I loved it. A completely new take on the Aram-Varice-Ozorne triangle. I like your sarcastic, worldly Varice, your Ozorne who tries to intimidate and bribe Aram and steals his girlfriend in revenge, and Aram, who stands up for himself and is just crazy enough to go for his Black Robe. Poor Varice, caught between the two of them. And your description of Aram training for his Black Robe-- gah! Awesome. --Imo

It's good, very good. It painted a very realistic love-hate relationship between Arram and Ozorne, based on what you wrote, I can completely imagine how that led to the events that happened afterwards.

I especially like the bird chorus...it was really random, but tied it in somehow.

wow. very, very good. Interesting, because I usuall don't read the Arram-before-he-was-Numair stories, but this was extremely well done.. I expecially liked his dreams of curly hair and blue eyes, that was very clever.

Favourite lines:
'[...]We Northerners don't give up our achievements to imperial whim."
"Don't talk to me like I was Carthaki," Varice retorted. "You mages. You're all the same."
"Don't talk like you're not a mage,"[...]'

Since... :
... I didn't expect anything like it. There's more of it later but these are the first lines that surprised me
... Varice's retort is sharp and her character is not too one-sided

To me, it's a bit much that he has those blue eyed saltwater dreams. It would have to be Gainel sending a message or some other god sending a message through the God of Dreams? And seeing what we get to know about the gods in the wild magic books I'd say that no god, including Daine's father, or especially not him, would feel the need to prepare Arram for what might possibly be coming. ?