A Question of Tine - 1. What Was and Will Be

In the Templar Hall, only the Keeper of Souls knew the origin of each boy. These records were kept secret until such a time that the Templars needed to know. This allowed no favoritism to develop between Templars and boys of certain provinces, and allowed each boy to rise above his lowly origins with no related stigma.

When a boy chose to serve as a Templar, the Keeper of Souls placed that boy’s records in the Templar Archives where they remained until one of three things happened: the Templar died, the Templar chose to serve an Imperial, or the Templar retired. If the Templar died, his records remained sealed, forever unknown. If he retired, the Keeper of Souls turned the records over to the Templar to do with as he would. If a Templar chose to serve an Imperial or if an Imperial chose an unranked boy, the Keeper of Souls burned those records unread.

Due to this custom, the Keeper of Souls remained blissfully unaware of Tine’s mysterious appearance in the northernmost province on the field of battle after a skirmish between the province and the highly volatile tribe of Zaggurnauts who lived in the northern mountains. Nor would anyone wonder how a child could come to the Templars without so much as a name to call his own. As the parchment burned, the Keeper of Souls tidied up the rest of his library, thus he missed the curled sigil that formed from the rising smoke, a warding and a warning to all of the times to come.

However, the warning did not pass entirely unnoticed. For far to the north, in the mountains that ride the rim of the world, men watched and waited while raising up a generation of warriors in preparation for the battle yet to come.