“Will her weirdly strong connection act in the same way as lunar and solar connections do?” Rana asked.
“The embroidery thing.” Jace added, happy that something he knew finally came up in the conversation.
“Yes, the embroidery thing.” Ava ruffled Jace’s hair before looking at Rana, “That’s certainly possible but there are no records of stellar connections acting in such a way that I know of. Dale, has your cousin mentioned anything similar?”
“You know how he is; you can’t really expect him to sit down and read. The only way he would know anything is if we asked him or it was mentioned in some conversation.”
“Who is his cousin?”
“The number one genius of our generation, he left the village to join one of the larger sects. He’s partially why the village library is so big. We had him bring back which ever texts he was allowed.”
“Sects are organizations, right?” Ava and Dale nodded, “Organizations have goals.” They nodded again. “What is the goal of sects?”
Dale answered, “The specifics depend on the sect, but they generally want to nurture strong individuals, brainwash them and leave the mist bound lands, usually.”
Ava added, “Some are a bit insane and want to nurture strong soldiers and gift them to Tivalia or their flagbearers, whichever accepts them first.”
“They’re insane.”
“Yup.”
“Does Tivalia even need soldiers?”
“Probably not.”
“Whose Tivalia?” Jace finally couldn’t help it.
“A terr-” Nora began.
“Done!” Lora interrupted.
Rana took her hand and started walking towards the door in the next second, “Goodnight, everyone.”
Before she reached the door, she remembered to ask something, “Can Lora stay at my place?”
“Your parents aren’t home so no; I expect Lora here at most two hours before sun rise.”
“Can I stay here then?”
“No.” Jace refused.
“You heard the little guy, so shoo.”
Rana grumbled as she went out the door. Outside she found some kids who lived on this segment that were already going to the meditation grounds. The meditation grounds were on a different section and there were four- and five-year-olds among them so teenagers were needed to watch over them, especially when it comes to crossing the rope bridge. The one person who was guarding the bridge wouldn’t be enough against several kids looking to cause trouble. Also, the first night session is the time when vampires are awake, and the older humans and half-bloods have yet to go to sleep. This made it the perfect time for the day-walkers to meet their night-stalker friends and vice versa. Also, the perfect time to continue yesterday’s arguments and fights when everyone from each team is present. So, the teenagers were also supposed to make sure brawls don’t spiral out of control. Humans and half-bloods would usually go to sleep after meditation and the vampires had to do whatever chores they needed to be out of the house to do or were probably too lazy to do in the daytime.
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Rana dragged Lora to the meditation grounds ignoring everyone else. Since they left everyone else behind, the bridge sentry could easily deal with the two of them. Vinny and Keith were the ones watching them tonight. Since there were more kids to watch over there were always two minders on the first session. Rana greeted them before randomly choosing a spot to sit down. She sat Lora in front of her and started messing with her hair.
“Garden or library after meditation?”
“I’ll be asleep either way, so you choose.”
“Sure, we’ll go to the library so I can read up some things while you take a nap. We’ll skip the next meditation session but I’ll wake you up after that so we can train up our control. We’re weaving with thousands of threads, so we’ll need to be pretty good.”
“If Uncle’s words are true, I have about a month.”
“And I only have a couple of days. Know what, since neither of us needs to form new connections let’s spend this session practicing control.” The rules were everyone should spend at least two hours at the meditation grounds, whether you spent those two hours meditating or not was nobody’s problem as long you didn’t disturb anyone else.
“Consolidating connections is hardest on nights close to the new moon, so that’ll be the best way to spend the time.”
Vinny and Keith officially started the session once there were fifteen kids in the circle. Those were mostly the younger vampires who had their older siblings take them straight here. Everyone who arrived more than a minute after that was officially late and was disrupting the session for others. That was about twenty kids, a number known to be efficient at making it difficult for whichever adult is supposed to discipline them. As long as you aren’t a standout or one of the older ones.
Two hours later, Vinny and Keith ended the session and gathered the kids. The minders were responsible for leading the kids to wherever they needed or wanted to be after meditation. Lora asked they be taken to the library which was on this segment just like everything else that was important for the functioning of the village. The group went to the bridge on the same road as the library, leaving the two girls at the library.
“Hi Mrs Pam,” the two girls greeted the librarian before going to their usual spot where Lora laid down to sleep while Rana went to pick up something to read. After tonight’s conversation she wanted to research sects. After all, according to Dale most of them are trying to find a way out of the mists. A way that probably doesn’t involve sacrificing virgins or heroes. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t interested in seeing what’s beyond the mist with her own eyes. Tonight, she wanted to find out if she should consider joining a sect in the future and if so, which one.
The texts in the library were all beast skin parchment. Paper was too expensive and while rock slabs were great in the long-term, it was impractical for everyday use. Each stack of parchment discussed the same topic, and it was written in the bottom what each stack was about. She looked for the one about sects and took the five parchments on top and went back to their spot and started to read.