Rainbow Snippets is a group for LGBTQ+ authors, bloggers, and readers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation (no spoilers please!). Check out all the other awesome snippets by clicking on the picture above.
Looks like I’ll be posting from Book Five of the Academy of the Accord for a while. It’s a fantasy series that I have been (and will be) working on for forever.
A bit of background on the characters in this snippet for those new to the series.
Kordelm and Wellhym are warriors, captains at the Academy, and lovers.
Draethlen is 10 years old, and is a new cadet at the academy. Marsden (the commander of the garrison at the academy) rescued him from an orphanage where he was sexually abused by the headmaster.
(This book is my current edition of editing hell, so… squint.)
Skipping ahead some from last week. Kordelm and Wellhym have given Draethlen a sword lesson and a demonstration in hand-to-hand combat that ended with the two of them in a wrestling match) and they are now heading for the bathhouse. Draethlen is frightened about undressing.
Wordlessly, Draethlen nodded and slowly unbuckled his sword belt, adding it to the shelves with the other weapons; as he sat down to take off his boots it was all he could do not to shake.
“Drae, listen to me.” He looked up to find Wellhym kneeling in front him so that their eyes were level. “Marsden is going to kill me for telling you this, but he filled us in a bit on what happened to you, on what the Headmaster made you do.”
Draethlen felt waves of shame break over him and he looked down.
“No, Drae, look at me.”
Startled by the unexpected tone of command in Wellhym’s voice, Draethlen looked up.
“What he did to you was wrong. But it was his wrong, not yours. Do you understand that?”
Novel Notes 
Such a touchingly paternal moment…one can tell Wellhym really cares.
I am blessed and can’t imagine being on either side of this equation. Very moving. Thank you for sharing. Be well and Happy Writing!
Ah bless, So wise.
Aw… poor lad.
Poor thing. Good to have someone in his corner.
Poor kid and that last statement is so important for him to understand.
Poor kid. I hope he can take that to heart. 💕
That is such an important point to understand… Well done. I’m liking Wellhym already.
Sometimes we need to hear this, repeatedly.