The Halls of the House

After my exaltation, many things were different. I may have Exalted a bit later than was expected for one of my lineage, but my ancestry was unquestioned now, especially in light of how I'd put down Ledaal Kutulu, who already was an exalted son of Mela.

My squadmates, who had borne themselves somewhat aloof were gradually getting to know me better and vise versa. The bond that the House forces upon its members certainly unified us, and I made sure to take the lessons to heart. A team was only as strong as its weakest member, and I did my best to make sure that all of our squad excelled. Cathak Syrle Rae took the captain's position of the squad, and I took up the position of second in command.

But team-based trials were hardly the only thing that faced me in the House. As one of the leading instructors, Tepet Chaio was a harsh mistress. She was honorable and certainly very demanding of all Tepet cadets in the House of Bells. But somehow, the strength and patience of the Earth managed to sustain me, and I applied my rather prodigious ability to studying the methods of war, especially that which deal with unit tactics on the field and in strategic planning.

While initially I found great difficulty in keeping up with the extra load, I managed to keep up with the pace somehow, thanks to a charm I managed to learn from one of my other Tepet savant relatives during the summer. Many times my theoretical knowledge proved useful, at times it didn't. But I was certainly putting into application many things learned from history, field manuals and other tactical treatises.

And so that was how things were: in the House I was pressed and honed into a commander and leader of the Legions. During the summers, I was put into the new ventures of Tepet as we sought to acquire more power in non-military means, learning the ins and outs of business and governance, all the while trying to keep up with learning how to fight with a daiklave and hammered with the value of growth and knowledge.

As time went on, I found myself too busy to think of Cynara too much, and she gradually slipped from the front of my mind. It was a sad state of things, though I never quite did forget about her, she became a phantom in my memories of a good time that had by now passed into shadow.