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| - Often, depending on the season, cadets were called on to perform one of the thousand or so chores that the college needed done to function properly.
- While each house ate and slept in its own hall, cadets continued to train together, two different ten-commands at a time under whatever randon or sergeant was best suited to teach them.
- Behind [Old Tentir], surrounding a hollow square, was New Tentir, the college proper. While the nine major houses had once dwelt in similar barracks, changes in house size and importance over the centuries had allowed some to seize space from their smaller neighbors. When they could no longer expand outward, they had built upward. The result from this vantage point was an uneven roofline of diverse heights and pitches, rather like a snaggle-toothed jaw.
- The college itself stood well back on the stone toes of the Snowthorns. Old Tentir, the original fortress, looked as solid as ever. It was a massive three-story high block of gray stone, slotted with dark windows above the first floor, roofed with dark blue slate. As if as an afterthought, spindly watch towers poked up from each corner. To the outer view at least, it was arguably the least imaginative structure in the Riverland.
- Following breakfast and assembly, there were four two-hour lessons—half before lunch, half after—then a free period, then supper. Evenings were spent studying, mending gear, or attending to other house business.
- Sometimes, after a particularly dismal lesson or because an instructor had had an especially bad day, a ten-command was obliged to repeat a class far into the night.
- Do you swear to obey the rules of Tentir? To guard its honor as closely as you do your own? To go out and come in, to live or to die, as you are bid? To protect its secrets now and forever, from all and sundry, whatever should befall?
- Every seventh day they were free to do whatever they pleased.
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