Chapter 14: The Lire

The days stretched into weeks. The weeks into months. They trained. They sparred. They ate. They learned new tricks, and skills. Eventually, winter came again. With it came the falling snow, coveting the grounds in the finest white. And with the snow came blizzards common to the realm.

No one spoke of the children who did not return from the Test of the lost. They were not forgotten. But they were never mentioned, as if by some unspoken rule among the boys of the seminary.

A new set of children trooped in not long after the test. They brought with them a sense of growth. Sethlzaar and his mates were finally free of the putrid chores of the fort, most especially the chore of cleaning out the latrines.

The new children looked so young, and so small. Sethlzaar wondered if he had looked like they did when he'd first arrived and how exactly he had survived the seminary for so long. Soon, they would grow out of it, just as he