Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 129: A Prayer Before Bed
Kalen immediately activated his divine power, and his figure dissolved into the darkness.
Although the room was clean, it was practically empty. There was only a single wooden bed covered with a thin sheet, an obviously ancient desk, and a rough wardrobe with its doors tightly shut.
Had time not been limited and Kalen’s build not been so large, he might even have tried hiding inside the wardrobe.
Creak.
Light from the corridor spilled through the opening as a boy entered carrying a candlestick. Kalen silently pressed himself farther into the corner and recognized the face. It was clearly the boy who had been assigned to “watch” Earl not long ago. His name seemed to be Egan.
Egan placed the candlestick on the desk without activating the magical lamps. The room was immediately coated in layers of dim light and shadow.
The boy had his back to Kalen. Illuminated by the candle, his shadow stretched all the way to the ceiling, making him look abnormally tall.
Kalen waited quietly in the corner for Egan to leave.
Tass also understood the situation and kept his mouth firmly shut, pretending he didn’t exist at all.
The room didn’t look inhabited, so Kalen had assumed Egan would leave quickly. Yet the young priest had barely set down the candlestick before he walked to the bed and sat down.
Kalen: “…”
Did this child actually live here? Had the door been left improperly closed not by coincidence, but because this was his room?
Kalen could indeed conceal himself, but he could only conceal himself. Small objects like the obsidian could remain close to his body without issue, but he couldn’t hide the motion of opening or closing a door.
Egan seemed completely unaware of the other person in the room. He interlaced his fingers and touched the knuckles of his index fingers to his lips, assuming a standard posture of prayer.
Unfortunately, he didn’t close his eyes. His sky-blue gaze remained fixed on the empty floor.
“Praise the loving nameless god. Praise His silent protection, His impartial care, and His endless gifts. Darkness shall at last be broken, and light shall soon arrive…”
He chanted softly in a clear, pleasant voice.
Kalen’s brows drew together slightly. These were probably prayers to the Blind God, yet they sounded faintly familiar.
Through the dim little room, he seemed to see the equally dim house he had once shared with his brother many years ago.
To save money on lamp oil, they would light only the fireplace. At least they could gather the wood themselves and didn’t need to pay for it.
Apart from the small circle directly before the hearth, their room had been just as dark.
“Don’t look so miserable, Kalen.” Hermit embraced him in the memory. “This darkness is perfect. We can pray to the Lord of Shadows.”
“But I heard that only people who believe in the Eternal Hearth pray to fireplaces,” Kalen said. “Should we put the fire out, Hermi?”
“Darkness and shadow are different things.” Hermit released him and rested both hands on his shoulders. “Think about it. A God of Darkness sounds evil the moment you hear the name!”
Kalen only half understood. “Oh. Then how do we pray?”
Hermit turned his back to the fireplace and rolled his eyes in thought. “Like this. I’ll say one line, and you repeat after me.”
“Praise the loving god.”
“Praise the loving god.”
“Praise His protection, His care, and His endless blessings.”
“Praise His protection, His care… His endless… what?”
“Blessings, Kalen. Bless-ings. They’re something like gifts.”
“But I haven’t noticed any blessings.” Kalen looked extremely confused. “The Lord of Shadows hasn’t even given us a single copper tooth, and we barely have any lamp oil left at home.”
To get more lamp oil for reading, Hermit had once tried buying some cheap oil.
Unfortunately, it had smelled strange, and when burned, it filled the entire room with choking smoke. The two of them had been forced to give up.
“All right. Maybe I shouldn’t have compared them to gifts.” Hermit grimaced. “He gave us hope, Kalen. Hope is far more precious than lamp oil.”
Kalen remained confused. At least in his own memory, he had never felt despair.
But if Hermit said so, then their “hope” had to be real. Kalen silently considered this for a while.
“Praise His protection, His care, and His endless blessings,” he repeated clumsily.
Hermit smiled. Although he still had the face of a child, the smile held a strange bitterness. In the firelight, even the scars on his face seemed less obvious.
Wait… When had Hermit been injured?
Kalen pressed his fingers to his temple. In his memories, Hermit seemed always to have carried those two terrible scars. There was also a frightening scar encircling his neck like a noose.
Yet Father Kalen couldn’t remember where that had come from either.
Perhaps he had still been an infant without memories at the time, Kalen thought.
Hermit had simply never mentioned it, and Kalen had grown so accustomed to the scars that he had never thought to ask. That had to be it.
Their prayer back then had also ended with that mysterious line of unknown origin.
“May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed,” Hermit recited in his clear voice.
“May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed.”
An equally clear voice crossed the years and repeated the words before Father Kalen.
Egan remained in his prayer posture, a faint and devout smile on his face.
For an instant, Father Kalen nearly dispelled his concealment and rushed forward to demand where the words had come from.
The Secret Garden was fiercely isolationist. It practically wished to draw a boundary around all of Mondicia and declare that the destruction of the outside world didn’t matter.
The Order of Shadows couldn’t possibly be the Secret Garden. It was difficult even to find anything the two had in common.
And yet an Emissary of the Secret Garden had used a prayer from the Order of Shadows directly in front of him.
Was it merely a coincidence? Or was this child also a member of the Order of Shadows?
Kalen’s heart had never beaten so quickly. It was making enough noise to threaten to reveal his location. Worse still, after finishing his prayer, Egan slowly rose and walked toward the corner where Kalen was hiding.
Egan’s head reached only Kalen’s chest, yet Kalen instinctively drew himself inward, his heart pounding even faster.
He could use divine power to hide his form, but he couldn’t make himself truly cease to exist. If Egan touched him, the boy would still realize something was wrong.
Within seconds, Egan stopped directly in front of him. He leaned forward and reached one hand toward Kalen.
Kalen hurriedly moved aside and nearly collided with him. His chest narrowly brushed past Egan’s forehead. In the end, Kalen froze awkwardly while Egan grasped an inconspicuous broom standing in the corner.
For that brief instant, it almost looked as though the boy had rested his forehead against Kalen’s chest.
Egan didn’t move immediately, as if lost in thought. His breath lightly brushed the front of Father Kalen’s clothing.
Kalen tensed even harder, not daring to breathe. At the same time, he had to remain aware of the broom behind him in case Egan pulled too forcefully and struck him with the handle.
He had clearly divined no ill omen. What was this supposed to be?
Fortunately, after that brief “moment of distraction,” Egan abandoned the idea of cleaning the room.
He returned to his original seat, drew his knees together, and stared at the wavering candle flame. Drops of wax slid down one after another, cooling into lustrous warm-white beads.
Kalen had only just released a breath when Egan’s next words suspended his heart again.
“My God, when will I be able to return to my family?” Egan spoke softly. “I know we must remain apart. I have my reasons. I only hope everything will be settled soon.”
Kalen’s throat tightened.
He watched Egan’s sorrowful face for a moment, slipped a dried leaf capable of altering his voice beneath his tongue, and quietly moved closer to the candle.
“Soon…”
He forced the single word out in a breathy whisper, making the voice seem to come from the flame itself.
The candle flickered gently, illuminating Egan’s stunned face.
In the next instant, that face broke into an extraordinarily bright smile.
“My god, it’s really You. I knew You would answer me—”
Kalen immediately shut his mouth and offered no further response.
He had wanted to comfort the child purely out of sympathy for someone in a similar situation. His own brother had also left him, driven by some “compelling reason” Kalen still couldn’t understand.
But Egan had no intention of stopping.
“Listen to me. I had no choice but to separate from the younger brother I love dearly.” Egan stared intensely at the candle. “The worst part is that I left without saying goodbye… more or less.”
Egan looked not yet twenty. His younger brother could only be younger still.
Kalen remained silent, picturing a little boy crying and calling after him.
“But I have my mission. I must serve my God.” Egan seemed to treat this room as a confession chamber and continued speaking without pause. “And because of… certain reasons, if I remained with him, I would only place both of us in danger.”
That’s no excuse for leaving without a word, Kalen thought. You could have told him all of this.
But that hardly sounded like something a god should say, so he could only continue remaining silent.
Egan closed his eyes.
“I know You once taught us that family should be honest with one another.”
“But if everything could be explained in a few simple words, it wouldn’t be a ‘compelling reason.’”
“My God, leaving him and deceiving him have caused me unbearable pain. Even so, I still want to protect him, just as he once protected me.”
“I made him a promise. I would willingly give my life to keep it.”
The boy’s tone was extraordinarily sincere, carrying even the faintest hint of tears.
Kalen stood there in a daze.
That was right. Why was he so fixated on Hermit’s reason for leaving?
His brother loved him. They had lived together for many years, and there could be no doubt about that. Therefore, Hermit’s strange arrangements afterward, the way they had unconsciously guided Kalen into following Myss and Salaar, must also have been driven by some compelling reason.
Even now, the mysterious V.O.R remained concealed in fog. Perhaps Hermit knew something dangerous and had truly attracted V.O.R’s attention.
The more Kalen thought about it, the more his brows relaxed. The possibility comforted him in a subtle way.
Hermit was still alive, merely hiding in the shadows and helping them. Myss and Salaar were the key to confronting V.O.R, so Kalen only needed to give them his full support.
Even better, their next destination was the city Evening Star in Atla, where they would investigate the Order of Shadows. If Kalen’s guess was correct, this was precisely the result Hermit had guided him toward indirectly.
Hermit was alive. Everything was still filled with hope. It was the best situation Kalen could possibly imagine.
“He will forgive you…”
Kalen moved close to the candle again and answered in an ethereal voice.
Egan rose from the bedside and strode to the desk, his face full of joy and relief.
His movement happened to open a path through the cramped room. Kalen immediately slipped through and successfully reached the door.
“Thank you for Your understanding and tolerance.” Egan raised his voice. “I will prepare for the Eye-Opening Ceremony with all my heart.”
It seemed Kalen had overthought the matter. Egan still worshiped the Blind God. Most of Kalen’s curiosity faded.
The Crimson Marsh was filled with ruins of the Firmament. Perhaps the prayers of the Order of Shadows and the Secret Garden merely happened to share the same ancient origin.
Revealing himself rashly would be unwise. It would be better to observe the other emissaries first.
“…Good night, my dear little brother.”
Beside the desk, Egan extinguished the candle. He returned to bed, and his breathing soon grew calm and even.
The door was unlocked. Kalen gently pushed it open with the tip of his boot and returned to the brightly lit corridor. The next moment, the door silently closed behind him, and everything within the room sank completely into darkness.
“Good night, my dear Kalen.”
On the old wooden bed, “Egan” curled his lips into a smile.
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