The Conciege

(THOB) Chapter 62: Canopus

The months that followed had Ezril and the brothers of the seminary supervised but not taught. The priests stayed their hands, keeping their reactions to any mistakes made to a frown or a twitch of the jaw. Father Talod watched them as they sparred with each other, teaching themselves and developing an understanding of each other’s weaknesses.

Darvi was looked to for corrections on the way of the sword, and he proved a patient teacher at best. He taught them the more intricate moves F...

(TLO) Chapter 58: Heart of Winter

There was a dreary nature in the cold of winter. Even in the afternoon, bright as it was supposed to be, the canopy of trees and the ever falling snow gave it an odd feeling. Perhaps if it was the woods, and the canopy had not been as dense, the afternoon would have felt more alive. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. And this afternoon in the forest felt more like the dying evening.

Seth gathered his swords around him, each one in their mundane sheaths of wood brown, unadorned and without beau...

(TPOR) Chapter 86: Cabavi

The walk to Cabavi was filled with random chatter and a dissemination of pointless information. The latter was more the work of Peter, unsurprisingly.

“Do you know one of the janitors has a crush on instructor Torent?” Peter asked conversationally.

Nurifa shook his head, and while no one was sure if it was in response or exasperation, Peter continued.

“Yeah.” He stepped over something no one saw in the dark. “Poor girl, though, cute thing with the biggest knockers....

(THOB) Chapter 61: The Hallowed

“In the next six months,” Monsignor Crowl told them, “you will be prepared for the test of the hunt.”

It was late in the month of Martis and the snow from the winter had thawed, giving way for the green grass and the warm way. They stood in front of the dining hall, clad in their white cassocks as the Monsignor addressed them.

“During this period,” he continued, “your instructors will strengthen your ability to work as a group. It will be a tower based test, but rest...

(TPOR) Chapter 85: A Mind Mage

Abed ground his teeth in annoyance. His annoyance wasn’t just at everybody’s objection to him, it was mainly at the deep smirk on Big Man Desolate’s face.

When he’d walked into the meeting point and seen the love of his life alive and in the flesh, his world had gone up in joy. He had spent the last two week mourning her, wondering if there would ever be another girl as good as her, another girl who would love and appreciate him as she had done. Now he knew he didn’t have to w...

(THOB) Chapter 60: Beyond Stupid

By their fourth month Ezril and his brothers had learned what Father Munidu sought to teach them. Even Ezril showed a mastery of the technique, seeming capable of putting the dog to silence without having to look at it. Learning it before his remaining brothers, it seemed to solicit a suspicious look from Father Munidu.

“How effective is it against humans, Father?” Ezril asked as they practiced the Abeet, a skill that had their horses stand in place for as long as was requi...

(TLO) Chapter 57: Origins

The swaying carriage had often caused motion sickness in a few of the children to ever mount it, but the children in it today seemed unbothered by it. While this was not an achievement, it showed favorable signs.

Somto watched the children as Eni and Otun pulled the carriage ahead. Through the bond he had with them, he could feel their dissatisfaction at having to go a long distance today. He would’ve apologized to them if he thought it would make any difference. Luckily, they had the...

(THOB) Chapter 59: Make It Fear

Apparit looked more like Ezril’s memory of Dainty. But where Dainty had borne an indifference in its eyes he had seen pain and chaos in Apparit’s. Ezril and his brothers had been required to spend the entirety of the day caring for them, as they had done on their first day in preparation for the test of the mount.

The horses had been obedient as they approached them in their stalls, standing motionless, like the soldiers of the kingdom in the presence of their commanders. Ezril had ...

(TLO) Chapter 56: Greater Boys

Igor led the children through one of the seminary’s gates they had never used before. It weaved a straight path through the forest they had since come to understand surrounded the Seminary. Unlike the other parts of the forest, though, there was no mist here. It was clean air and a healthy forest dirt and trees and grass, and a luscious green so bright it was soothing.

He did not give them the time to appreciate it, however, moving with strides so quick they were forced to hurry. Even...

(THOB) Chapter 58: Classes of Priests

The feel of the seminary was a welcomed one. Ezril and his brothers had given up their cloaks for white cassocks. Unlike those of the official cassocks of the priests, theirs was without capes. Another change was that they resided in a tower situated to the west of the compound, beyond the smithy. Despite the heights of the towers they now lived in, the ones they had lived in for so long in the past dwarfed them considerably.

There was a new addition to their training. It encompassed th...

(THOB) Chapter 57: Ajal

The next morning, they came for Jazabil, blades drawn as they stood guard. Today Commander Olann was not among them. The soldiers of the King’s guard pulled her by the chain that held her to the wall, dragging her out of the church, Father Kezaril following behind them, scorn marring his face while she spat curses at him in a language Ezril didn’t understand. He didn’t need to understand her words to know, though.

He watched it all from the window of his room. It was surreal knowi...

(THOB) Chapter 56: A Lie

Darkness threatened to engulf Ezril as his fears welled up from within him. He knew it very well. It was a companion he took solace in, and a companion he had grown to fear. Soon the eyes watched, and the hilts beckoned, and he dreamed in the day. However, his watchers made no entrance, only the blades. Taunting. Teasing. Beckoning. He knew where he was. Out with Father Kazaril, he told himself, capturing a Tainted.

This dream was different from the ones he knew. Not o...

(THOB) Chapter 55: Business Outside The Church

Ezril walked the compound grounds of the parish house. The ground was muddied. The signs of the rainfall from the previous night could be noticed from the puddles of water around the compound. The noon air was cold. And though the sun was out, its heat was absent.

It was Ezril’s last week in the parish, and he had finally succumbed to Sister Alanna’s pleas to indulge her in a stroll around the compound.

She walked beside him, telling a tale of the convent as she was prone to d...

(TPOR) Chapter 84: Military Knife

“Next,” he whispered, and Takeshi followed.

“We’re really sorry.”

Zed turned to Anthony and gave the boy an assuring smile. “It’s cool.”

The boy nodded, then sniffled. “It’s just, Peter thought you’d feel bad if you found out they’d brought someone to take your bed. So… I gave him mine, instead.”

Zed cocked a brow and watched Takeshi fail his first climbing attempt from his periphery. If Takeshi was now sleeping on Anthony’s bed, that mean...

(TLO) Chapter 55: Promise

Clint found Seth and Timi sometime in the morning perhaps three hours before noon.

When he found them, Seth came awake from his slumber—woken by his minds—in the uncomfortable crook of a particularly large tree covered in brown moss. He cracked an eye open to find the priest standing over him but watching a slumbering Timi.

Off in the distance a priest he did not recognize studied the reia beast Timi had killed. The reia beast they had killed.

“You will explai...

(TPOR) Chapter 83: Escaped Friends

Evening in the institute was like evening in any boarding school. At least Zed tried to believe it was. The slow crawl to lights out was usually untasked where they were left to their vices... or virtues, as instructor Ivanovic their one Russian mage in the institute liked to think.

“It is my believe,” he would say in his russian brogue, “that for every good we have bad. So for every bad there is good.”

Somehow Zed had a strong feeling his scale of good and evil differed v...

(THOB) Chapter 55: Sister Alanna

The parish house stood behind the church. It was a massive building fashioned from brick, and designed in varying colors. It gave the building an extravagant beauty. Ezril always wondered how the kingdom lived in buildings of brick with a certain civility to them while the seminary was drowned in stone towers that gave a sense of how the kingdom might have been during its conception. Now, he only wondered why a building would be so decorated. He saw it as a form of vanity the church taught ag...

(THOB) Chapter 54: Despair In Sin

Ezril sat uncomfortably in his seat. The cushion was plush, a very delicate touch to his butt. It was greatly unlike what the seminary was prone to offering. Its size was massive enough to accommodate a second person. It was decorated with embroideries of such beauty that only the best in the art could have done it, and the wood was carved beautifully with intricate designs of its own. It was a throne in itself.

However, what Ezril sat on was not the source of his discomfort. It was 2023-08-28 17:17:19 +0000 UTC View Post

(THOB) Chapter 53: Tale Of The Immortal

Urden sat in front of the flame, warming his hands, though he needed none of the warmth. He’d never needed help staying warm in the cold, not in a very long time.

Helva sat on the other side of the flame. She was a woman of considerable age. Her head bore a full set of hair, and her skin sagged. She held her hands outstretched before the flame while the stick she seemed unable to walk without laid on the floor beside her. She, unlike Urden, needed the fire.

In the forest her peo...

(THOB) Chapter 52: One Alduin Gold

Whoever was falling hit the side of the mountain, his head striking it at an odd angle. It flipped him in the air, realigning the fall’s trajectory. Up became down, left became right, and a fall became a tumble.

Every part of Ezril’s plan fell apart.

No, he willed himself, not yet.

His legs acted on their own. His toes spread within his boots. Rather than grab the rock in passing, he dropped to it, hoping it would hold his weight no matter how briefly. ...

(THOB) Chapter 51: Titans of Humanity

The test of climbing was different from the ones Ezril and his brothers knew, different from the ones they had. The older boys were not present for it, having left the seminary on a task of sorts. Their spiritual work, the priests called it. It was a stipulated period of time when they would be at different churches, offering their services to the sisters of the church, whatever it may be, as long as it fell within the confines of the Credo.

Father Talod trooped Ezril and his brothers o...

(THOB) Chapter 50: A Friendly Wager

“He’s awake.”

Yes., I am.

Ezril was pulled back to consciousness by something. Perhaps the voice. Maybe it was something else. But he was awake now. He would begrudge whoever it was later, if the grudge was still there to hold on to.

“We thought you were gone when you fell.” It was Salem’s voice.

No. Ezril could see the brother’s face too. All his brothers were present, and his eyes were open.

Unkuti was smiling. “Told them it would take ...

(THOB) Chapter 49: The Test of The Hallowed (2)

Father Fravis’ words came with a different understanding now. Something about the import of the moment gave a new feeling to the words. Ezril raised his foot… Take it as strides compressed into one compact step. Like connecting multiple blows in one throw. He let the foot fall to the sand. The very motion was long, reminiscent of a single drowsy blink. It was stretched out by perception and contrast. If a blink takes but a fraction of a heartbeat, the short moment held in a drows...

(THOB) Chapter 48: The Test of The Hallowed

The night was cold and Ezril ran through it on an open clearing. He stopped at one of the buildings around. There, he bided his time.

Why does it have to be tonight? he thought. Especially now that he’s angry.

His mind flashed to Cyrinth, and he shook his head. This was no time to be distracted by the old man, he needed to focus. The old man had taught him the little he could in the little time they had and had informed him that sometimes, to achieved desired g...

(THOB)Chapter 47: The Fool

Ezril’s surrounding squeezed. His steps compressed beneath him. His calves hurt, reminding him of his early trainings of unarmed combat when Fravis required them to hit as many times as possible in a limited time.

One compact step! he ordered, but even in his mind he heard the plea in his voice.

The wind left his lungs. He felt the breeze blow passed him as his other foot came down. His vision blurred. Dark spots clogged its edges. Pain raged through his flesh. His foot...

(TPOR) Chapter 82: Back My Play

Zed woke up with a searing headache. It was as if someone had poked his brain with a needle, treading a path through his eye.

His head lay helplessly on the grass and there was a commotion ensuing around him. Loud voices filled the air and a threat or two flew by.

He rolled, turning on his side and was met with countless pairs of feet, more than two armored. Whatever was going on, it was worsening his headache.

“You’re awake.”

Zed squinted through the soft touch ...

(THOB) Chapter 46: Lord Commander

The brothers rarely discussed the training of the Hallowed step in Ezril’s presence. They did so from a sense of empathy, he noted. In time even the priests favored him with looks of pity. Priestess Ellenel not so subtly reduced the force with which she pushed him during their personal practice of the bow. The greatest blow came when Father Talod proved sparing with the cane, flogging him for only the dumbest of mistakes.

“So tell us, brother. What’s her name?” Olbi spoke betwee...

(THOB) Chapter 45: Hallowed Step

Ezril and his brothers found themselves under the command of Father Fravis the next day. The hall he led them to was different from the one they had practiced in their years in the seminary. This hall was grand and open with more air than they thought a building capable of accepting. The ground was level with the pick of dust at the slightest step.

As they walked, their feet raised dust. But Father Fravis seemed to glide above the sand, each step was soundless, the one to succeed each w...

(THOB) Chapter 44: Grit

The streets, although not as choked as it would be on festivals, were swarmed with people trampling whatever was left of the snow scattered across the stone floor. It was Ezril’s worse part of the days of outing. A test of the crowd.

They’d walked a good distance through the swarm of bodies when Olufemi asked, “Have you heard the title of our next test, brother?”

A part of Ezril dreaded this test more than anything, and he found he didn’t want to give voice to i...

(THOB) Chapter 43: A Close Fascination

It was early into his sixth year in the seminary in the month of Janus, first of its year, when Ezril first saw a face from the underbelly.

The snow covered the dirt and the brothers walked the compound clad in their fur cloaks of wolf skin. Father Fravis had them in the training room where the ground rose and fell at varying angles. Today he had them spar with brothers from the Konvac tower.

They took their places with their opponents counting less than them so that one of the ot...