Night settled, but Rosomil remained awake and took a long walk to clear his mind. His path brought him to the ocean. Gentle the waves embraced the shore, their rush a soft heartbeat older than the stones they touched. As the cold spray drifted against him, it felt as if the stars above him touched his face. Involuntary, he looked up and saw the ocean mirrored in the wast sky above him.

  There was something in the air, unnatural and lurking.

  “You aren’t planing to throw yourself into the ocean, are you?”, asked a friendly voice behind him.

  “Lodwin…”, he addressed his friend and turned around. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same”, he replied and stepped beside him. “Can’t sleep?”

  “How could I?”, he returned and took a deep breath.

  For a few moments, they stood in utter silence next to each other. Rosomil was grateful for this and let his gaze wander again along empty vastness of the ocean and the sky. He felt like the vast scenery was the perfect mirror to his soul. Often he had felt this distant to everything but rarely with this intensity.

  “I think the fisher-boy is innocent”, Lodwin said, and shattered the solitude which had almost filled him completely.

  “I think so too”, Rosomil replied solemn and turned to his friend.

  “Then why are playing along this charade?”, the redhead asked with a raised brow. “Is this Aswald’s doing?”

  Rosomil remained silent and turned away.

  “You should stop listening to him”, Lodwin continued. “I have the feeling he is trying something with you, and neither do I know what exactly it is nor do I like it.”

  Again he remanned silent.

  “Then, is there something can we do to help the fisher-boy?”, asked Lodwin, changing the topic clearly reluctant.

  “Nothing, I’m afraid”, he replied defeated which clearly surprised his friend.

  “You can’t be serious”, said Lodwin exasperated. “We need to do something! Write the bishop! Tell him about Hamish and Iain! We can’t go around dooming innocent people to death! No matter if human or not!”

  “And what should we write? That the priests are Selkies and murdered other Selkies?”

  “Yes!”

  “No, Lod. Aswald wrote to the bishop about the situation here and asked about the priests the day we had arrived here. He finally showed it to me right after we had apprehended Alistair.”

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  “What the did Bishop write?”, he asked tense.

  Rosomil took a deep breath. He still couldn’t believe the dismissiveness of the letter. The cold, almost clinical words written without a hint of compassion since the whole situation didn’t concern any humans.

  “The bishop wrote that he is aware of the priests’ true nature”, Rosomil began after he collected his thoughts. “They told him about this village and the secret the people thought to have kept so keenly.”

  “What? How did they know?”

  “I don’t know the details, but he said they were here and found out about the Selkies. They wrote him, revealing the secret along their true nature and proposed an idea. They wanted to turn the Selkies here away from Sedna and to our Lord and Savior. As an experiment to see if they could be turned fully human by denying their Goddess of the Sea.”

  “That’s stupid. The brothers are ordained as priests and clearly haven’t turned human. The man must be stupid.”

  Rosomil couldn’t help but laugh. A dark, humorless laugh. While he immediately felt bad for the mocking tone, he couldn’t help it.

  “Well, Lod, he clarified that, despite him thinking their proposal to be of interest, he ultimately isn't concerned with the Selkies or what they do among themselves. They’re not human despite looking like it, he wrote.”

  “That’s distasteful… And what about Iain and Hamish? What would they gain by trying to turn the Selkies here away from their god?”

  “I don’t think they cared much about their own proposal anyway. Remember? The murders started before the bishop sent them officially to Harren. My guess would be, they had found a suitable hunting ground here, for whatever reason, they started to kill their own kind anyway, and used this opportunity to create an alibi. Especially, Iain appears conniving enough to me to have come up with this plan.”

  “And this sits well with you? You’re willing to leave this place to the mercy of those two?”

  “No”, Rosomil answered stern. “If I could, I would behead them and let Alistair live.”

  “Then do just that”, Lodwin insisted to his surprise. “They’re not human after all. Nothing would be lost.”

  “True, but the bishop makes it clear in his letter that he doesn’t believe them to be behind the murders and that he wants them to continue the experiment”, he replied, bitter. “If I were to kill either one or both, I would be exiled from the Order. That’s the whole problem, Lod. My hands are tied.”

  “Damn it!”, Lodwin shouted and kicked sand into the water. “What is the bishop even thinking? By letting them continue to roam freely, he betrays all our Lord stands for! That’s blasphemy!”

  “I have the feeling there’s more to it than he let on”, he replied, deep in thought. “He must’ve a reason for acting the way he does. A reason that needs to be investigated and brought to the forefront, but I guess I’ll never get the chance to do so. I doubt our Order would allow me to, even if I were to present the Grandmaster the letter and explain my reasoning.”

  “What good does our Order do, when we can’t investigate our own?”, asked Lodwin tense. “How can we say we follow the teachings of Christ, if we allow murderers and their enablers to roam free and the innocent to be killed?”

  Rosomil didn’t answer.

  The only sound left for some time was the gentle rush of the waves.

  “Lodwin?”, Rosomil addressed his friend silently.

  “Yes, Rosomil?”, Lodwin asked, just as silent.

  “I might be asking too much, but…”, he continued, and regarded him with great determination. “Let us make a change. We’re unable to make a difference considering what happened here, but in the future, let’s take care that something like this won’t happen again under our watch.”

  “You aren’t asking too much”, Lodwin replied with a warm smile. “We just need to convince the others of our little group.”

  “Which will take some work.”

  “I do think both of us will convince them in no time.”

  “Perhaps, but let us first return to the village. Tomorrow will be a sad day.”

  Lodwin nodded and went with him back towards Harren.