It's as if the heat in these halls died with the monks who kept them.
"Where in the nine circles is Malras?" Zarkan Nakarsha pounded the stone wall in front of him, then winced at the pain radiating out into his hand until he washed it away in an instant. A small, yet helpful perk of submitting oneself to a likely painful and untimely end. "Perhaps I should have left it as it was. No, no. If I had, I would've been distracted. Better this way." His contrasting blue and amber eyes continued to glow as his mental incantation finished and he swayed on his feet as the light around him subsided. "I have to be more careful."
"Commander, are you all right?" The young woman's eyes matched his, slowly dying out like a candle reaching its end, in the torchlight. He turned away from her, then back quickly. "Cara, where are your robes? Why are you dressed as a soldier?"
"I haven't been given any yet my lord." Her voice was back to the requisite even tone of all of his initiates. At least she shows half-deference. "When did you join our ranks?"
"As I said before my lord, last week."
"As you said!" Zarkan exploded and felt the energy coursing through his body, threatening to go off like a raging wildfire all at once. Then, a new, even cooler voice interrupted him. "Wine my lord?" Another sycophant. Too difficult to keep track of all of their names. Hefting the silver goblet he was offered by the man who now stood in front of him, he sniffed it once and shook the glass gently, watching its depths swirl. "Not what I asked for," He said without looking at the man in front of him, without even tasting the wine. "I intend to be thoroughly drunk when Malras Miradel deigns to appear to share his latest failure and not on swill. Not on this."
If I'd taken the chance at the right time, I could've been given full command instead of Barrad. He didn't deserve it.
"Barrad's my friend."
No, he isn't. He plans your demise.
"Yes, he is. And no he doesn't."
Nope.
"Ah now the voices are speaking to me as if we're two separate people having a normal conversation," he chortled aloud, noticing Cara eyeing him warily. "I need wine!" He called out to the hall around him, causing the man with a tray holding a single silver goblet to hurry off in the opposite direction. "Wine Omalin, that which is made from grapes!" The glass goblet swung outward over the platter and shattered onto the stones below as the man scurried around the corner.
"Useless!" Zarkan's voice boomed around the room. "Well, Miradel, where in the fires are you?" "Wine sir," the man called Omalin was back, bowing with a tray and a new, silver goblet raised above him. Almost identical, save for the sigil. Carian's old goblet. At least I accomplished what I set out here to do, eliminating him and taking his share. He smiled briefly, then his visage turned to flame once again as he surveyed those waiting on him.
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