When students sit the Academy entrance examination, they’re all asked the same question.
“Do you believe in God?”
Most of them strain to prove how faithful and devout they are. Some might even recite theology passages they’d studied in advance, hoping to win a sliver of the admissions officer’s favor.
But Luca had no need for any of that.
“No, I don’t. Am I supposed to?”
It came out less like blasphemy than like asking whether he needed to bring some certificate everyone else was submitting. Had any other student given so irreverent an answer, the officer would have pointed at the door. Get up and get out, right now. But for Luca alone, he smiled kindly.
“You don’t need to, no. You’re the ‘special priest’ candidate, and they only pick one a year.”
A position that didn’t even require the faith demanded of everyone else. In a fierce arena that selected upwards of a hundred priests every year, that privilege belonged to exactly one person: the special priest.
“Still, please refrain from flaunting your disbelief or mocking theology. Your friends at the Academy, the ones who’ll be training alongside you, would be saddened, wouldn’t they?”
Sneering at others for believing what he didn’t was arrogance, plain and simple. Luca wasn’t ill-mannered enough for that.
“I know that much. I’ll take the theology classes seriously.”
“Then I’ve nothing more to say. Here, if you’ll sign your consent on the special priest candidate registration form, we can end the interview.”
What the officer held out was a simple oath. Luca stared at the soft paper document, unfamiliar with the feel of it, then calmly read down the lines. Most of them looked like guidelines for Academy life. One clause, though, caught his eye and held it.
Special Clause
The ‘special priest’ candidate may carry a weapon on school grounds; however, should he injure or kill another, he shall be subject to summary execution.
A savage warning. A warning that every privilege Luca enjoyed was staked on his own life. For an ordinary student who’d enrolled to sit through the professors’ lectures, it was an unimaginable clause.
Luca picked up the pen without hesitation. He’d heard it all to the point of nausea before he ever set foot here, so there was nothing to waver over.
Scratch, scratch.
The old nib rasped across the paper, and Luca’s name was set down, whole and alone, on the one oath issued each year.
“That’s everything. Someone will be along shortly to show you the school and the dormitory, so take your time looking around.”
Luca gave a small nod and rose. The officer stood as well, as if to see him off, then spoke like the thought had only just occurred to him.
“Ah, but with swordsmanship as fine as yours, why volunteer to be a special priest? As you know... it’s quite dangerous, and it’s grueling work.”
It sounded like: with that skill you could join a professional combat unit and enjoy wealth and honor both, so why come here, without even faith in God?
Luca glanced back at the man as he opened the door to leave. Clear pale-blue eyes caught the officer’s gaze and held it as though under a spell.
The answer he gave, flat and matter-of-fact, was a reason the man had never once heard in all his long years of admissions.
“Good clothes, no worrying about meals, and a comfortable place to sleep for the rest of my life.”
Food, clothing, and shelter. The most worldly of advantages, and here of all places, in a seminary that kept the world at arm’s length.
Thud.
Once Luca shut the heavy door and vanished, only the dazed officer was left in the interview room. Coming slowly back to himself, he stared at the closed door and let out a laugh.
“Ha, would you look at that... an unbeliever who came here for an easy life, and he’s the special priest. Maybe you need that much cynicism in a job that handles human lives.”
Shaking his head, he tidied away the oath Luca had signed. The page tucked beneath it was packed with documentation attesting to Luca’s ability.
A record of sweeping every swordsmanship tournament there was, of hauling in vicious criminals with bounties on their heads. Sometimes he’d killed, but even that had been self-defense, meant to stop a violent felon from claiming more victims.
Every last entry included the prize money and the bounty amounts. His sword was covered in the marks of a life spent surviving, of earning his keep. In an Academy bound to sacred precepts, it was the most alien sort of vulgarity.
“Luca! What was that sword dance today? You’re insane!”
“Wow, my jaw was on the floor! Is that what you’d been practicing at the training hall behind our backs?”
“Luca, Luca! You’re the best, I was completely spellbound!”
“I’m looking forward to the second performance this afternoon too!”
His Academy classmates burst into giggles. Luca didn’t so much as answer them, just bolted. They’d have had every right to feel slighted at being brushed off like that, but they only laughed, used to him being this way.
“There he goes, embarrassed again, haha!”
Face flushed red as he fled, Luca didn’t even hear the voices teasing him. He wiped away the sweat drenching his face from the sword dance and grumbled.
“Damn it... nobody told me being a special priest candidate meant doing embarrassing crap like this.”
He’d assumed he’d just take swordsmanship classes, finish out his Academy training, and become a special priest, simple as that.
The biggest holiday of the year. He’d never imagined he’d be summoned to the royal palace to dance with a sword at a banquet packed with royals and nobles.
Perform a beautiful, dazzling blade dance in front of a crowd. For someone with Luca’s temperament it was out of the question, so he’d run like mad, but in the end he’d been caught.
That was what being a special priest candidate meant. Because he enjoyed privileges, he had to shoulder mortifying duties no one else did.
“There’s a limit to how hard you work a guy, you bastards...”
The place Luca had fled to escape everyone’s eyes was a corridor in a corner of the palace. Only after confirming there wasn’t a soul around did he lean against the wall and catch his breath.
“They said they’re watching a second sword dance this afternoon... isn’t that working me a little too hard? Haa...”
Sweat ran down him even standing still, and Luca half gave up on his own condition. His fed-up gaze landed on the ceremonial robe he was wearing.
White cloth, crowded with dense gold embroidery. It was a holy vestment for petitioning the god’s mercy, but to Luca it was closer to a heavy, majestic straitjacket.
Soaked through, it clung wetly to his skin, uncomfortable enough on its own, and it didn’t breathe at all, so it left him feeling like he’d pulled the inner hide of a living beast over himself.
Priests generally wore this only for rites and ceremonies at official events. Which meant a trainee like Luca had no business wearing it at all. But under special circumstances like today, when he had to present a sword dance before the king, permission was granted to Luca alone as a priest candidate.
Luca wasn’t the sort to get puffed up over special treatment and show himself off. If anything, all that came out of him was grumbling, full of complaints and gripes.
“...They always say swordsmanship is stuffy and boring, and then at times like this they pester you to see more of it.”
The king and the nobles couldn’t care less about an Academy student’s suffering, but he couldn’t help feeling a little hurt by his friends.
You used a sword before you even came to the Academy, right? You’ve already got real combat skills, so does learning traditional swordsmanship actually help?
So much for sneering like that. At moments like this they’d stand there slack-jawed, admiring and envious.
“...Forget it. What’s the point of resenting my friends? I came to the Academy knowing it’d be like this.”
Special priest candidate, one selected each year: a title that sounded grand and nothing more. Put another way, a guard dog that took up a blade and faced down danger on the priests’ behalf.
The noble priests despised the notion of drawing blood with their own hands and found it distasteful. Even so, it was a profession easily dragged into every kind of political fight, so the scheming behind the scenes was vicious.
They needed an obedient guard dog to protect their lives and handle the dirty work in their stead. That was the special priest. To outsiders it might look prestigious, guarding precious priests, but in reality it was closer to being a handyman who had to take on any bothersome task thrown his way.
I came here for free meals and a place to sleep without worrying, but it looks like the work’s dirtier than I expected. Well, I signed up for it, so I can’t complain.
Luca understood himself fairly objectively. His swordsmanship might be better than most, but he wasn’t the diligent type, or the shrewd type, who’d throw his life into battle.
Rather than take part in some great and glorious war, he dreamed of a quiet life with decent food and decent sleep. On top of that, he’d been born into a household with little to spare, where even scraping by was hard. Enroll at the Academy, study in peace, eat and sleep for free. What could be better than that?
I already decided to make my living with a sword, so killing people is the same wherever I go. Cutting down a wanted man out there, cutting down someone threatening the priests in here, no difference. No, actually, this way has the better justification, doesn’t it?
He imagined a future of staining his hands red in place of the noble priests, then shook his head.
“Enough. Stop thinking about pointless things.”
In the meantime the sweat had cooled, and his black hair fell softly across his brow. The warm sunlight settling on it glittered like scattered beads. And in the moment he believed this calm would last forever...
Whoooosh.
A strange wind blew. Something covered the sun, and a deep, dark shadow fell across the corridor. The warmth was driven out, and the ghastly chill rushing in brushed against Luca’s keen senses.
“...?”
He turned his head without thinking and froze at a sight he’d never seen in his life.
What hung over that clear sky wasn’t a storm cloud. They were islands of steel, countless and vast enough to blot out the sun entirely.
