The study was, as studies should be, utterly quiet. Dim light filtered in through a dusty window, competing weakly with the array of candles and oil lamps. As always a faint and undefinable odor clung to the air.

Jathos perched on a stool in the corner, knobby knees jutting out from tattered robes, “I could feel it, you know, the hand of the Almighty.”

“Was that before or after you felt the courtyard at your posterior,” Ortho teased without looking up from his dissection.

“Before,” his friend muttered, a pouting look crossing his youthful face.

“A mote more caution,” Ortho mused, “and you might feel a bit less wrath from the High Council.”

Jathos straightened, “There are those of the council who appreciate my exhuberance.”

“There are those what would see you hanged.”

Jathos had no answer for that. There was no answer for that. The High Council ran the kingdom, lock, stock, and barrel. He’d faced them before, multiple times. Ortho had not, yet he still seemed to always have a better sense of it.