The tyrant riot, p.1
The Tyrant Riot, page 1
part #2 of Virtuous Sons Series
THE TYRANT RIOT
Virtuous Sons
Book 2
Y.B. STRIKER
First published by Timeless Wind Publishing LLC 2023
Copyright © 2023 by Y. B. Striker
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Y.B. Striker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
Editing by Silas Sontag and Lorne Ryburn
Cover art by Macarious. Typography by Christian Bentulan
For my ravings ones
Contents
Recap of Book 1
Prologue: The Little Kyrios
Act 1: Closed Door Cultivation
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Act 2: The Brothers Aetos
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Act 3: The Orphic House
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Afterword
About the Author
About Timeless Wind Publishing
Groups
Recap of Book 1
Lio “Griffon” Aetos is the young heir to the Rosy Dawn Cult, where he provokes his teachers and other initiates out of boredom. His father, Damon Aetos, a cultivator of the fourth—Tyrannic—Realm, rules the Scarlet City with an iron fist.
Things change when Griffon meets Sol, a slave from the lost city of Rome, who makes him question everything he thought he knew about the outside world. When Griffon’s cousin Nikolas returns to the cult having ascended to the Heroic Realm, his jealousy and bitterness over his obligations only grows. Griffon and Sol goad one another into casting off their respective shackles and escape the Scarlet City together. Griffon’s younger cousins attempt to stop them, along with the elder Philosophers of the cult, but they fail. Griffon ascends to the second realm, joining Sol in the Realm of Philosophers, and they sail away on the Eos, his family’s ship.
Griffon and Sol reach the sanctuary city of Olympia, home to the Raging Heaven Cult, where they find the city in mourning over the death of the Raging Heaven’s kyrios. They meet six Heroic cultivators and are soon drawn into the brewing crisis of succession as the Tyrannic elders of the cult make shadow plays for power using assassins known as Crows.
Griffon and Sol fight back and defeat several of the Crows, consuming the starlight marrow of the assassins. They manage to steal some power from the Tyrants behind the Crows, nearly dying in the process. Donning their stolen shadows, Griffon and Sol become Ravens, resolving to stand against the Crows and the Tyrants behind them.
Their circle of Heroes can’t believe that Griffon and Sol would do something so dangerous, and begin to suspect the duo are hiding their true powers and motives. Griffon and Sol try to recruit the Heroes to their cause, with varying degrees of success.
Among the Heroes that join them are Kyno, the Heroic Huntsman who wears peculiar crocodile coat; Jason, the Hero of the Alabaster Isles who lost his crew and ship to the same demonic cultivators that destroyed Rome; Elissa, the quick-tempered and scar-laced Sword Song Heroine; and Anastasia, a mysterious marble beauty and healer with her own hidden past.
The two Heroes that don’t join them are Scythas and Lefteris. Scythas is called upon by Aleuas, the Tyrant of the Howling Wind Cult, who orders Scythas to capture Griffon and Sol for killing his Crows, threatening Scythas’ family if he does not comply. Meanwhile, Lefteris is the guardian of two young boys with a cursed past, whom he has sworn to protect and does not wish to put in danger.
Their actions are noticed by the Tyrant elders, and also by the late kyrios’ closest confidant—the Gadfly, Socrates. Socrates admonishes them for meddling with affairs above their station. They try to stand against the old Philosopher, but the man exhibits powers and abilities that exceed his realm.
Socrates throws Griffon into the Storm That Never Ceases above Olympia, where he encounters the statues of the oracles and is pursued by lightning hounds. He faces tribulation and refines his virtue of Justice, ascending to the second rank of the Sophic Realm.
Meanwhile, Socrates realizes that Sol is the student of his own student—Aristotle. The old Philosopher decides to take on Sol and finish his student’s work. He takes Sol into the late kyrios’ private quarters, where Sol finds Selene, the young Heroic Oracle and daughter of Polyzalus, the Tyrant of the Burning Dusk. Viewing the language-shifting shard of Babylon, Sol discovers he has split foundations, part Roman and part Greek.
Socrates visits the Tyrant Polyzalus in his domain, where the elder is caring for his unconscious wife. The Tyrant wants to kill Griffon and Sol for meddling with his schemes, but Socrates tells him they are under his tutelage and protection.
Scythas sneaks into the late kyrios’ quarters, but instead of killing Sol, he confesses to his part in the Tyrant’s plans. He pledges to stand with Sol against the Tyrants.
Meanwhile, Griffon returns from the immortal storm crown, to the Heroes’ incredulity. He asks Anastasia to instruct him in the art of medicine and receives a message from Sol explaining that he is studying under Socrates. Griffon writes back, promising to punch Socrates in the throat the next time they meet.
Prologue: The Little Kyrios
The first day after Lio left the Rosy Dawn was the longest, and the most difficult. There were tears, anguish, and above all else, a horrible fear for their cousin. After that first day, they stifled their tears and hid their anguish, putting the fear aside as best they could. The second day was not any easier, but it passed. As did the third day.
Somehow, they made it through the first week. And then, in no time at all, the second. The third.
It helped to have a goal.
Myron ducked beneath a senior mystiko’s strike, the wooden practice blade whistling over his head. From an early age he had been taught to leverage every advantage that his body provided, no matter how old he happened to be or what size his body was. Against an opponent like this, nearly twice his height, his stature allowed him to dodge certain attacks more easily. His speed allowed him to maneuver through the older cultivator’s guard.
Child or not, he still carried the strength of a seventh rank Civic cultivator within his soul. Myron spun into the opposing cultivator’s guard rather than away from his sword, and drove every ounce of his momentum along with the full force of his pneuma into an elbow kidney shot.
The senior cultivator, an eighteen-year-old in the sixth rank of the Civic Realm, dropped his practice blade and collapsed, wheezing. Myron caught it out of the air and tossed it from hand to hand, changing grips until it felt comfortable enough to use. The opponent before this one had fought with his fists, so Myron had done the same upon beating him. Now, he would try the blade.
“This lowly sophist thanks you for your guidance,” he said formally, bowing to the gasping mystiko. He offered him a hand.
The mystiko took it and rose, still holding his side. “And I thank the little lord for his instruction.” Myron rolled his eyes at the nickname. The older cultivator chuckled, clapping his shoulder and staggering out of the marble octagon.
Myron turned to regard the gymnasiarch and his audience, a collection of boys his age as well as older cultivators that had lingered first out of curiosity, and then for the novel prospect of trading discourse with a young pillar of the Rosy Dawn. He waved invitingly, and after a moment another young man with his arms and hands wrapped in scarlet bandages took to the octagon.
The gymnasiarch leaned his elbows on the edge of the octagon, the upraised platform standing nearly at chest height for a grown man. He raised an eyebrow at Myron.
“
He mastered his impatience, brushed damp curls of hair from his eyes. He nodded firmly.
“I’ll be fine, sir.”
He’d only fought a couple dozen times so far, and early on most had been boys his own age. Uninspiring opponents, if he was being honest with himself, though he hadn’t said that to their faces. They had given him all they had and didn’t deserve such a blow to the ego.
Myron could keep going. Myron had to keep going. He knew that Lio could have fought this entire gymnasium without faltering—and he would have won every time.
“I offer my greetings to the little lord,” his opponent said, bowing his head deeply. Myron rolled the wooden blade in his hand and nodded.
“Raise your head and greet the dawn.”
His opponent flashed him a grin and they both erupted into violence.
A minute later, maybe two, the older cultivator flew off the side of the marble octagon, a straight thrust—one that would have skewered him through the heart if it had been a live iron blade—instead pushing him firmly out of bounds. Myron caught the leading edge of the wrap on his right hand as he went, unraveling it from the cultivator’s arm and wrapping it around his own. He tossed the practice blade aside.
“My thanks,” he said again. He exchanged some polite words with the mystiko, who seemed caught between indignation and amusement, before turning once again to regard his audience.
Cultivation was the sum of lived experiences. Lio and Sol had told him that almost a year ago, and it had been exactly what he’d needed to learn at the time. Now he found himself falling back on that advice, seeking out new opponents, new weapons, new styles of fighting.
Whatever it took, he would do it. Lio had shown him the difference between them on the night of Nikolas’ wedding. If they wanted to bring him back, Myron would have to bridge that gap.
But they were so weak.
“Cousin,” a deep, concerned voice spoke out some time later, breaking him from a trance he hadn’t noticed himself slipping into. Myron panted for breath, dragging a hand down his face and coming away with so much sweat it was as if he’d dipped it in a pool. At his feet, two cultivators in the fourth and fifth ranks of the Civic Realm lay crumpled and beaten.
Myron looked at the blunt daggers in his hands, each forged of rounded bronze and dented by the impacts of his attacks. They clattered against the surface of the marble octagon as he knelt to help his opponents to their feet.
Only once they were shuffling off to the baths on the other side of the gymnasium, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders for support, did Myron turn and greet his cousin.
“Niko.”
“How long have you been at this?” the new Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn asked, approaching with a frown. Junior initiates hurriedly parted from his path, gazing with naked admiration at the sight of a truly heroic body. Niko still had a tunic wrapped around his waist, but he made for an impressive sight nonetheless. Myron sized him up, compared his cousin’s physique to Lio’s, and then to his own.
His father had always said that the body was a divine reflection of the soul. That every chiseled muscle was the work of countless hours in the gymnasium and on the battlefield. Lio had the physique of someone who had put in far more hours than Myron, who had cultivated in earnest for longer than Myron had been alive. Niko was a level beyond even that.
Niko waved a hand in front of his face. Myron blinked, realizing that his mind had been wandering. How long had he been in the octagon, anyway?
He glanced at the gymnasiarch. The old man shook his head in stern disapproval.
To Niko, the old man said, “He’s been here since this morning.”
“This morning—Myron, it’s nearly dinner time.” Niko’s concern redoubled. Far behind him, Myron spotted his cousin’s male companions, currently in the process of bathing while initiates of the Rosy Dawn drifted around and worked up the courage to speak to them.
“I’m fine,” he said belatedly. His limbs felt heavy and weak, and he still hadn’t quite caught his breath, but he could keep going. Griffon would have kept going.
This much was nothing.
“I think you’re done for the day,” Niko said, not unkindly, and held out a hand. “Come on, let’s get you washed up and fed. I don’t have any obligations for a few hours; how about I tell you a story of my time in the Alabaster Isles?”
“Not yet.” Myron grit his teeth. “I’m not finished yet.”
Those clear blue flames behind his cousin’s eyes flickered. He considered Myron, seriously, and that meant more to Myron than he could put into words. It was why he had always looked up to Lio and Niko so much. Even when he was no cultivator at all, they had never treated him like a child.
“When will it be enough?” Niko asked him, in that heavy tone of voice that meant there was more than one thing being said. In the privacy of his own thoughts, Myron called it the Lio voice.
Myron gathered up his daggers of blunted bronze, squaring his shoulders. “It’ll be enough when I’ve grown.”
Niko smiled ruefully. “No. It won’t.”
“Just one more, then,” Myron pressed. “One more fight and I’ll take a bath.”
Niko exchanged a glance with the gymnasiarch, and Myron silently pleaded with his eyes for the old man to agree. After a long moment he sighed and shook his head, scratching at a long gray beard.
“He’s got enough left for one,” he allowed.
Niko nodded. “One more, then. Who will face the young terror?”
He glanced around, his good humor turning to puzzlement when no one raised a hand. He looked over the mystikos of the Rosy Dawn, following their shocked gazes all the way back to Myron.
Back to the finger Myron was pointing at his cousin.
“Nikolas Aetos,” he said in his most demanding voice. He would have pitched it deeper, but people tended to smile when he did that. “Step into the marble octagon with me.”
Someone laughed.
His cousin got the strangest look on his face.
After the first initiate laughed, the rest of the crowd was soon to follow. There wasn’t any cruel intent behind it, Myron could tell, but it still made his teeth grind. This was the reality of things. This was how far his cousin was above him, that the suggestion of a fight alone was laughable.
Over at the baths, his cousin’s companions leaned on the edge of the pools and put their hands around their mouths, calling out to them both.
“Someone’s finally called you out, Niko!”
“Your hubris ends tonight!”
“Send him to Tartarus, little lord!”
Taunts and jeers flew throughout the gymnasium, drawing the eyes of those that hadn’t already been watching. The crowd grew. Myron ignored them all, ignored his exhaustion, and continued to steadily point. He met Niko’s eyes without hesitation.
Finally, just when he had begun to doubt himself, his cousin nodded and jumped up onto the octagon. The gymnasium erupted in cheers, boys and men alike rushing over to watch the spectacle up close. Only Niko’s companions remained in the baths, content to heckle and watch from afar with their Heroic senses.
The gymnasiarch frowned severely, staring hard at Niko. Myron’s oldest cousin settled into a stance across from him, taking up the wooden practice sword that Myron had dropped several fights ago.
