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His voice was cool and light and refined. Caemorn had not realized at that time that the monk had used his name despite him not having given it yet. And the phrase, “Are you afraid?” would be on he would hear countless times in his existence.

It took Caemorn a moment to realize that there were shelves built into the walls upon which the bones were stacked. Some of the insets were diamond shaped and filled with long thigh bones. Others were pyramids of skulls. Yet others were squares of ribs and spines and feet.

“The bones…” Caemorn swallowed. His voice sounded rusty and unused. Crude in comparison to the monk’s.

“What about them?”

“How many dead people are down here?”

“Millennia of the dead. Some were here before the priory. Well before Jesus was even an idea,” the monk answered. “It is a place for the dead and even those who think they know the truth of the universe now as they have never done so before acknowledge it as such.”

The air smelled of damp, stone and bone. Torchlight did not enter the skulls’ eye sockets yet to Caemorn it appeared the skulls followed him as the monk continued to push and steer him towards a particular shelf where bones were laid one on top of the other with the skull resting atop the lot. There were candles on either side of the remnants of a person. The monk stopped them directly in front of it. His hands lightly squeezed Caemorn’s shoulders.

Caemorn looked over his shoulder at the hooded figure. “W-who?”

“Your father,” the monk answered. “He died…”

Caemorn froze, then slowly turned to look back at the bones. His eyes studied them. They weren’t different from any of the other bones here. Sure, they were perhaps of a different width or length of volume, but they were the same at the most basic level. Just like with the cat, whatever had made his father the man he was, was now gone and only this base matter remained.

“My father is not here,” Caemorn finally said to the monk. “Where did he go?”

He thought the monk might misunderstand or might be horrified by his question like all the villagers had been. But the monk did neither. Instead he smiled and nodded.

“Would you like to know?” the monk asked.

“I would. I--I do,” Caemorn was adamant, pulling his shoulders back and straightening his spine.

“Then you are in the right place,” the monk assured him.

His hands left Caemorn’s shoulders and he pushed back his hood to reveal a face that was so lovely Caemorn might have gasped again. He reached up involuntarily to touch that alabaster skin as if to check it was flesh and not marble. The monk allowed the touch. His skin was cool and silky. It was unmarred by dirt or scars or the hard times that life often imprinted on the faces of that age. He had silver eyes like liquid mercury.

“Who are you?” Caemorn asked.

“My name is Artemis Alucius, Caemorn,” the monk said with a faint smile.

Caemorn blinked, realizing this time that the monk had used his name. “How do you know my name? Did my father tell you?”

“But how could he tell me, Caemorn? He was not there when you were born. How could he know your name?” Artemis asked.

Caemorn’s brow furrowed. “You’re right. Unless Mother told him… but no, he didn’t know about me.” He tilted his head to the side. “So how do you know?”

Caemorn was certain that Artemis had never been to his crappy little village. He was too beautiful to have gone unnoticed.

A faint smile lifted those plush lips revealing sharp, white teeth. “That is another good question, Caemorn. And you will learn the answer to it as well by staying with me. Do you want to stay with me?”

“I have nowhere else to go.” Caemorn almost said that, but instead, realizing even then that he shouldn’t be honest with this beautiful creature--not man or woman or human or monk, but creature--he said, “Yes, I do.”

Another smile. “Good.”

You waited for me. You chose me, Caemorn said to the ghosts that Kaly controlled now. That’s how you knew my name when I first came to you.

Is that what you think? Kaly chuckled.

Yes, you knew my name. My father must have known of me. Perhaps after he passed he went back to my mother and saw me. Then you learned it from him and--

No,Kaly’s voice was like a scythe cutting through Caemorn’s desperate words.

Then who--