The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) Read Free

sleeping. A vision
from God telling him that what he was doing was wrong. The looking,
the touching. Wren didn't know much of religion, but she knew
enough to believe that sometimes, maybe if you were lucky, God
would save you.
    God could help you if you were broken.
    “I wasn't supposed to be out
and I won't do it again,” Wren said through chattering teeth. “I
went to check on the horses and got curious about the forest.” It
was only a partial lie. She had initially been going out to see if she could
muster the courage to harm one of the horses. She hadn't been able
to do so and had gone farther afield, looking for a smaller
target.
    “Ya look like yer mother,” her father said,
hanging the lantern on a hook on the wall. His eyes were sad as he
came to her bedside, gripping at the ends of the horse blanket.
    It was now she truly saw the look in his
eyes and smelled the alcohol on him.
    “Please don't,” she said, her throat
tightening. She had been a fool to think it would end. That was why
she hated herself the most.
    Her weakness couldn't hold him back. He
picked at the places that held her armor together, and the blanket
came undone.
    He'll touch and leave.
    Wren's flesh stood cold with goosebumps. She
stared at the ceiling, fixating on a point - on anything but what
was going on in this room. Her first reaction was confusion as her
father lowered himself onto her. She felt him part her legs and
then felt something much more horrible.
    Everything went blank.
     

Chapter 2 – A Man of Few Words
     
-1-
     
    C rack!
    The whip fell hard against Otom Aldenburg's
back. He willed himself to not cry out. He took his punishment
silently as the lashes echoed in the stone room. The walls of this
place were covered in beautiful murals, painted by some of the most
talented artists Otom had ever known. All of Raath might have known
them if the world had cared to look this far up in the bitter,
frozen north.
    Crack!
    His bare skin was cold. It was always cold
in the north. The biting winds flung snow and ice through the air
almost every day of the year. Otom always told himself that if a
Southerner moved up here he would die within a few days, unable to
handle the bitterness of the climate. This island in particular was
frigid. The wind whipped west, driven by some maniacal force that
was hellbent on flattening everything in its path.
    Crack!
    Otom drew upon a tiny string of power within
and Calmed himself. It wasn't something he liked to do too often.
Punishment should be taken without the need to use magic on
yourself, but Otom was feeling vulnerable today. Normally the whip
didn't bother him this much. Normally he could withstand it, but
today was different. Today was the anniversary of his failure.
    Crack!
    That was the last stroke he could handle
right now. He stood up and placed the whip in the drawer of a
simple wooden table. That table and the small bed next to it were
some of his only possessions. He had built them himself from the
wood of the tall pines that grew near the Monastery.
    He tucked his wool pants back into the tops
of his fur-lined boots, then grabbed a brown robe from a peg on the
wall and secured it around himself with a rope belt. Otom turned
and kindled his Fire, letting the magic flow from his hands to the
hearth. Life could be arduous for a Monk, but Otom would never
complain about being able to create his own Fire. It burned in the
hearth, the flames a physical manifestation of the power within
him.
    He had sacrificed his world and gained that
power.
     
-2-
     
    O tom
sat on the edge of his bed with his eyes closed, recovering from
his flagellation, which he had not technically completed for the
day. He would have to come back to it later. For now, however, he
needed a moment to reflect and then he had an appointment to
make.
    His room was one of the biggest in the
Kilgane Monastery, with decorated walls, eight foot ceilings, and
an ornate fireplace. At least, ornate for Otom's current