Role

Chapter 4

Sighing to himself, Unalethekai leaned back against the reef, the sharp coral
going unnoticed through the layers of armor he wears day and night.

Jern. The young minstrel. Barely 18, and already a sworn Bloodoath of the
Empire. Unalethekai had spent the better part of a day with the lad, who had
come upon the Cardinal as he was striking the killing blow on the Imperial
Vanquisher, reclaiming the radiant crystal orb once again. Unalethekai
sensed something in him, some glitter of innocence beneath the layers of
propaganda already piling on top of the child like excrement in a latrine.

Jern's story was all too common. Oldest son of a drunken father and a mother
who worked herself to death trying to support the family. Forced to grow up
too soon, to take care of his young brother and sister, with nothing but the
harsh lessons of a mother turned hard and cold by necessity.

Unalethekai tried to explain how Jern would be turning his brother and sister
into monsters in order to keep them from becoming victims. How the price for
order and prosperity need not be paid with your eternal soul. He spoke of the
light, of family, and did his best to fan the tiny ember of hope that still
burned in Jern. Drawing on his faith, he tied in his own deep reverence for
his ancestors, and tried to relate to what Jern felt......

But the lad, perhaps by necessity, had become closed off. He needed to, in
order to protect himself emotionally from his abusive father. A product of
violence, he would only beget more violence.


Unalethekai shook his head, fingering the mantle of the Cardinal that hung
about his neck, floating in the water before him. He wouldn't give up on the
child. If he had learned anything, it was that there is always hope. Few
souls are so polluted as to be beyond saving. Few men were as well equipped
to save them as he was, Storm be Praised.