Chapter 0.12 [The Littlest Kyrios]

Chapter 0.12 [The Littlest Kyrios]

There was something wrong with his cousin.

Objectively, Myron knew that Lio had always been an agitator. His earliest memories of his cousin were acts of defiance- Lio had a bad habit of giving credit only when credit was due, and that naturally grated on some of the older mystikos. It had led to more than one senior attempting to educate the Young Aristocrat in the early days when he was still refining his virtue, unerringly to their detriment.

But his attitude had always been tempered by a noble restraint, an unspoken acknowledgement that he was the one and only son of Damon Aetos and with that came responsibilities. Lio did what was expected of him. He excelled. And he knew that he could get away with things that others couldn’t as a result.

Since the initiation rites, though, something had changed. It was a small thing. If asked, Myron wouldn’t know how to describe it. But it was there. And it was growing by the day.

“Your mind is wandering.” The cousin in question poked his forehead. Myron flinched. He hated when he did that!

“It is not!” he denied, though it surely had been.

They were meditating in the courtyard, among the filial pools and the statues of the cult’s past kyrioi. Lio had offered to give him a few pointers, seemingly on a whim, the day before. Myron had made a big show of deliberating heavily on the offer, not wanting to be teased for his excitement, but something told him he’d been seen through. Even without the allure of advancing his cultivation, Lio knew he’d never let slip an opportunity to spend time with his older cousin.

“Perhaps we’ve been at it too long,” Lio mused, glancing up. The sun had been newly risen when they started. It was at its zenith now. “Let’s call it a day-”

“No!”

Myron flushed, cursing himself for the outburst. Lio considered him with that scarlet-eyed amusement that all of his cousins despised. It was a look that made you feel like an ant making demands of a lion. It was a look backed by arrogance that, somehow, had not once been humbled in seventeen years of life. The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

It was also, according to Lydia, maddeningly attractive. She’d always been a little strange when it came to him.

“I can keep going,” Myron said, firming his posture and inhaling deeply. Lio chuckled, resuming his own meditative stance- though calling it that was an insult to the elders, really. He’d simply draped himself over the stone rim of one of the filial pools, head resting on the crook of his elbow as he circulated his pneuma.

Pneuma was the vital life force that fueled cultivation. It was virtue made manifest, and ultimately, its refinement was what drove cultivators. Each realm of cultivation, from civic to tyrannic, further refined the soul into something approaching divinity. Each realm revealed to the cultivator a new aspect of their soul, something always known but from birth forgotten. The refinement of that new element was key to ascending to the next realm. And so it went.

To enter the Civic Realm one had to first become aware of their soul. Manipulating your pneuma was impossible if you couldn’t see it, feel it, or sense it in your blood. While every living thing possessed pneuma, that knowledge alone was not enough to make one aware of their own vital breath.

Myron had discovered his pneuma while riding on his father’s shoulders, watching his oldest cousin set sail across the Ionian Sea with tears in his eyes. The Aetos family had all been present at the docks to see him off, even Lio and Uncle Damon. In that moment, the salty sea breeze filling his lungs and sorrow making his heart clench, Myron had realized exactly what the Aetos family was. He’d realized, dimly, the space he occupied within it. And that had been enough.

“Because-” Myron struggled to formulate an answer to a question that should have been common sense. He was being teased, wasn’t he? That was just like Lio. Still, he answered. “Because you’re the Young Aristocrat! You represent the Rosy Dawn, but more than that, you represent Uncle Damon. If you lose it’ll look bad on him.”

“Why should my father’s reputation matter to me?” Lio asked curiously. There was an undercurrent of something in his voice. Myron frowned, uneasy.

“Because you’re his son.”

He didn’t know how else to explain it.

“I’m his son,” Lio mused, running a hand through his wild blond mane. It had long been a subject of gossip that the Young Aristocrat shared none of his father’s defining features. Damon Aetos’ dark curls and blue eyes were nowhere to be seen in Lio. His stoic glare was something his son had never cared to mimic.

But every so often, the heir to the kyrios did something that left no doubt as to his parentage. And as Lio turned away from him to look upon the statue of their ancestor, standing in its filial pool, his stance was its mirror image.

“I am his son,” Lio said, almost to himself. “And I am a part of the Rosy Dawn, aren’t I?”

“We all are,” Myron said hesitantly. His cousin hummed.

“I suppose I have no choice but to win.”

Myron clenched and unclenched his fists. He wasn’t sure what to say.

It didn’t matter. Whatever Lio had been deliberating on, he found his answer.

Myron watched, stunned, as his cousin stepped into the filial pool and walked through its sacred waters. He stood nose-to-nose with the marble statue, looking it up and down. And then he reached up around its neck and undid the clasp of its golden chain necklace. The pendant, a radiant scarlet gem, flashed where the sunlight touched it.

“What-?” Myron whispered in horror. His cousin clasped the necklace around his own neck and strode out of the pool. He looked pleased.

“I won’t be training for the games, cousin, but worry not.” Lio ruffled his hair, and for once Myron didn’t have the presence of mind to shake him off. The Young Aristocrat grinned fiercely.

“I’ll win them regardless."