Misbegotten Memories

Chapter 5

Volithur’s heart beat rapidly as he began to read. There were breathing exercises to calm the mind and mental exercises to clear the mind. Then you had to expel mixed energies from your soul through one of the six apertures and replace them with pure cosmic energy. There was a chapter dedicated to using the bodily aperture, another for using the mental aperture, and a third that discussed the aura.

The text explained that the body aperture provided the quickest and simplest method to ...

Chapter 4

Hector squeezed his eyes shut, struggling in vain to return himself to the dream that had just ended. He wanted to know what Volithur did with magic powers. He could see the arc of a grand revenge story, with the Lord General Asshole falling at the feet of the boy. This may be the first time he’d ever experienced an episodic dream. Never before had he gone to sleep and picked up right where he left off. Maybe he would manage to do it again tonight.

He needed to know what happened in t...

Chapter 3

Volithur climbed into the hovering transport and sat where directed. The soldiers around him ignored his existence other than to block his movements when he approached anywhere he wasn’t supposed to be. He didn’t quite understand his social position relative to them, but he seemed to be simultaneously higher and lower than them.

Another of the youths taken on by the Lord General as a ward sat beside him. The brawny boy Thassily had been assigned to the fifth household as well, repor...

Chapter 2

Hector gasped as he came awake to the strident beeps of his alarm, clutching at the remnants of the powerful dream that had just been ripped away from him. It had been so real, like he actually lived through it. He remembered the grief and the exhaustion and the discomfort, then the fear when faced with the Lord General. The cowardly acceptance of his renaming. The memory of that brought a surge of heat to Hector’s chest. How dare the killers of his parents force a new name upon him? He oug...

Chapter 1

Volithur shivered at the head of the line as the Steward of the Lord General scrutinized him. Invisible strands of power, strong as steel cables, hauled Volithur about in a lurching circle, turning him like an animal on display. Each tug came without warning and threw him off balance. Volithur barely managed to stay upright as the Steward scowled down at him.

The inspection of the youths had lasted all of that morning. They had been roused from whatever fitful slumber they had managed o...