David White
Stories
4
Chapters
1,771
Words
1.0 K
Comments
0
Reading
5 m
-
The Son of Rome As much as Griffon had tried to rope me into it, I had never been a member of the Rosy Dawn. Not truly. There were certain duties that a slave simply could not ignore, no matter the attire they wore or the company they kept. As much as Griffin was the Young Aristocrat of the cult, second only to one in many ways, he was second. I only ever met Damon Aetos twice. The second time during the initiation rites that his son had dragged me through, in the impacted cavern where the bisected…-
92 •
-
-
The Young Griffon One of the better indicators of a person‘s character was the way they treated their juniors. The hunger for standing was a natural element of every human soul, and the temptation to abuse that standing ever with us. Not always for its own sake, perhaps, but all too often opportunities presented themselves just out of reach, and all too often there were other people, subordinates or friends or even family, positioned just right to act as stepping stones so you could close that…
-
92 •
-
-
You are nothing. Liquid purpose burns a trail down your throat, melting through fragile linings of tissue and sinew. You’ve always been proud of your constitution, in those quiet moments of honesty you believed yourself to be truly strong, but your body can do nothing but give way to this force. The marrow burrows through your body, following channels that do not yet exist in your unrefined body. What can not be found is created instead. You fall to your knees, choking. You hack and spit, and when…
-
92 •
-
-
The Son of Rome “That went differently in your head, didn’t it,” I said, eyeing the ink-black pile of bones and bile that Sorea had vomited into my open palm. They were warm, warmer than they should have been. Scorching hot, even by a cultivator’s standards. “You just ate it,” Griffon said, addressing my bird with incredulous disgust. “How did you digest the second one that fast?” My eyes rolled. “It isn’t a real crow. We have no idea what its flesh is even made of.” “Pneuma,…
-
92 •
-
-
The Young Griffon It had to be said. For all of my accolades and for all of my majesty, for all that I was the only man that could ever be me, I was not perfect. I had my failings. And even more egregious than that, I was not all-knowing. In some respects, I was not even particularly well-informed. My father had always done things in his own time, and the Scarlet City had regulated its pace to match his. For all that I was myself, I was no different in that regard. I cultivated the virtue that he forced…
-
92 •
-
-
The Son of Rome “Is it always like this?” I asked the girl in the sun ray silks. I waved vaguely, encompassing the entirety of the lounge pavilion. Her lips curled down, the only facial feature not obscured by her golden veil. “To greater or lesser degrees,” Selene said, sighing softly. “It usually isn’t this egregious outside of holidays and celebrations. The death of the kyrios has left everyone on edge.” I watched a pair of bare-chested men hold a third upside down while a trio of women…
-
92 •
-
-
The Young Griffon It paid to have friends in high places, after all. The temple of the Oracle was an eerie edifice. Frankincense and myr hung thick in the air, stifling the senses and making the eyes burn. Walking through the gilded archway, past the Heroic cultivators of the Broken Tide Cult that guarded the Oracle with their lives, I could hardly see a foot in front of my face. The winter winds of the Mediterranean were hardly worth mentioning for a cultivator of even the most pitiful ranks of the…
-
92 •
-
-
The Son of Rome Anastasia drew attention as a matter of course. It was a consequence of her status and appearance both - men couldn’t help but steal what glances they could when she was nearby. But as she choked and coughed and hammered her chest, the other mystikos in the bath looked openly our way. She mastered herself quickly, setting her cup aside, but the damage had been done. After a night of hunting Crows and a full day of drinking the following day, it had been my old mentor’s name that…
-
92 •
-
-
The Young Griffon The Oracles were divine messengers, sent down to us lowly men from the heights of Olympus Mons. They transcribed the words of immortals, writ large upon the world, and gave them to us in a form we could understand. If their tongues were the thread, the words they produced were the tangled weaves of destiny itself. For time immemorial the Oracles have guided the greatest Heroes on their paths to glory and prophesied the fall of the vilest Tyrants. It was not enough to say that these…
-
92 •
-
-
The Son of Rome The Raging Heaven Cult was a series of connected estates and valence communities, growing like weeds around the foot of Kaukoso Mons. Similar to the Rosy Dawn in its construction, the various estates were connected by winding paths of stone carved into the mountain itself. Walking paths, staircases, and even arched bridges of stone could be found within its boundaries. In an inversion of the Rosy Dawn, the most influential members of the cult lived at the lowest points, where the mountain…
-
92 •
-
- Previous 1 … 13 14 15 … 178 Next
