The Young Griffon
Violence told a story. This I’d known for my entire life. My time outside the Rosy Dawn had challenged countless other preconceptions, but this one it had only reinforced. It was only in the heat of our most violent moments that we bared our hearts to one another in full. Not because we desired it, necessarily, but because we had no other choice. Every...
2023-04-15 16:44:22 +0000 UTC View PostScythas, Hero of the Scything Squall
There’s still time, but less and less.
You have the stronger heart.
He isn’t what you thought he was. You can bring him down.
You can defeat him.
You must defeat him.
This is your only chance.
My dear her...
2023-04-08 18:35:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe time has come and so have I.
Book 2 of Virtuous Sons, The Tyrant Riot, is now available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
Same drill as b...
2023-04-06 09:00:57 +0000 UTC View PostIt's nearly that time again - once book two is live on Kindle Unlimited, I'll be taking down all of the chapters covered on Royal Road, SpaceBattles, QuestionableQuesting, and Patreon. For those of you seeing this before the launch, help yourselves to one of the press copies attached below.
If you're reading this after April 6th 2023 and there are no press copies attached...
2023-04-04 05:24:42 +0000 UTC View PostWhen the Despoiled Queen of the Amazons let fly her blind arrow, starry night seeped through the skies above the City of Olympia and beyond it. For those unfortunate enough to still be in the city, it was an instantaneous shift. For those that had taken the Raging Heaven Cult’s earlier unrest for the warning that it was, fleeing the city with their most valuable possessions bundled up in cart...
2023-04-01 09:11:14 +0000 UTC View PostI watched the dawn break over scarlet waves. The sinful tang of sacred wine coated my tongue.
Four years old. I was so small that holding my cup with both hands was a necessity as much as it was an act of reverence, the wide-rimmed skyphos comically large compared to me. While the rest of the hopeful initiates and senior mystikos waded out several stades into the Ionian, I stood ...
2023-03-28 19:13:23 +0000 UTC View PostAs the title says, this is the second part of the 10k chapter that I posted earlier last week. I've since decided to split 1.132 into two chapters for future release, and this is the second half of it. Apologies for the false alarm, but this is a more carefully edited version of the chapter you read before. The first half of it, 1.132, has simi...
2023-03-26 19:11:43 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
The first instant nearly killed us.
Polyzalus was the Rein-Holder, and he had proven that epithet well-earned when Dymas confronted him. Unspoken, yet plainly implied, was the fact that a charioteer only needed one hand to hold his reins. The other hand carried his whip.
Stripped of half his dominion and challenged in his own throne of power, t...
2023-03-22 04:55:39 +0000 UTC View PostA small eternity after the Son of Rome and the Young Griffon come charging out of the immortal storm crown that hangs above Kaukoso Mons, six Heroic souls come tumbling out after them. Four Heroes and two Heroines, each of them marked by the raven’s hand.
All six of them are brimming with vitality and joyous defiance. Through the efforts of one, all six have been given the once in a lif...
2023-03-17 10:43:41 +0000 UTC View Post“One was more than enough.”
An Unkindness
The Scarlet City falls fully into chaos by the time the Rosy Dawn’s pillars emerge from their closed doors cultivation.
The people of the valley are crude souls by and large. Citizens enjoy places of prominence in the city’s bureaucracy, such is their supremacy, and whenever a philosopher’s sets foot...
2023-03-16 05:19:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
The Oracle’s blade was adamant-wrought. It plunged through her throat without any resistance, parting flesh and cartilage as if it wasn’t there at all. Calliope’s breath hitched as she weakly twisted the knife-
I caught her wrist and pressed my thumb against the flat face of the dagger’s hilt, locking it in place. The Oracle choked on a sob a...
2023-03-03 15:01:27 +0000 UTC View PostSelene
Her father wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t a good man either, and oh, that had stung the first time she acknowledged it. But Selene wasn’t naïve. She had seen too much of him reflected in the hearts of those that sought her counsel. Some said it was impossible for a cultivator to enter the fourth realm without being tainted by its trappings, and e...
2023-02-26 18:37:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
“You’ve done well,” the Hero said. Both Griffon and I stared at the towering cultivator, utterly thrown, and he laughed. “Not what you expected?”
“Not quite,” I said warily.
“We haven’t made many friends here,” Griffon added.
The Hero chuckled, eyes crinkling in fond recollection. “No, you’ve made a beautiful mess ...
2023-02-19 15:36:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
The melee grew more chaotic the further down the mountain we went. The junior estates for the youngest and least of the Raging Heaven’s mystikos came and went, and soon enough I saw that it was more than just my own shaky coalition at war on this mountain. I had hoped otherwise, but deep in my gut I’d known. The initiates of the Howling Wind, Broken Ti...
2023-01-27 20:08:28 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
“GO!” the Titan roared, as the phoenix of the caucuses savaged him with its talons-
“SEEK SAFER SHORES,” the Titan commanded, as the legions of Rome fell screaming up into the sky.
We raced down the mountain without a moment’s pause for the Storm That Never Ceased. ...
2023-01-13 02:46:59 +0000 UTC View PostThe Stark Blade, Nikolas Aetos
Somehow, even now, the image that appeared when Niko called to mind his cousins was a single night from years ago. The night they’d carved their refuge out of the eastern mountain range had been a warm one, the full moon and its chorus of stars burning bright over their heads.
It was Niko that did the bulk of the work, though Lio car...
2023-01-08 03:56:18 +0000 UTC View PostHero of the Scything Squall, Scythas
He raised the pewter cup to his lips-
And paused before it could touch them. He stared down at his golden reflection in the nectar.
“Hero?” Urania’s remnant statue whispered, puzzled.
The roads ahead of you are long. Drink of my drink, young Scythas, and be strong.
Spiraling beyond the Mu...
2022-12-27 07:15:22 +0000 UTC View Post—
Then, in the morning, once again the sun will melt the frost.
—
The Young Griffon
On the day of my first Thargelia, when I was still young enough to fear the kiss of a burning flame, my father had broken with the Rosy Dawn’s traditions and allowed me to sit on his lap and watch the proceedings of the festival with him. I hadn’...
2022-11-20 20:43:50 +0000 UTC View PostBigs thanks to all of you that went out and picked up a copy of the ebook/paperback/hardcover/audiobook. Truly blessed by the response, and can only hope this story continues to deliver for you boys.
NaNoWriMo begins today, and though I didn't manage to wrap this sequence up in a single 10-12k monster chap...
2022-11-02 03:29:50 +0000 UTC View PostMY FELLOW DEGENERATES.
VIRTUOUS SONS IS NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE.
BIG thanks to Pineapple_Hugs and Lungs for helping edit this one after writing it fried my brain. Enjoy.
“A raven carries tribulation in its talons. It has ever been so, since the last of the bright birds brought the sun god word of his lover’s infidelity and were scorched black by his grief.
“One midnight messenger is tragedy enough. Any more tha...
2022-10-02 08:58:55 +0000 UTC View PostThe Son of Rome
“There are four stages to this synthesis. Four that I’ve observed, at any rate - four phases that the kyrios could compress into a single pour. We’ll have to use a furnace.”
Socrates hadn’t wasted a moment. As soon as I’d surrendered the golden cup of wine to him, he’d pulled a squat stone furnace from a fold within his rags an...
2022-09-29 04:28:38 +0000 UTC View PostThe Young Miss-tocrat
Time passed, but slower every day.
Niko had promised them, promised her, that he would find a way to get them a ship and their uncle’s permission to sail it east towards Olympia. He had promised to prepare them for the journey ahead, and in that regard he had tried. But the journey was what mattered most, and every day that passed it...
2022-09-28 04:45:53 +0000 UTC View PostThe Young Griffon
Three Heroes came to me in the aftermath of Alazon’s shameful defeat, and all three produced a letter written by a Roman’s heavy hand.
Sol had given each of them a destination to search when he first reached out to them through Sorea. All three of them had rejected our grand mission in the aftermath of Chilon’s story, but Sol had given them t...
2022-09-27 01:09:13 +0000 UTC View Post“A young maiden is foraging in the woods one blind night. She’s about your age, and, oh, about your size. With eyes and mind as pure as moonlight. She is too kind to hunt, you see, but her hunger won’t be sated by kindness. While she scraps and scuffles for whatever fruits the earth has left behind for her, she finds herself a wolf.
“Or, perhaps more likely, the wolf ...
2022-08-25 11:32:05 +0000 UTC View PostThe Caustic Queen
“Who are you, really?”
The Young Griffon asked the question without suspicion or any particular heat, and his pneuma did not stir from its work - but neither did he take the small clay jar from her outstretched hand. She leaned closer with it, waving the cloth-covered top under his nose so he could smell the sweet gold therein. He ignored it. H...
2022-08-19 23:13:57 +0000 UTC View PostThe Caustic Queen
The Roman’s name was Solus. She had never seen him before the kyrios’ funeral because he’d never stepped foot in the Half-Step City before that day. He’d brought a student with him, a young Philosopher just as young as him that called himself Griffon. They both wore the scarlet cult attire of the Rosy Dawn Cult.
There was no place in the ci...
2022-08-19 09:17:27 +0000 UTC View Post[PATREON NOTE: This chapter was released to everyone because of the egregious hiatus since the last, but subsequent chapters will be released ahead of time on here. I can’t apologize enough for these last two months, and I can’t thank you all enough either for continuing to support me in spite of that. I appreciate you all, and hope to drown you in words going forward.]
... 2022-08-05 13:02:38 +0000 UTC View PostFigured it would be a good idea to make this a separate post.
I mentioned it in the public forums, but here's the lowdown for you boys: I'm going to be spending the month of June and hopefully no longer than that filling out the backlog here and otherwise posting public chapters once a week as opposed to the usual three.
I've been struggling with productivity recently, and whi...
2022-06-02 02:36:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe Young Griffon
Violence told a story.
The Young Aristocrat of the Raging Heaven Cult stepped into my octagon of swords and immediately moved to end the fight. He didn’t bother shedding his twice-bronzed silks - naturally, he didn’t need a naked fighter’s mobility to beat me. He didn’t wait for my word or the word of a third party to start the match - of c...
2022-06-02 02:27:39 +0000 UTC View Post