Ash 7th 4617
You have walked this moment many times. The words are carved into your mind, the feelings carved into your soul. So familiar are you with the stage and its players, you could draft up a script and turn it into a play.
You know the room that serves as the setting for this scene, sparsely decorated with a cool stone floor. You can feel the ghost-touch of the grooves on your fingertips; they seemed to spiral like some arcane circle back then, channels and run-offs the audience waiting for a spectacle in scarlet.
In the background, your mother busies herself, preparing her tools, laying them out with precision neatness on a small table. Necromancy tools. You don't know what those are — she never taught you her craft — but you can reasonably assume they are meant for you.
Your father does not appear to be doing much, his hands flicking at nothing. Looking closer, the air seems to ripple at his touch, a soundless orchestra wrapping around his every whim. Practising. Tuning his instruments in time for the big performance.
And there is you, bare and kneeling on the ground, readying yourself any way you can. Breath perfectly even, face contorted into chiselled neutrality. Humanity taken and pushed to one side, abandoned for the sake of surpassing mortality.
The practised motions of all the players involved make it seem as though it is already a production of sorts, an event rehearsed over and over until it reaches perfection. That is the natural way of things in the world you live in. A flaw is an aberration, a weakness is a death knell. Every crease must be ironed out, every crack must be filled in — every word must be composed, every smile must be sculpted.
It is exhausting, and it is necessary, even more so on a day like this. One way or another, this is your execution, and you must be ready.
The room is beyond quiet. The silence holds such a weight that it pushes down even the very thought of raising your voice. In a way, it almost comforts you is a tempting thought to think, but one that isn't quite true. It's a silence that fills you with a solemnity, a stone-cold, iron-clad purpose. Not the coddled warmth that 'comfort' suggests, but the ease brought about by rigid focus, banishing any notion of failure.
“You will break, Alaric. Bringing you in tune with the magic's frequency will push your body beyond what it is capable of handling.” And infinitely quicker than it began, your father breaks it with the ease of swatting a fly. Casimir is the very picture of indifference — or could that be indignance? — but no matter how little he wants to be here, he seems to hold his full attention. A matter of professional pride, perhaps. Regardless of his personal feelings, a blemish on his record would always be a blemish.
He's not doing this out of love. You're sure of that. The only reason you can still call him "father" is the steadily fraying string tying him to you.
“You are not ready.” His tone is absolute throughout, asking no questions but instead delivering truths. “There's a reason so few people become Resoners.”
“Your mother might have already killed you,” His gaze flicks up to the Mark on your forehead, then deep into your eyes, “But are you prepared to kill yourself?”
…Of course you are. Power, magic, ambition: these paths could not be followed without the threat of death. You had prepared yourself for such potential long ago.
Your father offers a light snort in response, but seems to accept the answer nonetheless.
Slowly, impossibly delicately, the man draws the noose around your neck. The highs and lows of an unsung song, a melody beyond the reach of mortal instruments. It is sheet music read by the soul; if only it could play the notes.
You feel the shift as the Mark is completed, the way a new hue is added to your painting. It's more comfortable than the first time, more familiar now.
There's the shift, then the sound. It's a promise of power, an ideal to be reached. All things have a harmony that causes them to shatter; this harmony is one that shatters limitation. All you need to do is match it.
The sensation of the initiation is something truly indescribable. How does one properly pour the feeling of having your very self tuned to a perfect pitch into words? How can one ever convey the experience of changing so fundamentally, of having a song poured into your bones and teaching them to sing it?
The conductor flicks his baton, and you do not hear the chime, but rather feel it. Splintering into echoes, they bounce through every fibre of your being, entangling so perfectly there ceases to be a 'they', merely 'you'.
It's wrong. It's different. The wrong key is pressed, and you wince at the dissonance it creates. Of course you hadn't expected this to finish just as soon as it had started, but the failure was so visceral you could do nothing but react.
Again. Another chime courses through you, a different tone this time. Wrong again. This time, you feel a shudder course down your spine. Did it sound worse this time? Was your executioner-saviour even further off the mark? Or was each mistake simply building up on you, each subsequent attempt another note composing your torture?
When can you say it begins to hurt? Maybe at the first sudden jerk of movement you make, as your body begins to strain. There are so many wrong notes circling your mind now; you can feel the way they build pressure, leaving you feeling as if your head is about to burst.
Maybe at another sudden jerk of movement, the first one you make where you jerk wrong. You twist, and you feel something inside your body give way with a snap that doesn't sound like it came from a human being.
You scream, that solemn silence long abandoned, and the thing that grieves you the most is how off-key you are. It's the wrong sound, and that thought clenches your jaw tight, smothering it to a low rumble.
It is not the last. This initiation is a constant insidious crescendo, each failure building onto the last, becoming more and more unbearable. Flowers of pain blossom inside you, as your bones splinter under the weight of the song. They dig into your organs, slamming marrow fingers onto the keys like a musician possessed. When you look to your side, you swear you see your shoulder sticking out, as if it was waving to you.
Another twist, another snap, and you nearly bludgeon yourself against the floor in the process. Something new has burst. A kidney, perhaps? Not a lung; you can still breathe. That brief moment of analytical clarity amongst the fog almost makes you laugh, but all you manage is a dry heave.
You've lost your place. There are so many pages at this point, you can't recall them all. How long have you been here? How long do you have to go?
And then, just like that, you feel it click. Through the discord, the harmony carves its way through like a beacon in the dark. Broken and bloody, your moment of triumph is an instant; an instant you treasure like no other.
“And that, my dearest Idalia, is that.”
Your father — no, at this point he is merely Casimir — doesn't linger a second longer than he has to. With a dismissive wave of his hand to say farewell, the mage turns on his heel and marches out of the door. The last time you ever see him is through the gap as it swings shut, vision half blurred by dizzying pain.
Your mother is already dissecting you, sprawling you out across the floor and picking up your broken pieces. Her songs of praise are hazy, and only just about make it to your ears. It was all true. You were not ready. Nonetheless, you survived. And that, of course…
…Was not enough. Praiseworthy, but not enough. You had merely turned a key in a lock, yet to even step through the opened door. You would, given time. Of course you would. Power, magic, ambition. All three demanded nothing short of death in order to be claimed. What would it all be for? What would it all be for, if this was the point where you lost your nerve?
The silence comes creeping in once more, now the curtains have drawn on the orchestra. The silence comes, and the stone-cold, iron-clad purpose trails alongside it.
This is merely the beginning. You slowly drift into slumber as exhaustion finally takes you, the future nothing but a list of plans and mayhaps. There is still much more to be done. More cracks to fill in, more imperfections to iron out. In a matter of days you will be reborn, as you have been so many times before. This is merely the end.
