He struggled to sleep. Even in waking, other attendants would find him with a distant look, head cocked as if listening to something in the distance. He ought to have been honored to be made a paladin at his age, but he could focus on little. His mind chased itself ceaselessly in circles, distracted even as the Haruspex's mark was tattooed onto his arm.

He wanted to ask them, or even the Catabasian, about what he'd seen - but trying to explain the breadth of the experience felt impossible. He would try to rationalize and his mind would tear itself apart in its doubts. He still had no proof to bring them save the pain he'd felt after - and even that had since faded into background static. The pain in his lungs, the pinpoint bleeding, the vision troubles, it had all faded alongside it - what if it was simply another symptom that had come from being drowned? He could not prove that it wasn't, even if a skeletal ache seemed odd for such an event.

It dogged him into the nights and he prayed for any sign that the Aegis had done as he'd felt. He did not need an explanation from it, he only needed proof. Proof that its silence before and after was not some great cosmic joke. He had prayed every night after the ship his parents had been on was lost, and even then there had been only silence. It had not given him any sign that he was not alone when he was a child, and it had now again returned to silence when he found himself begging for any sign of its existence as someone barely an adult.

Alexei stopped sleeping entirely. He simply couldn't - his mind would run through hundreds of thousands of ways to try to rationalize away what he'd seen only to then turn around and try to sift through every memory he still had of that night to find something he could know was real. The closest thing to solace he could find was prayer, but his god's boundless and continued silence was maddening in its own way. There were no signs, no omens that he could see - and he could not bring himself to ask the Haruspex.

-

It had been another sleepless night of lying in the silent dark, eyes wide and staring into nothing as his mind raced. He'd been accompanying Theo as they sought out their own guiding signs, cutting into the belly of a fish. They'd spoken but he did not hear, fixated on the bones that broke through the incision as they reached in to grab its entrails. He could find out. He could know. It would hurt - but could it hurt any worse than this uncertainty, this gnawing doubt that ate away at him in every ceaseless waking moment?

No. It would be a relief.

He sat up suddenly in bed as if coming awake from a deep dream. His thoughts were clearer than they'd been since he'd been drowned. Since the Aegis had sung to him. Marked his bones - if it had. Doubt still lingered but he knew he could find out. He would find out. He got to his feet and swayed slightly. These nights without sleep plagued him, but he knew - he knew - that this clarity would not have come without such penance. He would have his answers and then he would be able to rest. He would learn and he would pay for that knowledge with his exhaustion and with his blood.

The distance between his quarters and the Haruspex's altar room felt like miles as he walked, trying to move as quietly as he could with hooves on a stone floor. But he needed to go. There would be knives fit to cut through bone, to slice through skin, to do more precise work than his own steel was suited for. The halls were dark, and the only attendant he passed did not ask anything of him, only inclined their head in greeting. It felt almost too easy to make it to the room uncontested, but he was here. It was dark and the air stank of blood, even though he had meticulously cleaned it - leaving the door unlocked when he'd finished. The Haruspex's knives were arranged neatly along the rightmost edge of the altar and Alexei considered each of them.

He doubted he would be able to hold on to consciousness if he tried to flense any part of himself that he could still feel. No, it would be easier to sever something first, and fingers would be easiest. Then he would be able to peel back the skin, the tendon, clear the blood, see what the bone underneath had to say. One shorter, sharper pain rather than a protracted agony. He tested the heft of the Haruspex's heavy butcher knife in his right hand and splayed his left on the altar. It would work. It had to work. He clenched his jaw and before he could realise the insanity of his actions, he brought the blade down hard onto his left hand.

The pain was immediate; a high ringing in his ears deafened him and his vision went white as he gasped, barely able to choke back his shout into a hitched groan through clenched teeth. He screwed his eyes shut and shuddered as he let out a breath, stomach churning as he willed himself to maintain a grip on his senses. He forced his eyes open and nearly retched. He dropped the knife with a clatter he hardly registered and had to lean heavily on his right hand as the ground heaved beneath him. It was done. Two fingers, just at the first knuckle. It would be enough.

He grasped for a different, thinner blade - one used for skinning, for the smaller fish, the birds, the brittle-boned and delicate things - but caught only air as his mind struggled to instruct his body to act. A laugh he couldn't stop bubbled up in his chest and hissed at himself to cease, to be silent - there was only so much time before he was found or his body gave in. No time, no fucking time - he decided to forgo the knife and instead picked up his ring finger. His left hand spasmed with the pain of movement, trying to move fingers that were no longer there. He almost laughed again. It was vile to the point of hilarity, holding his own severed digit in his palm, brain reeling as it expected pain but felt nothing as he used the claw on his right thumb to cut down its center to pull the skin and tendon away.

His answer was there - it was partially obscured by his blood and what tendon he could not loosen, but there. A black-inked sigil on the middle phalanx bone. The others had to match. It had been real. Another laugh struck him, this one louder, vindicated, joyous, and he didn't bother to try to silence himself this time. A shadow fell over the altar and he turned toward the doorway with a wide grin, setting the flayed digit back down.

The Haruspex was watching him with wide, horrified eyes - but it was fine. All was well. Couldn't they see? He had his answer. "It sang to me," he said, voice reverent, and it was all the explanation he could give before his knees buckled underneath him and he crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.