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gods-bound · 2 years

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Half-Light, Half-Life - Chapter 9

“- Lannius, of the Sixth Circle of Scholars. Neurn, of House Seraes. Emaeril, of the second division of the Fadelit scholars-" Again and again, names are called, the voice of the Keeper's adjunct ringing over the room, scholars standing one by one. Elreith waits there, with her head bowed, hand clenched tight in her lap, tensing at every breath between names, hoping, praying, that the next one to be called will be hers.

Fifty candidates selected, and the adjunct is at twenty three now, and Elreith's heart is clenched so tightly in her chest that it feels like it might burst. Another name is called and the scholar next to her rises, stumbling to his feet with a slightly dazed look in his eyes.

Please, Elreith prays, her throat tight, hands threatening to tremble. Please, please, please.

"- Vasseryn, of House Caetheira. Baelrith, scholar of the Second Tower. Tryphenic, of House Halaena -" Sixteen names left now, fifteen, fourteen, and Elreith's palms have started to sweat. She clenches them more tightly in the fabric of her dress, and forces her breathing even, maintaining her breathing through sheer force of will.

Eleven names now, ten, nine, deep breath in, deep breath out, eight, seven, six. Elreith has never prayed properly to the Nightfather, not like her mother used to, singing his songs in the dead of night when the stars are out and the moons are up. She wishes she had now. She wishes she hadn't let those songs fade and turn silent on her tongue, that she had sung them every night like her mother used to, praying to the ancient father of their people.

Nightdaughter they call her, but she hasn't been a faithful daughter, not really. Please, Elreith pleads, begging to that ancient god, that kindly deity that looks upon her people with such love, father to every one of them. And how ungrateful a thing it is, to pray only now, in her moment of need, but Elreith can't help it.

Please, she begs, again and again and again, saying it like a mantra. And maybe it doesn't matter if no one is listening, she's saying it for her, for herself, she's listening. It will have to be enough. Please, please-

Four names now, three, two and - "Leyard, of House Lumeria," the adjunct calls, this the final name, and Elreith's eyes are fixed on the floor, her breath still in her chest. No, she thinks desperately. No, no, no-

But the adjunct is still talking, voice like the grind of stone on stone. "Each name has been listed in order of ascending score, ranked by performance, which leads us to our final selection - a fifty-first candidate chosen, awarded the distinction for having achieving the highest score seen in the trials of the proving in three hundred and sixty five years-"

- and Elreith's breath is catching in her chest, her heart stilling, frozen between breaths as she inhales, because the adjunct's gaze has turned to fix on her and -

"- Elreith, of the third Towercast division, stand."

For a second, there is only white noise in Elreith's head, a high whine which wails through her ears, fading in and out. Her body moves almost of her own accord, rising gracefully to her feet, and then she's standing there, eyes rising to meet the veiled gaze of the adjunct, even as all the scholars of the hall turn to stare. She can see the moment they take her in - the servant's black of her dress, the Nightdaughter black of her skin, the way their shock turns to something like disbelief, eyes going wide.

Elreith barely feels their gazes, her eyes fixed on the adjunct, who inclines their head, their gaze a shadow behind the silvered fall of their veil. Her heart is thundering in her chest, so hard and fast that it feels like it's going to break free of her ribs, and yet her hands are still at her sides. She stands there, her back straight, her head held high, and when the grey-veiled aids standing by the walls sweep forward one by one to begin handing out the scrolls of virtue, Elreith is the first to receive one.

The aid bows as they place it into her hands, the scroll a strangely heavy thing for a mere thing of silk and paper and metal, her fingers closing around it. Her hands almost tremble holding it - it's a beautiful thing, black silk embroidered with flowering patterns of gold, and within it is the promise of an entire new world. Elreith's name, noted alongside recognition of her merits and signed with the Keeper of the Tower's own seal, final written proof of it - of her selection, her merit, her worthiness.

The highest scholars of Ai'Vaerin could study for a lifetime, and never get the chance to even catch a glimpse of one, and here it sits within Elreith's hands, bearing her name. She feels lightheaded.

Elreith barely notices as the rest of the scrolls are awarded, each aid bowing one by one and handing the chosen scholars their scrolls. Only when the last scroll has been given does the adjunct speak again. "Those that stand here before us - know this, your virtue has been marked, your names noted, forever to be inscribed in Ai'Vaerin's history. You are seen and known, and the light of your endeavors will bring the dawn of Vaelthran's enlightenment to an even finer glow."

"Advance and take the final step," the adjunct says, their voice the rustle of dead leaves in the wind, "and no that there is no return."

The aid before Elreith bows again then, and sweeps out one hand, beckoning her to follow as they turn, beginning to sweep away. This is the last moment to change her mind, Elreith knows. To take the proving and prove her worth is one thing, to become one of the selected and embark on the transition to become one of the divine bodies, transcending the boundary between life and death, becoming one a being of the immortal realm so that she may forever serve and study beneath the Blessed Ones themselves is another thing entirely.

Elreith doesn't hesitate. When the aid sweeps forth, Elreith follows. She feels the eyes of the scholars on her as she passes, walking before the gathered rows of them, the quiet sounds of her footsteps echoing in the great chamber. Standing and kneeling scholars alike, selected and selected, watch her pass, their eyes following her as she passes before them - the last to be chosen, the first to be led out, given highest honor above all of them, and there's a satisfaction in it, to feeling their eyes on her as she walks before them, head held high and strides even. It beats in her chest, a warm and victorious thing, threatening to expand between her ribs, spilling out of her.

Eyes meet her's for a split second as she passes - the scholar in green, the man from the Convex, his dark eyes meeting her's with something like resentment, with something like shock. Elreith walks right past him, and doesn't look at him as she does, passing him without even a glance.

The aid leads her from the hall, and Elreith doesn't look back.

The chamber she's led to is cool and quiet, all dark stone and flickering torchlight. It's one in a long line of chambers, the walls between them cut of filigreed stone, patterns casting shadows where the green braziers shine in the long hall beyond, filtering through the gaps in the stonework. If asked, Elreith couldn't tell you if it had taken minutes or hours to walk there, following silently behind the aid's whispering train of silk as they went up and up and up, following the grand stairs of the spire higher and higher.

There'd been a certain point, Elreith knows, when the rooms started to look different, the halls different. Ai'Vaerin is a grand city, beautiful, proud, a marvel built by two millennia of the realm's finest architects, highest of grandeur that are only surpassed one century after the last. Since Elreith was twelve years old, she's served in the Upper City, home of Vaelthran's greatest minds and scholars, and had thought those halls were the grandest that Ai'Vaerin could have.

She'd been mistaken. Even the beauty of the Upper City pales in comparison to the effortless grace that the Citadel Spires demonstrate. The Upper City might be the Blessed Ones domain, but the towers and spires are their true home, piercing the heavens themselves and threading through the space between the clouds. It is the difference, Elreith thinks, between seeing the painting of a master in its true state, and after the span of three hundred years, when grime and patina have turned its colors worn and muted, the sharpness of its lines hidden beneath the illusion of its age.

The stone here is so black it looks like ink, the marble so pale it's almost blinding, stone carved of fresh snowfall, carved with such craft that it fools the eye, searching desperately for some hint of a flaw, only to find none. Light and shadow are aspects of art here, curated through cut panes of stone and high windows, turns shimmering by torches and brazier light, giving the world itself an unearthly quality. It is a world unlike anything Elreith has ever known, and even the air feels colder against her skin, as if between one step and the next she's somehow really traversed into a different world, some fey place that exists beyond the bound of her own ordinary realm.

Elreith doesn't know how long she spends kneeling there, in that chamber. Time has become an evasive thing, hours spilling past in the span of seconds, or maybe seconds in the span of hours. Her aid had led her to the chamber, murmuring for her to kneel and wait, just as the aids of the other fifty scholars must have led the scholars to their own chambers, to kneel and wait in turn.

One by one they will receive a visit by one of the Blessed Ones in turn, to examine them and decide to what houses they might best be placed in service. For a race so ancient and proud, the Blessed Vaelkan number few, undying, unbreeding, producing no children and never succumbing to death, numbering no more than three dozen. Each individual is a household in their own right, lord and master of their own domain and tower, kingly beings in their own right.

In the end when the Blessed One comes, it almost catches Elreith by surprise. Every visit of a Blessed One into the lower bounds of the Upper City is marked by a trailing procession, dozens, sometimes hundred of servants walking in a trail that can sometimes stretch a mile long, incense burning with every step, the Blessed Ones hidden within the shimmering silks and golden retreat of their palanquin.

So when the door opens to admit a Blessed One accompanied by a single veiled servant, Elreith almost doesn't recognize them for what they are. A split second glimpse of a veiled figure in deep shimmering red has her dropping into an elegant bow, and it's only once the Blessed One has even stepped into the room that Elreith realizes the one who opened the door was an aid at all, their robes finer than any servant Elreith has ever seen.

No matter how fine the aid's robes are, they pale in comparison to that of the Blessed One. Red silk weeps down their body, long sleeves draping on the ground, whispering with each step. The robes are embroidered with glittering threads, each ink of silk packed so tight with it that the entire thing seems to shimmer, the embroidery so iridescent a blue that it shimmering between red and purple, giving the fabric an air of the shimmer of an oil slick. The Blessed One is wearing a crown of some sort, curving horns of gold rising in a mantle around their head, over which is draped just the thinnest pane of shimmering red silk.

Elreith catches only the faintest glance of it in her peripheral vision, and it's enough to have her eyes fixed on the floor, fighting back the urge to swallow thickly. Its the closest Elreith has ever come to seeing a Blessed One's face, the veil so thin and fine that she'd be able to make out the Blessed One's features beneath it, if she let her eyes only rise just enough to try.

She feels the moment the Blessed One's gaze lands on her, settling like a weight across her back, and Elreith bows even deeper, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on the floor, eyes lowered demurely. To be in the Citadel Spires is to see the Blessed Ones more at ease than Elreith has ever seen them, and the thought brings with it equal parts awe and stomach-turning terror.

She keeps her head lowered and tries to keep her breathing as silent as she can, not daring to move a muscle. Prior to this, the most Elreith had ever seen of a Blessed one was the Keeper of the Spire, and even they had been shrouded in layers upon layers of silvered silk, sitting on a high dais with their staff standing statuesque around them, incense burners lit and weeping pale smoke. To be kneeling before one, so close that Elreith could reach out and touch them threatens to bring a cold sweat to Elreith's skin.

The Blessed One seems to pause as they see her. "A Nightkin?" They note, their voice an airy murmur, head tilting to look at their aid. Their silks rustle as they move, whispering watery-soft, a counterpoint to the note of disapproval in their voice.

"Indeed, my lord," the aid replies softly, lowering their head in a bow. "The highest scoring candidate in almost four hundred years."

Elreith keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, feeling the way the Blessed One turns back, gaze settling sharp upon her skin as they look her up and down. Finally the Blessed One lets out a noise, almost like a snort. "Well," the Blessed One says quietly, dismissively, with no more can than one would have looking through a set of bolts of fabric and tossing one back down onto the table "I suppose the citadel does always need more temple maidens, to tend to the dusting if nothing else. Let her undergo the process along with the rest, no doubt some form of work will be found for her."

The Blessed One says no more than that, turning and sweeping back out of the room without another word, their aid closing the door behind them, leaving Elreith kneeling there in silence, her heartbeat loud in her ears, something sharp aching in her side, like someone has slipped a knife between her ribs and driven it deep. Quietly she swallows, and lets her curl into soft balls in her lap, before on the next breath releasing them again.

A breath in, a breath out, Elreith's eyes slipping shut for a brief moment, and when she opens them again her hands carefully uncurl, her breathing coming smooth and even as she straightens. Water on glass, she thinks. The hammer of rain, pounding against windows of stained glass, leaving weeping streams running down the faces of the sainted scholars. None of it touches them, in the end. None of it touches them, and none of it touches her.

When one of the aids returns - not in red silk this time, but in simple grey, Elreith rises and greets them smoothly, returning their bow with her own. They don't come empty handed, this time bringing with them a silver chalice. The liquid in it is pitch black, and seems to shimmer in the pale green light of the braziers, emitting a faint mist, so cold in the aid's hand that Elreith can feel the chill of it even before they step through the door.

Only here, now, with the potion in front of her does Elreith let the nerves of what she's about to do finally hit her, a fluttering nervousness gaining wings inside her belly. This is it, the final step, the final choice that will break her from her own mortality - becoming something that is neither living nor dead, but a transcendent blend of the two, balanced on her point of perfect harmony. A perfect being, a divine body, elevated and enlightened.

The aid holds the chalice before her, pale gloved hand steady and still where they emerge from the draped fall of their layers, not a single breath in the room to interrupt the silence except her own. Quietly, Elreith draws in a breath and makes herself straighten, keeping her gait smooth and even as she takes a step forward.

The chalice is even colder in hand, the metal chilled to the touch, raising goosebumps on her skin. There's something about the quality of it that draws the eye, the black of the liquid so deep and profound that it's mesmerizing, holding a sort of gravity. It is simultaneously the easiest thing in the world and the most difficult thing Elreith has ever done to bring the chalice to her lips and drink.

The chill of it hits her immediately, burning through her, and Elreith manages another two swallows before the goblet tumbles from her hand, clattering to the floor, the potion hissing as it splatters across the stone. Elreith doesn't notice, her knees hitting the floor as she crumples, hands clawing at her chest.

Elreith screams.

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#gods bound #half-light #Elreith #original writing #dark fantasy #mixed historical setting #horror #necromany #warning that things start to get spicy from here on out lads

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