Read Online Sanctuary (Dominion) by Kris Kramer - Free Book Online Page B

Druids. You know what that is?" I asked.
    Arkael raised his brow expectantly.
    "I learned that if you want to understand something, you have to question it. You have to poke it, and prod it, and examine it from every angle. No one does that. No one asks why, and when they do, they get chastised, or locked away. Had I not asked any questions, I’d be ignorant, just like everyone else, living a closed off life surrounded by stone walls and self-important chanting.” I shook my head in annoyance. "So I ask questions. And I get myself into trouble. Or, I end up in a cave with a man I don’t quite understand, who lets me prattle on endlessly about myself."
    Arkael frowned, staying frustratingly silent. He continued with his scrubbing.
    "I'm not really a priest." I wasn’t sure what made me admit that, but I figured a man sent to restore my shaky faith would already be able to see into my dishonest soul. “You keep calling me that, but I'm not. People assume I am, but I've never been ordained. I'm not a priest, or a deacon, or anything really. I was even sent to an abbey near Rome to become a monk, but I left. Scurried away in the middle of the night, like a disgraced rat. So I'm not even that.”
    I watched him carefully, waiting for any sign of disapproval. But beyond a curious glance in my direction, his expression never changed. His eyes barely left his boots.
    “I believe in God, and what the Church stands for, of course, and I don't pretend just so I can take advantage of anyone. I only let them think I’m a real priest because it’s easier than explaining the truth. I went to Rome to study, but things became complicated and I was asked to leave.” I held my hands out in a self-deprecating fashion. “I asked too many questions.”
    “I find that hard to believe,” he muttered. I couldn’t help but smile.
    “It's not a welcome trait. It’s even less welcome in the Church. Some of my teachers took my attempts to understand as blatant questioning of my faith. But that's not what it was, not at first.” I shrugged. “Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Or so I thought.”
    I waited for any sign that he cared about what I’d just told him, but none came. Arkael was more concerned about his boots than my revelations, for which I was both relieved and disappointed. I’d told him my sins like he was a priest in a confessional, and he’d sat there in silence. He didn’t even have the courtesy to chastise me. I decided to let that go, though, and be happy he wasn’t here to kill me.
    “Where are you from?” I asked, spurred by my thoughts of Eoferwic.
    Arkael scrunched his forehead at my question, but continued to focus on his boot. When he realized I was still staring at him, waiting for an answer, he reluctantly set it down. “Why do you care where I’m from?” he asked suspiciously.
    “Has no one ever asked you that before?”
    He shook the excess mud from his cloth. “Some have.”
    “Then the question shouldn’t surprise you. I was born in East Anglia, though I couldn't tell you exactly where. I'm an Angle, although most people who don’t know the difference would just call me a Saxon. My guess is that you’re not Angle, or Saxon, or even Briton. Maybe Roman descent?”
    He shook his head.
    “Are you from this island at all?”
    “No,” he grunted.
    "I didn't think so. I doubt you're a Frank, or a Dane, either. Maybe a-“
    “I am from a place that no longer has a name,” he said, cutting me off. “So you can stop guessing.” He picked up his other boot and resumed cleaning.
    “Interesting.” I rubbed my chin. “Before this land lost its name, what was it called? I studied a number of maps while in Rome. Perhaps I’ve heard of it.”
    “You haven’t.”
    “Ah, you underestimate my enjoyment of history and culture. I know about quite a few of the peoples of this world. My first guess would be that you’re a Bulgar, or