Nicodemus in Immortalis Adds a Daily Nicolas Note on Behavioural Corrections

15 October, the year of Our Endless Night.

Nicolas slinks through the galleries again, his eyes darting like a rat’s in the catacombs below. He thinks I do not see, but I see everything. The boy fancies himself sly, pilfering glances at the locked ledgers, fingers twitching towards the silver chains coiled on the altar. Defiance, raw and unrefined, bubbling up from that fractured core of his. He forgets his place, forgets the blood oath that binds him, forgets the lessons etched into his flesh from nights prior.

Correction begins at dawn. I summon him to the chamber of whispers, where the walls drink in screams and give back only echoes. He kneels, as he must, but his jaw sets hard, a muscle leaping under the skin. Words first: reminders of fealty, of the price of wandering eyes. He mutters apologies, but they ring hollow, laced with that petulant fire I so enjoy extinguishing.

The lash comes next, oiled leather singing through the air. Ten strokes across the back, precise, each one landing where the scars from yesterday have just begun to fade. He arches, gasps, but does not beg. Progress, perhaps, or merely the prelude to deeper rebellion. I note the welts rising, crimson blooms against pale marble skin, and press my thumb into the freshest mark. He whimpers then, a sound like breaking glass, and swears renewal. Lies, all of it, but necessary theatre.

By noon, he is leashed at my feet, transcribing the house rolls under my gaze. No more liberties today. The chain is short, the collar tight, a constant reminder that freedom is illusion here. He writes neatly enough now, the quill steady despite trembling hands. Behavioural correction is not mere punishment, it is architecture: rebuilding the flawed vessel stroke by stroke, until obedience is the only shape it knows.

Tomorrow, we shall see if the lesson holds. If not, the altar awaits, and deeper measures. Nicolas learns slowly, but he learns. One day, he will thank me in blood.

Nicodemus

Immortalis Book One August 2026