The Sanctuary

A chilling haze settled over the woods as Maddox stomped through the brush. Sweat dripped from his forehead and mixed into the dew staining the blades of grass below, stung his eyes and made him acknowledge the weariness settling in his bones.

Keep. Moving, he barked. You rest when you're dead.

He could feel the presence alongside him in the fog, alone only in the moment. The sword seemed to breath beside him, an extension of himself strapped at his right hip.

Just find the door. As soon as you find the door, it's over, and you-

"You what? Can run, just like you did that day? Of course, this time if you run, you won't be leaving anyone behind. You wouldn't be abandoning her again, would you? Oh, that's right, you can't abandon her again..."

A blade tickled his throat, and he met the familiar brown eyes.

"...because you can't abandon," they smirked, "what you already killed!"

The pristine glow of moonlight glinted against the blade and blinded him as it slashed. Maddox jumped back, slipping in the mud and rolling back into a crouch. Pulling his own blade, he struck out, managing to graze into the other's shoulder. The blade came for the side of his head and he ducked into a spinning slash, missing, but the two continued on with a graceful rhythm.

Blow for blow, they matched each other as if their blades were two halves of one soul. They dealt nothing more fatal than scratches, despite how close each had come to final strikes.

"Just give up! You know exactly what you did! She paid the price for your cowardice!" He screamed through the wind and blood pumping through Maddox's ears.

In a flash, their dance stilled, Maddox's blade to the other's chest. One wrong move, and the game would be over.

"I know exactly...what we did. Yes, I ran, and I left Maryn in that house. She told me to get out, but I shouldn't have left her, ok?! I shouldn't have left her with him..."

His adversary laughed. "You left her with that no good deadbeat, and look what happened! Her blood is on your hands, and it always will be. You might as well just quit."

A leg swept Maddox into the mud below, splattering it across his chest and face. With a grimace, he turned up on one elbow and spat it back at the challenger, who snarled and jumped on top of him. The two tumbled back into the blanket of the fog and Maddox had a blade pressed to the skin of his throat once again, only this time, with a body pinning him down.

"Game over. I can see it in your eyes, the look on her face as you ran out that door into the night and never once looked back. It haunts you, doesn't it? Seeing it replay in your dreams each night? You really want that for eternity? You give in to me, and it won't have to play out like that, but them? They'll pull you in and then torture you for centuries to come!"

They heard it, the ferocity of the words laced with a soothing echo, coursing through his ears and into his brain and turning it into a fuzz of yes and no, right and wrong. Maddox remembered Master Penn's words before he entered the arena.

'He will lure you in with your greatest doubts, convince you that he is not the enemy you know him to be. Remember your own voice, your own heart, and push away his words. They are a siren's call. Do not let him pull you under the water.'

Maddox closed his eyes and focused on the sound of ragged breaths escaping into the cooling air, and finally saw her face again. A face that he had spent the week burying into the deep recesses of memory, pale as the winter snow and lying against a smooth pillow in the Bellbrook Health Center.

The memory disappeared as fast as it had come, jolting Maddox back to the situation at hand, the blade pressing further enough to draw blood.

"If I had stayed...we'd both be in that hospital or worse. You aren't winning this game..."

Maddox got a leg bent up into the space between their chests and pushed a knee upward, landing dead in the center of the other's torso. His adversary crumbled to the ground on his back, gasping for air and clutching his stomach.

"...because I'm not letting her lose."

One strike down into the chest and it was over, until the image beneath him fizzled at the tip of his sword and disappeared into a cloud of vapor, mixing and dispersing with the fog surrounding them. The fog began to clear, revealing the surrounding woods and the path labelled with an exit sign.

At the end of the path, Maddox stumbled into the lit temple yard and faced Master Penn's stern, tired face.

"Well done, child. You have succeeded, and now will be granted full and everlasting life. Are you ready?"

"Wait-" Maddox rose from the ground, blinking back tears at the dull ache coursing through his entire body. Taking a deep breath of clean air, he faced the temple leader with full clarity. "It was not done for me."

Penn smirked with a prideful grin. "Yes, I have heard of your sister. Are you certain you wish to go through with bestowing this honor upon her? Many in your...present circumstances, often wish to save themselves."

Maddox was brought back in time to a night of bloodshed, screams, and the feel of a knife in his own hand as it sliced through skin and tissue, staining its blade with a lifetime of memories.

"You'll never touch her again."

The words had come out of his mouth in a deep growl as they put the blade through their father's heart. He once again rain from the house, into the night, this time from those who would inevitably find the corpse and come hunting.

"His blood stains not her hands, but mine. His life is on my conscience. I have earned all that is to come to me, and I shall be my own judge, jury, and executioner, not some backwards lawman. She does not deserve the fate she faces. Heal her, wake her up..."

He paused, and for the first time since they'd met, when the boy had come running to the temple only spoken of in legend in hopes that those stories were true and begging to be allowed a chance to fight, Master Penn saw the desperation in his pupil's actions, the pain in his eyes.

The pain of a child too far gone.

"Let her live, and tell her that all I did was for her. Please..."

Master Penn hesitated. Never had such a thing as what he thought been done, but his heart ached for the boy. He held out a hand with a kinder smile. "Come with me, son."

When he took his hand, Penn closed his eyes and the two were transported into a small chamber with familiar wood-board walls and a window laced with early-winter frost.

"Why are we here?" The boy's voice broke at the sight of the girl lying in bed, chest rising and sinking gently but without movement otherwise.

"You shall tell your sister yourself," Penn explained, then stepped forward, pulling the medallion from his pocket. He set it over the girl's heart and held his hand there. Maddox watched, enchanted at the green light emanating from the jewel, and nearly fell to his knees at the fluttering of his sister's eyelids. Without saying a word, he surged forward, taking his sister's hand, and the two cried together as memories of that night's events came flooding back.

"What ever happened to him?" his sister had questioned, and Maddox couldn't find the words to answer. Maryn seemed to understand, and her tears returned, taking her brother's hands. "So...what's going to happen to you? What if they find you?"

"That will not happen," Master Penn spoke up from the corner of the room. He faced Maddox with an assuring smile, and Maddox bowed his head, thanking the man silently with understanding in his eyes. He once again pressed the gemstone to the boy's chest, and took it away after a moment.

"I will explain more when we arrive at your new home, children. For now, we must hurry. It will not be long until someone comes to check on young Maryn, and you cannot be spotted, my boy. Come with me."

The door opened as they disappeared in a flash of green smoke. Maddox had instinctively closed his eyes and opened them to the familiarity of the Inner Temple.

"Welcome to the Sanctuary of the Eternal Order."