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Through the night the thick walls of the chapel blocked the bulk of the cold, but the air eventually chilled, permeating quilts and etching Heron's limbs with a slight quaking. By morning, the sharp hissing of the gust outside had ceased, its echo still ringing in Heron's head, like a memory that one seeks to forget but persists for that reason.

Davir sat crouched against the opposite wall, past the small, round spot of light cast by the transparent glass on the ceiling. His black hair had dried, falling to his shoulders as if it were a curtain of silk hanging by a pelmet, melding with the darkness where the light was scarce. He had gained some color. And although his quilt lay abandoned beside him, his limbs remained static, with no trace of trembling. In his features, no discomfort to be found.

Both remained still after they regained consciousness, Davir regarding Heron with a shifty grey gaze. Whenever they locked eyes, Heron was certain the man could look past his bones, dissect his marrow. And a chilling thought surfaced. He could be a rebel acting against the Monarchy.

Davir was pale as daylight but appeared to carry bottomless darkness inside him, reminding Heron of his worst nightmares, where rebels had slit his throat open, leaving his corpse to be devoured by flies and worms deep in unreachable alleys of the city boroughs.

Perhaps he was the unluckiest person The Origin had ever cast into existence. To have rushed into the rescue of a stranger out of thoughtless impulsivity and find himself to be the quarry. In the time it would take for the guards to find his corpse, Davir could vanish as mysteriously as he had appeared — No. He was forecasting his own grave again.

Heron held on to reason. Davir had had a night to kill him if that had been his intent.

He sprang upright, soreness artifactual of the eve's combat burning the muscles of his calves. He focused on their eminent issue: the door of the chapel, its view growing clearer as he approached it. The air temperature dropped with each pace. And when Heron ran a finger along the cold metallic surface, it confirmed his suspicions that they would not escape from the chapel easily. He crouched, eyeing the generous coat of frost overflowing at the lateral and upper edges of the door and its glide trails. The structure was frozen into stillness.

He unlocked the latch. And with little surprise, his strenuous attempt to move the door failed. "Venom," Heron muttered. Even if he pushed the metal surface long enough to burn his hand on ice, he couldn't open it by tackling the task alone. He turned to Davir for half a second before his gaze was back at the door again. Heron reckoned persuading one into team-work was always a less daunting task when they didn't have their bare asses in front of him, sculpted muscles everywhere there was skin.

His physique reminded Heron of an experienced athlete-hunter. The long dark hair and paleness betrayed barbarous northern origins, although Heron couldn't factor how much of it was due to his ill-state. It remained that he was handsome, quite handsome.

"Ancients burn me now," Heron murmured, wishing himself cursed out of existence for his impertinence. "We are trapped here," he announced, broadening his shoulders to keep a semblance of dignity, and trying to ignore the indecency before him. Heron wondered if he was impersonating Master Salmior's authoritative stance well enough. "You need to be assisted by the nurses in the sickhouses with urgency. We have a better chance of escaping if we push the door together—," he broke off, sighed. "First, I will need you to cover yourself."

The man lifted the blanket and wore it wrapped around his waist, the covered parts in stark contrast with the bareness of his arms, legs and chest. Somehow, his view was obscener now.

Davir strode over to the door. No quaking legs nor sign of fatigue, as though his body had been replaced through the night. He could have simply been drunk the night prior. Swallowing the whole of his liquor skin compromised Heron's ability to detect the stink of alcohol in others.

Davir tackled the task immediately. Hands pressed onto the door, they pushed it sideways, attempting to break through the thick ice mound along the glide trail. Soon enough, the loose wraps of blanket around the man's waist gave out, the fabric flopping crumpled on the ground to reveal unashamed indecency.

And their effort — though quite daring — revealed useless after several minutes of struggle. The heavy didn't move by a nail.

Davir paced behind, reflective, while Heron did everything in his power to avoid his sight, rubbing his hand for warmth against his tunic, praying, knocking his fist against the wall and repeating. The grating of metal onto rock from behind him broke the cycle. Davir had snatched the extinguished lantern out of its lodge on the wall.

"We'll have a better chance if we weaken the ice with fire," said Davir, his voice rugged, as if it scratched the corners of his throat. Then he studied Heron curiously, suddenly interested in Heron's clothing.

"The wick is burned out," Heron said. At Davir's persistent stare, he looked down to inspect his tunic. "Putrid venom." He understood Davir's intention.

The thought of fueling fire with his clothes didn't thrill him but he admittedly lacked other options to consider. "Alright," he sighed, watching Davir struggle to open the lantern as if it was the first time he touched one in his life. "Leave it to me," Heron suggested and reached for the oil lamp.

Davir paced to the doorframe's edge, hands against metal.

Heron replaced his tunic with tight rolls of his quilt around his torso and shoulders. He scratched off the remaining fuel of the lantern's reservoir to set the makeshift wick ablaze. They resumed their work, Davir pushing as Heron melted ice with fire. The weakened icy baseboard allowed for restrained movements to build up, providing Davir enough impetus to crack ice faster with forceful glides.

From outside the chapel echoed as series of whickers and cracking strokes of hooves on the ground. Heron froze, tensing all over and bracing for the follow-up, his brows pinched as though it sharpened his focus. The call for his name echoed from outside in a distinct voice.

"Master Salmior," Heron muttered, his forehead suddenly clammy with sweat.

An external decree for his marriage was currently on the making which prohibited Heron to bring his habitual stable boys to his chambers. The Ancients knew he hadn't touched this man. But Heron doubted his word would trump over the misleading evidence: a naked man, himself shirtless and both together in a sealed room. And the blasphemy of engaging in lustful acts in a holy place. . .

Just when the trotting of horses echoed too loud, the door screeched, Davir grunting from the effort exerted. Heron abandoned the burnt wick and the lantern. The opening to the exterior not larger than two palms, Heron scampered outside, sliding himself into the surrounding grove sideways, scratching his elbows and ripping his quilt.

"Whatever you do, don't leave this chapel," Heron ordered.

Outside, light abounded everywhere, beating against ice, ricocheting to the eye, all of it weak compared to the cold, sharp enough to cause the skin to ache.

A patrol of guards mounted up saddled horses advanced towards him, hands firm on reins sprouting from an intricate leather-knotted collar covering the horses from poll to crest. Heron marched forward.

Master Salmior peered at Heron in silence, his chest heaving feebly beneath a dark-green robe cascading down the sides of his dark stallion.

"You're alive." The eminent angry sob seemed to die in his Master's mouth. The clergyman's face hardened again, replacing an expression of worry with anger.

Salmior jumped down his horse but slipped where his feet landed, his body drifting askew. His head hit the flank of the horse, sending the rectangular headpiece atop his head rolling onto the ground. His arms shot out in time to tug at the reins for balance. The grip spared him the fall, in an awkward position of legs spread apart, one hand on the reins and another sliding along the horse's flank. The next struggle was to calm the excited stallion.

The escorting patrol of guards watched only with palpable unease. And when all was done, his hat hiding his baldness again, Salmior threw Heron a gaze that forced a swallow down his throat. The Master was the one to approach Heron, now watching every bit of ice beneath his feet, five bluemen cantering behind.

"Bloody bats, you're going to kill me one day, you fool." He tugged at Heron's quilt, his eyes widening at the realization that Heron's tunic had disappeared. Heron braced for the tug of his ears, like Master Salmior used to do to discipline him when he was younger, all unbeknownst to his mother.

To his surprise, Salmior pulled him into an embrace. "Praised be the spirits." One moment, he heaved with relief, the next, his body tensed. As if Heron's touch had morphed into a blade planted into his stomach. The Master pulled away, staring beyond him, eyebrows pinched in an acute arch.

Five blades slid along thick leather and came unsheathed. Ice shattered beneath heavy boots adorned with metal as the guards jumped down their horses in a coordinated motion. Master Salmior raised a hand and the five blue men halted.

Davir was there.

Master Salmior pushed Heron out of his way, walked past him, nearing Davir warily. "What is this supposed to be?" It was to Heron he addressed the question although he looked straight at Davir.

Davir was covering himself properly now at least. "Master, please," Heron intervened.

Salmior aimed at him the type of glare that signified he needed to shut up. And Heron obeyed until thoughts of his mother permeated again, her lung disease, her last days in a bed in the sickhouses.

"He needs the help of the nurses urgently," Heron managed.

"What is he doing here?" Salmior raised his hand slowly.

Heron shook his head. "Master, please —," When Salmior lowered his hand, the guards would strike. "Davir yma i, Master."

"Davir," Salmior echoed, pensive, perplexed.

"He's not a noble, Master."

"Oh, I figured that, thank you," retorted the Master, scanning Davir from head to toe as though he was a four-armed, horned creature out of the Nighttales.

"Master, I am aware I shouldn't—"

"Associate with the simple-blooded," Salmior cut him off. "I am glad to have gotten that to enter your head. Congratulations," he huffed, "but you brought one within the ramparts."

Master Salmior strictness' was a given he wouldn't derogate the rules regulating the presence of simple-blooded in the domain. Without memories of his provenience, being sent away from the domain meant certain death sentence if lung disease manifested.

Heron felt his neck on fire even before he began lying to his Master, "Davir is a good man. He was an inferior guard in Anuteh, Master." If it was left to Heron no one would perish from the Chill again. All he needed was to assure the man got the required treatment before he left the domain.

"He lost everything in the floods in Anush last sprout season. I considered, perhaps, integrating him to the guard." He was fumbling. "As a private guard, I mean, if possible. Because I plan on visiting the city before my ascent. Although I am aware that is not a position to be filled by a simple-blooded of course. I thought—"

"You thought wrong, obviously." This time, Salmior's interruption was a rescue from Heron's senseless rattle. The old man turned to Davir. "Where in this story did you lose your clothes then?" But Davir remained silent. "He speaks?"

Davir bowed. "All of it is true, Sir," said Davir. He spoke with a throaty accent, a slow and distinct pronunciation marking each word. It was overly formal and reminiscent of the way theologists and clergymen spoke. "The floods forced me out of my homeland in Anushland. I found myself obligated to give up my soaked clothes last night. Otherwise, The Chill would have frozen them to my skin. Luckily, the heir allowed me refuge in the chapel. The spirits of The Origin allow, I will be grateful to serve in your domain."

Salmior looked at him for a long time in silence. He waved his hand to the guards and the men stepped back, all swords back into scabbards. "Spirits forbid he drops dead here. Take him to a sickhouse," he said dismissively. "Inform the nurses he's not allowed to leave his room. When he's well, he leaves the domain."

The soldiers gathered around Davir, handling him like they would a prisoner. Two men holding his arms, the rest with hands brushing sword pommels. Davir followed the lead.