to time. ”
“I don’t think Cosmo would agree,” I told him, and he chuckled. “And I know Bria wouldn’t.”
“No, I imagine she wouldn’t. But I apologize, Adrian. I’ve gotten off track. You asked about the origination of the Trials.”
I nodded.
“Yes, well, you already know the religious answer, so I won’t rehash that.
As for academia’s stance, in everything I’ve read in my studies, history seems to agree with religion but asks more why the Trials were created and when.
It seems they were created at the precise time that Sanctuary was.
That Sanctuary has never existed without the Trials, and the Trials have never existed without Sanctuary.
So their creation is one in the same. Their purpose, however, well that’s been argued by scholars for centuries. ”
I leaned in closer as Milo began to whisper.
“At the beginning, the message that the Trials were to prove one’s worth to the Geist was real, clear, and sincere.
The heroes of that age were given gifts at every success, just as you and Dante are now.
There were even allusions to the heroes going on to physically join the Geist after the Trials, but I’ve chalked that up to religious propaganda and speculation, a driving force to use to convince the general public to take part in the Trials themselves.
But, without evidence of such a thing ever actually occurring, people stopped believing it and were never given any other alternative belief.
“Priests and acolytes still claim that the Trials prove who is worthy to be blessed by the Geist. They consider your gifts and elevated social class to be the full extent of those blessings. But academics question that belief. It’s too vague, too broad.
There must have been a reason the Geist created the Trials.
Why are they testing us in the first place?
Why give us gifts at all? What’s the point? ”
I nodded along. I’d been wondering the same things.
“Academics have been speculating for centuries. There are many theories, some more accepted than others. A lot of people believe the Trials are our way of proving something about ourselves for judgement in the afterlife. Some people believe it’s simply the best way that the Geist can choose who to Cull.
But I do believe I told you about the discovery I made before, concerning the matter of the Culling being established a few centuries after the Trials?
So I don’t find that explanation to be likely.
“There are wild theories like the Geist are choosing who is good enough to live with them in paradise or training soldiers to fight in some ancient war or even that we’re a mere spectacle for them to sit back and laugh at our weakness.
Those people, of course, don’t seem to have high opinions of the Geist at all.
They see them as manipulative and cruel. ”
“What do you think it is?”
Milo turned to me. He’d been lost in his academic reverie, his gaze had drifted far away, literally and metaphorically. “I couldn’t possibly claim to know more than generations of scholars were able to reason out—”
“Best guess.”
He watched me for a moment, curious, then he spoke.
“I think that the oldest ideas, more often than not, are the right ones. At least, where topics such as the creation of the Trials are concerned. It stands to reason that people closest to the events themselves would know the most about them. And, though it’s been over a thousand years since the last candidate made it through all ten Trials, there’s at least one thing about the original belief that has always been mentioned in every story, every article, every tome of ancient knowledge since the dawn of the Trials themselves. ”
“What’s that?”
He gave me a strange look, as if I’d asked the oddest question and he couldn’t quite figure out why. When he did answer, it was with the tone of someone who felt he was disclosing information that was already known.
“That no one ever comes back from the tenth Trial, of course.”
My blood ran cold. My lips parted in surprise, my eyes wide.
“Oh, you didn’t…I thought you knew.” Milo's face turned as white as porcelain. “I assumed they’d told you.”
I bolted to my feet.
“Adrian—”
I hardly heard him as I stormed from the library in search of the man responsible. Servants jumped out of my way, clashing serving trays against the wall or dropping them to the floor. Bria encountered me in my pursuit. She frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but I stormed right past her.
I found him in his study, staring placidly down at one of his ancient books without a care in the world.
“Liar,” I growled. It was the only thing my enraged mind could conjure up.
Cosmo looked up at me, languidly, brows rising in bored recognition.
“Excuse me?” he drawled.
I marched up to his desk. “You lied to me.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.” He spread his hands wide and leaned back in his seat.
I wanted to throttle him. I wanted to reach across this desk and use my tremendous strength to crush his feeble old windpipe. Instead, I clenched my fists at my sides, shaking with rage.
“No one comes back,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “No one has ever come back from the tenth Trial. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have competed so fervently if I had?” he asked simply.
I opened my mouth to scream at him, but he continued before I could.
“I told you when we first met, Adrian. I was honest with you up front. My grandson’s success is hinged upon your own, and I would do anything to see my family elevated by these Trials. ”
“Does he know?” I spat. “Does Dante know we don’t come back?”
“He’s put it together, I assume. Why else do you think I haven’t pushed either of you to end this betrothal and marry already?
There would be no sense in drawing out the engagement, in waiting to see you bonded in matrimony.
But with every success, breeding becomes less and less likely as neither of you will be around to create an heir in the end. ”
“You—”
“You were a child, Adrian. Twenty-one years old, yes, but your entire world was narrowed down to a few family members and friends who knew nothing more than serving those above them and grumbling about it at home. You didn’t know what was at stake.
You still don’t. But at least your world is bigger now.
At least you understand what the Trials can do for you, what they can give you. ”
“And what’s that?”
He frowned, as if he couldn’t comprehend why I would need to ask such a question to begin with.
“You don’t know, any more than anyone else, what happens to those who make it to the tenth Trial,” I reminded him, seething.
"But you’re willing to sacrifice your own grandson if it means you get to say you’re better than the other major houses, that you get to barter away your other grandchildren and great grandchildren into matches that will bring your house some supposed glory for generations to come.
But it’s a glory you don’t know, a glory you don’t even understand.
Because you perceive the Trials to be definitive proof of worth.
But the gods are playing you, Cosmo. Perhaps even more so than anyone else in Sanctuary.
The Geist are tricking you into forfeiting that which you hold most dear, only to hold up a mirror to your greed, your vanity, your pride.
And you’re still so foolish, you can’t even see it. ”
He blinked at me, stunned and, for the first time since I’d known the patriarch of House Viper, speechless.
“The Trials mean nothing,” I spat. “The Geist are dead. And you’re a foolish old man still desperately seeking validation from gods who’ve forsaken you.”
“Why you ungrateful little—” He rounded his desk, storming toward me in red hot fury.
“Don’t bother,” I snapped and strolled toward the door. “I won’t be imposing upon your hospitality any longer. Dante and I have two Trials left. I’ll be staying with my family from now on. If we actually make it to the tenth Trial, I’ll be grateful for the extra time I have with them anyway.”
I strode from his office and out the front door of House Viper. Even as I made my way down to the Second Ring and my anger began to dissipate as I thought of the look on Cosmo’s face, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps that was something I should’ve done a long time ago.