Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Created
Status
Complete
Watchers
479
Recent readers
0
Threadmarks
137
You are Ambraea, the youngest Dragon-Blooded daughter of the Scarlet Empress. You are attempting to prove your worth at the Heptagram, the most prestigious sorcery academy in the Realm. The course load is grueling, and sometimes deadly, and your position gives even simple friendships political dimensions that sometimes feel impossible to navigate. It will be a long seven years.
The Inland Sea
North of the Blessed Isle's Shadowed Coast
Descending Fire, Realm Year 758
Five years, four months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.
The fog encloses your small ship like the jaws of a hungry beast. It presses in from all sides as though summoned by malignant forces that are being only grudgingly kept at bay by the thinnest of margins. The worst part is, you know that in every sense that matters, this is true.
You can't see them, but you can practically sense it on the air: there are things in the churning water, riding the bitterly cold autumn wind, in the unnatural fog that swirls around you. Spirits tasked with guarding your destination from all unauthorised access. If it weren't for the irritable, plain-faced instructor speaking incantations at the prow of the ship, this vessel and everyone on it would be swallowed up, never to be seen again.
You pull your fine cloak tighter around yourself, more against the thought of such a death than against the cold itself. You look around the ship's deck, at the tense but confident crew going efficiently about their business, and then at your fellow students:
You range in age from fifteen to twenty-three years, Chosen of the Dragons all. The eldest among you are feigning ostentatious boredom, talking and laughing a little too loud, leaning casually against the railing in a way that makes the crew have to skirt around them to carry out their work. Your fellow first years, however, are altogether less calm, mostly grouped up in twos or threes, or sticking close to older students from their own Houses, shoulders stiff and gazes nervous.
Something your mother said to you before you left comes to mind, during a rare meeting that has been replaying in your head off and on ever since: "There comes a time in every young Dragon-Blood's life when she realises that, Exalted or not, there are things in the world bigger than she is. Studying the sorcerous arts, you will learn this sooner than many." You suspect that some of your year mates are already beginning to get an inkling of this lesson. She was wrong in your case, of course. There's never been a moment in your life, before or after the Dragons Chose you, where you had any illusions about just how small you are.
There are a few first year students notably standing apart from the others even on the cramped confines of the deck. You find yourself taking note of each of them.
A wide-eyed girl with bone white hair sits cross-legged on the deck, back braced against a barrel, looking at the gloom around her and scribbling frantically in a notebook.
Near to her is a timid, mousey looking thing whose clothes are noticeably less fine than the rest of you, standing apart less by choice than by default. The water droplets from the fog and the waves have declined to settle on her at all, almost as though out of respect.
Most memorable of all, however, is the strange girl who is practically leaning her entire body over the ship's railing, ignoring the frigid spray and the furtive glares from the crew as she peers around at the wind and the water through an expensive looking hand mirror. Her clothes are both foreign and a little garishly decorative, the crystals gleaming in every strand of her hair only adding to the effect.
Then, of course, there's you. You're used to standing apart, however.
"She's watching the spirits," a voice tells you. You look over your shoulder to see a boy standing behind you. Tall, auburn-haired, marble-skinned.
"I know what she's doing," you tell him. You've seen that trick with a mirror done before, even been shown the creatures revealed in the glass by one of your tutors.
"I suppose you would," he says, pleasantly enough to set your teeth slightly on edge. "Mnemon Keric, by the way. I believe we've met?"
"Briefly, I think," you allow. It had been at least two years ago. "I am Ambraea."
"I know," Keric agrees. "I think most people here know who you are."
It's true — you've hardly failed to notice the stares when people think you're not looking, but you're distracted as well as being accustomed to them. "The Heptagram isn't large," you say. "We'll all get to know each other soon enough."
"Yes, I expect so," Keric agrees. "Especially once the chaff gets sifted out — we've got a few in this group I don't expect will last." He doesn't look at the girl with the mirror, or the mousey looking girl standing on her own, but you can tell that they're included in this estimation. "Do you know what the older students call us in our first year?"
"Yes," you say.
"Well, then you understand no one gets through seven years here without people to rely on," he says. His smile is genuine enough. "I'm just looking to introduce myself to someone who I can expect not to wash out."
"I don't think anyone plans to wash out," you say, looking out over the water. A violent swell strikes the ship, and you're forced to grip the railing to avoid stumbling.
"Well, of course, but some of us have more pressure on us than others," he says, giving you a meaningful look you don't particularly appreciate, for all that he's right.
You're still thinking about how to respond to this when you're distracted by something far more important: Out of the fog, a rocky edifice looms ahead of you. "We're here," you say.
"Oh, we are!" Keric says, trying hard not to sound as relieved as he clearly is.
The fog parts like a set of gates as the instructor works the wind that, so close to your destination, would ordinarily dash you all against the rocks. This reveals a tiny, cliffside jetty, the crew already working to bring you into dock with it. Soon enough, the journey will be over, and the work will begin.
Article:
In addition to your unique situation, part of the gossip surrounding you relates to your unconventional father — even with your mother's prolific reputation, he's not what anyone expects. Who is he, and what elemental Aspect have you inherited?
[ ] Air Aspect: Your father is of House Ferem, the largest of the Realm's many minor Cadet Houses, which in centuries past once fancied itself a rival to the Scarlet Realm.
[ ] Fire Aspect: Your father is a foreign outcaste who was briefly the talk of the Dynasty. Now, you sometimes think you're the only one who even remembers his name.
[ ] Earth Aspect: Your father is an emissary from the distant satrapy of Prasad, which has adopted heretical practices and styled itself an empire in its own right.
[ ] Water Aspect: Your father is a former general and war hero born to an ailing patrician class family, who mysteriously joined the Immaculate Order shortly before your birth.
[ ] Wood Aspect: Your father is a Lookshyan defector who arrived on the Blessed Isle with little but his honour.
Starting this thread while I have as many other things on the go as I do is a Bad Idea, but I'm doing my best to manage that. The way Last Daughter is structured, each of the seven years of Ambraea's academic career is intended to be covered in a relatively small number of updates, with each year end offering a natural stopping point for me to put it down and focus on other things.
The idea for this thread has also just been burning a hole in my back pocket for almost a year.
Earth Aspect: Your father is an emissary from the distant satrapy of Prasad, which has adopted heretical practices and styled itself an empire in its own right: 7
Water Aspect: Your father is a former general and war hero born to an ailing patrician class family, who mysteriously joined the Immaculate Order shortly before your birth: 6
Air Aspect: Your father is of House Ferem, the largest of the Realm's many minor Cadet Houses, which in centuries past once fancied itself a rival to the Scarlet Empire: 5
Wood Aspect: Your father is a Lookshyan defector who arrived on the Blessed Isle with little but his honour: 3
Fire Aspect: Your father is a foreign outcaste who was briefly the talk of the Dynasty. Now, you sometimes think you're the only one who even remembers his name: 2
You're one of the first off the ship, by sheer happenstance. You let out a sigh of open relief as you feel rock underfoot, your first steps onto the Isle of Voices rooting you once again in your own element.
A narrow road curves its way up the cliff face, in places hewn into the stone itself. Its beginning is marked by a set of carved statues to either side, each in the likeness of a grinning man. It's a little startling. You've seen statues of people or animals before, but only ever in private rooms belonging to Dragon-Blooded — your own father owns a fist-sized elephant carved of white jade, brought all the way from his homeland. You've never seen someone flout the Immaculate proscription of iconic artwork so flagrantly and openly before, though.
One of the other girls seems to agree, although she takes more active offence than you do, glaring up at the nearest statue with a look that actually smoulders. This lasts until the statue looks around with a stony grinding sound, and glares right back at her. More than a few of the others leap back in startlement — the girl who'd glared in the first place only tilts her head, her look taking on a more assessing quality as she examines the construct.
"Stay on the path," the instructor says, sweeping past you all. "Do not stray from the group, do not chase the lights, do not harass the statues, do not reply to the voices. The spirits can always scent new students. I'd like to get to the school while there's still a bit of daylight." His name is Nellens Ovo, a Water Aspect of indeterminate years. You don't think you've seen him smile once during the entire trip.
"What daylight?" someone mutters. Glancing up at the gloom overhead and the fog clinging to the island, you can see his point. The instructor ignores the comment, expecting you all to fall in behind him as he sets out. The senior students do immediately — whatever nerves they'd displayed on the voyage over have been completely replaced by a sense of eager anticipation.
You can't entirely say you feel the same. As you begin the climb to the top of the cliffs, shapes move in the gloom — flickering lights and shadowy, ethereal forms, crawling on the ground and swimming through the air like schooling jellyfish, sometimes darting across the road ahead, too indistinct to make out. Odd cries echo in the distance, monstrous or inhuman or a horrible mix of both.
"... I didn't think it would be this awful," someone mutters.
"Oh, really? I think it's a little beautiful," a distracted voice says.
An older Sesus boy laughs. "Honestly, Amiti," he says, with familiarity that's casual, but not quite affectionate, "I think you were born for this place."
The pale girl with the white hair hunches her shoulders in embarrassment at the scattered snickering, clutching her notebook to her chest.
The path widens as you get higher up on the cliffs, scraggly trees lining the road to either side, some of them moving unnaturally. Perhaps a little disorientated by the strange surroundings, a first year boy at the edge of the group loses his footing, tripping onto the gravelly dirt at the edge of the road. Immediately, several strange shadows seem to converge over him, taking on a humanoid shape that beckons toward him.
Nellens Ovo mutters whirls, hand raised to do something, but someone else beats him to it — swift as the breeze, a shape darts in from nearer the front of the group, hair streaming behind her as she draws the sword she wears at her side. She cuts the figure in half, and it vanishes with an almost melodramatic scream, dissolving into component shadows that scurry away into the fog.
"Are you alright?" the girl with the sword asks the fallen boy. She holds a gallant hand out to him, the other still bearing her weapon. In that pose, she unconsciously looks a great deal like a younger version of the heroine from a romance novel, about to sweep an unassuming young man off his feet.
"I... fine!" he says, clearly mortified. He accepts her hand, but lets go of it just as fast, frantically beating the dust out of his clothes. His face and neck turn a brilliant shade of crimson at the general amusement this display has caused.
"Garan, what did I tell you about staying on the road?" Ovo demands.
"... Sorry, uncle," the Nellens boy mutters, looking as if he'd like to vanish on the spot.
"And put the sword away, Tepet," Ovo adds. "If you encourage the spirits, they'll send something real at us."
The Tepet girl doesn't look particularly chagrined, but she still sheathes the sword as instructed. "Sorry, sir," she says. The power she drew on to carry her so fast still swirls around her in the form of a dust devil centred around her feet.
This proves to be the most exciting part of the trip. Once things have settled down again, a voice speaks beside you: "So, Keric bent your ear already, huh?" The girl to your left is speaking to you. Orange hair the colour of autumn leaves spills out from beneath a hood meant to ward off the chill, with eyes that match the shade precisely.
"We spoke," you say, levelly.
She giggles at that. "So serious! I'm V'neef L'nessa, by the way."
"Ambraea." Then before she can respond, you add: "Don't say 'I know'."
She laughs again — it might be nerves, given your surroundings. Or maybe she's just naturally cheerful. "Sorry, sorry!" she says. You refuse to be charmed — her approaching you so soon after a scion of a House bitterly opposed to her own isn't a coincidence, particularly given your own position.
"Did your mother ask you to get to know me?" you ask, not in any mood to be subtle.
L'nessa blinks. "Well, yes," she says. "But, the same with Keric too, I assume. You know how that is."
You do, admittedly. And you don't even have any particular ill will toward her mother. V'neef herself had been entirely pleasant to you, the one time you'd met her — she'd congratulated you on your Exaltation with all seeming sincerity, which is more than you usually expect from your half-siblings. But, perhaps naively, you'd thought the politicking would wait at least until you'd gotten to the school itself.
You remain stoic for an uncomfortable moment — you've found you can get away with that, as an Earth Aspect — when the school itself rescues you from having to immediately continue this conversation.
At the top of the cliffs, the fog parts just enough to reveal your destination above: seven towers loom high above the island, connected by walls that form the shape of the school's namesake. It hits you finally, that you're really here. You've imagined this day for two years, ever since Pasiap Chose you, when you first began to imagine yourself living up to your mother's high expectations.
Cresting the top of the cliffs, you find yourselves standing in front of the gates to the Heptagram.
An old man stands there, leaning on a staff, his eyes flinty, bundled up in layers of warm robes. Nellens Ovo pulls you all up to a stop, and silence falls. With a snap of the old man's fingers, even the strange sounds of the Isle of Voices itself seem to quiet. "I bid you welcome, young seekers of knowledge," he says, his voice still clear and strong. "Those of you returning to us, and to this year's fresh faces as well. May you all learn more than you care to know." You can't entirely suppress a shudder at this, but at least you're not alone in that. He carries on. "For those of you newly arrived, I am Ragara Bhagwei, and this is my school. Not all of you will graduate — the mysteries of Pure Essence are many and treacherous. Some will lack the aptitude, but more will lack the will."
There is silence then, for a long moment, as he spears each of you with his eyes in turn. You feel your shoulders straighten under his gaze, desiring powerfully to make something of a good impression. Are you just imagining it when he seems to look at you a half second longer than the others? He continues on: "But do not be too quick to despair, or to resort to desperate measures — few here unlock the secrets of the Emerald Circle in their first year. Each of you will progress at your own rate, or not at all. While you will need the support of your fellow students to excel here, you will ultimately fail or succeed by your own talent and perseverance." This, clearly, is what many among you are afraid of.
There's another moment of uncomfortable silence, before the dominie turns to the gates, waving them open with just a gesture. "But first, a proper meal, after your long journey."
The quiet continues as you follow instructor Ovo into the building's entranceway, through a narrow passage to the ground floor of one of the towers, which contains the kitchens and the dining hall. A relatively small space with room for one hundred, if you really crammed them in — there are far less people than that here, however. As you all find your places at one of the tables, you once again do a rough count. There are around forty students, give or take, and nearly half as many instructors, seemingly all clustered around their own table.
The space has a sort of scholarly humility about it, having little in the way of decoration or obvious comforts — simple, by Dynastic standards, without descending to what you'd expect at the secondary schools that truly embrace the character-building effects of hard living. Regardless, the scent from the kitchens is heavenly after the last leg of your long, multi-stage journey by two different ships.
Having grown up in the Imperial Palace, you think of yourself as inured to displays of supernatural power. Still, though, you can't help but jerk back in surprise as the food is borne out of the kitchen by invisible servants, which silently set bowls and cups in front of you all, before filling them both. You're aware that the older students are enjoying your and the other first years' shock. You have to admit that, come next year, you might be doing the same.
Once you get over your startlement, you dig in quite cheerfully. It's local food, of course. With the climate of the neighbouring prefectures of the Northern Blessed Isle, that means a hearty soup, some bread, and a glass of red wine. You expect you'll miss the Imperial chefs' cooking soon enough if everything is this heavy and... rustic day in, day out. For now, though, it's precisely what you need when you're tired and hungry and cold.
By the time you've eaten, washed up, and then are shown to your dormitory, you're so tired that you only dimly notice that your luggage has been brought up already, and just barely register the identities of your two roommates for the next seven years. You can deal with both of those things tomorrow.
As you drift off, though, part of Ragara Bhagwei's speech comes back into your head, the bit about it being normal not to achieve sorcerous initiation within your first year at the Heptagram. Your mother had mentioned this as well, in a light, consoling tone that had left you without a shadow of a doubt that she expects you to be better than merely average. But you'd always known that, didn't you? Most students might be able to afford to take several years to become a true sorcerer, but most students aren't the youngest Exalted daughter of the Scarlet Empress. You will have a busy year.
Article:
The identity of your roommates are an important element to this quest, and will be major characters for the next seven years. Allies and connections to others will be vital both to managing the Heptagram's brutal self-directed workload, as well as providing valuable contacts in Dynastic life after graduation.
Sorcerers are indispensable within the Scarlet Dynasty. At the same time, they are also held at arm's length, and viewed with a degree of fearful suspicion by society at large unless they're simply too politically powerful to do so, like your mother, or your eldest half-sister, Mnemon. There will never again be a time in your life when making connections with your peers will be as easy as it will be within the Heptagram's unique scholarly environment. This is particularly important to you, having no House to rely on, and no ties to any of the Great Houses through your father. You are currently wholly dependent on your mother for support and protection.
Your roommates will not utterly define your social circle, or completely preclude plotlines with other characters, but they will become major fixtures of this quest moving forward. It's not necessary to worry overly much about balancing out Aspects — I am perfectly confident in my ability to make two different Dragon-Blooded of the same Aspect feel distinct and different. Try to think about what group dynamic will be the most fun.
Pick one name from each list. These votes will be counted together as a set, so please format them accordingly without a line break between them.
For example:
[ ] Name A
[ ] Name B
List A
One of your roommates will be someone at a serious social disadvantage of some kind, who will likely come to rely on you to make up for this. This will present inconveniences for you at times, and complicate your relationships with certain other characters. However, she will also have unique skills and talents that may not be immediately apparent, but will be extremely useful to you going forward.
[ ] Erona Maia (Water Aspect)
You're not surprised that there is a patrician girl in your year, but you are surprised that she ended up as your roommate. The Realm's patrician class are above the peasantry but below Dynasts, made up primarily of mercantile and bureaucratic families, as well as peasant-born Dragon-Blooded who have completed their term of service in the Imperial Legions. Patrician families have few Exalted members, and lack both the connections and capacity to bear the sheer financial burden necessary to send a scion to a school as prestigious as the Heptagram.
Maia stands out among her Dynastic classmates. She knows absolutely none of them, is their social inferior on the outside world, and on top of this all, she's painfully shy. She would greatly benefit from having a more confident, better placed friend, but cannot immediately reciprocate the gesture in any meaningful way, for all that she would very much like to.
However, there is more to the Erona than an unassuming family of Thousand Scales bureaucrats, and Maia possesses skills and knowledge that would shock any of her classmates were their existence to be revealed. Should you grow close enough, she will not hesitate to quietly use them on your behalf... whether or not you ask her to.
[ ] Sesus Amiti (Air Aspect)
Dragon-Blooded, as the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons, are deeply in tune with the essence of Creation, and those with the talent find little difficulty wielding Emerald Circle sorcery. Another, darker form of magic, aligned to the essence of the Underworld, is primarily the province of powerful ghosts, the Anathema, and rarer Exalts that are still viewed with a strong degree of suspicion. Still, there are a small minority of Dragon-Blooded born with a different talent than their peers, presenting a rare and almost unique asset within Dynastic society, if one that would be viewed with even more fear and mistrust than sorcery already is.
Sesus Amiti was always a scatterbrained, distractible girl. Being Chosen as an Air Aspect less than a year ago has not helped with these tendencies. Amiti is both intelligent and deeply enthused about intellectual pursuits in general, but she's often found with her head in the clouds, losing track of where she is and what she's doing. Her interests also trend toward the offputting and morbid, and her guileless excitement when discussing these things is both powerfully off-putting and betrays the worrisome "moral flexibility" that her House is known for.
Amiti's personality problems and apparent lack of sorcerous aptitude will be a serious detriment to her early years at the Heptagram, despite coming from a respectable household within one of the three great military Houses of the realm. She has difficulty making friends, and as time goes on her talents and predilections will tend to alienate those with strong moral and religious leanings, but she nonetheless possesses a dogged loyalty toward those who treat her well. This could be to your benefit.
[ ] Simendor Deiza (Earth Aspect)
The Threshold is home to many lesser Dynastic Houses ruling land and people outright in the name of the Realm, including your father's own Clan Burano. House Simendor is a particularly old and infamous Cadet House from the Southern satrapy of Chalan, its roots stretching back at least to the early Shogunate , if not longer. The Simendor are renowned sorcerer princes of immoral disposition and shocking decadence, prizing sorcerous aptitude even above Exaltation. They typically train their own scions in their own strange sorcerous initiations, but their current matriarch is nothing if not extravagant, and has now sent her favourite niece to study at the Blessed Isle's most prestigious sorcery academy.
Deiza wastes no time in living up to every bit of her family's reputation, from their sorcerous skill to their dark and worrisome pursuits to their shocking disregard for certain Dynastic social and religious norms. She rubs people the wrong way almost as a point of pride, and seems to take pleasure in making enemies of those too inflexible or stiff-necked to tolerate her behaviour.
At the same time, Deiza is a rarity indeed — at fifteen years old, she has already arrived at the Heptagram initiated into Emerald Circle sorcery, having studied the subject intensely since age eleven. This is far younger than most families would ever consider safe, even taking into account her early Exaltation. Still, her help would be invaluable so early on to anyone who can earn her friendship and tolerate her eccentricities. Every year, she will return to the Heptagram with a little more of her family's rare and forbidden sorcerous practices.
List B
One of your roommates is a well-connected, well-liked Great House scion who will obviously be helpful to have around in most situations. However, as the years go on, unexpected complications will crop up that will affect both of you.
[ ] Ledaal Anay Idelle (Fire Aspect)
Alone of all the Great Houses, House Ledaal is known for its single mindedly pragmatic dedication to defending the Realm from the forces of darkness arrayed against it: rogue ghosts and demons, the fair folk, and in particular, the Anathema. Their "Shadow Crusade" is carried out as a grim duty, and they paint themselves as the Realm's first and last line of defence.
The Heptagram was not Idelle's first choice. She wanted to attend the Cloister of Wisdom in order to train as an Immaculate monk like her two elder siblings before her. Her mother and House matriarch, however, worked together to prevail on her that the House's need is greater than the Order's, and her knack for detecting spirits and strange forms of magic will instead be honed to a lethal point as a trained sorcerer.
Idelle is intelligent, curious, and a steadfastly loyal ally who would walk into Hell itself for a friend. Her parents are both famed shikari, who were involved in the confirmed destruction of no less than three Lunar Anathema. Their legacy still leaves many curious and positively inclined toward her. Her religiosity and commitment to the Shadow Crusade can leave her a little inflexible on certain issues, however, in a way that would prove inconvenient for you in the future, at times.
[ ] Tepet Usala Sola (Air Aspect)
House Tepet stands ascendant at the height of its power, the greatest military House of the Realm by anyone's measure. Its varied warrior traditions are far older than the Dynasty, maintained through the years with the renowned Tepet dedication to excellence. All Tepet scions are expected to excel somehow, whether in soldiering or some other field.
Sola, daughter of the renowned war hero, Matriarch Tepet Usala herself, intends to join the Tepet House Legions and rise through the ranks to become a great sorcerer-general. She aspires to be as lethal with spells and tactics as she is with a blade. It was a surprise to many that she chose the Heptagram over the House of Bells, but she refuses to do anything in half measures — sorcery comes less naturally to her than more traditionally martial pursuits, and so it must be her primary focus until it can be truly mastered. Sola is friendly and sociable, and it would be hard to find anyone more skilled and valiant to have at your back in a fight, among all your classmates.
The one catch with the phrase "at the height of its power", however, is that things can only go downhill from there.
[ ] V'neef L'nessa (Wood Aspect)
House V'neef is the newest of the Realm's Great Houses, headed by its young and popular founder, V'neef herself. Energetic, dynamic, and gifted control over the Realm's vast Merchant Fleet by the Scarlet Empress, the House is wasting no time in expanding the Realm's holdings in the Western Threshold, arranging advantageous marriages to develop its fledgling bloodline, and putting down roots so as to be able to stand on its own without your mother's direct support in the future.
L'nessa is one of V'neef's few blood children, and reportedly her mother's favourite. She has inherited V'neef's famed social graces and air of easy likability, and finds it very easy to make friends wherever she goes. Her interest in getting to know you is genuine even if it was also at her mother's request, and she will make a loyal and dedicated friend both during your time at school and after.
The favour heaped on House V'neef by the Empress has drawn the ire of certain old and powerful Great Houses, however, in particular Houses Mnemon and Peleps. Growing too close to the daughter of its founder will unavoidably be taken as a sign of your own leanings, and may colour how certain other characters see you or limit your options when dealing with them. Despite being two months older than you, she is also literally your niece.
One of your most vivid childhood memories comes from when you were five or six. Still quite a few years away from beginning primary school, your education was nonetheless a great consideration in your childhood, featuring a rotating cast of tutors ready to prepare you for life as a respectable Imperial daughter.
As with most Dynastic children, you didn't see much of your parents day to day, and the mundane tasks of child-rearing were left to a team of nannies and other servants. When you did see one of them, it was usually your father. Being considerably less busy and less important, he simply had more time for you, telling you stories of his homeland and his travels. Not so much as to coddle you, of course. You spoke to him in any depths perhaps once a month, rather than anything truly excessive. What contact you had with your mother was, of course, quite different.
You remember kneeling in front of a low writing desk, clumsy child hand carefully guiding your brush to create High Realm characters as you'd been taught, trying not to be unnerved by the trailing red skirts you could see swishing past as your work was examined from multiple angles. Your calligraphy tutor knelt dutifully at the back of the room, an utter ball of nerves. And who could blame him? His work as a teacher was being evaluated by his employer, the most powerful woman in the world, based on the performance of a young child.
"Slow down." The voice was firm, melodic, always conveying utter confidence that it would be obeyed precisely. "You'll make mistakes." You understood the unspoken addition: Do not waste my time.
"Yes, mother," you said, trying to make yourself slow down. It was difficult to fight against your own anxiety. The weight of her assessing gaze was almost unbearably heavy, even then.
"You're nervous," she said. You nodded, not looking up at her. There was a rustle of rich fabric as she bent over you, fingers ending in red-lacquered nails tilting your face up until your eyes met hers. That was always difficult — like standing a little too close to a roaring bonfire, but not from any literal heat. The power of her presence was impossible for you to fully articulate at such a young age, but you'd held the almost overwhelming certainty whenever you were in the Imperial presence that you never, ever wanted to disappoint her. "Ambraea," she said, "listen carefully: Never show fear to anyone who can use it against you. Weakness is a luxury you won't have."
Which was a lot to take in, for a five-year-old, but it's remained perfectly etched into your memory, in part because of what happened next: A tentative knock came on the door to the chamber. Your mother released you and straightened, her eyes narrowing at the interruption. This being a private family audience, she wasn't quite wearing the full finery of her office — red silk, rather than cloth-of-jade. As always, though, she'd worn the mantle, and the heavy crown with its burning hearthstone centrepiece. "Enter," she said.
A messenger entered, bowing low.
"Speak," the Empress said.
The messenger had cast a nervous glance around the room, at you, and your tutor, and the other servants standing by. "For your ears only, my empress." So, she'd beckoned him closer with one hand, and he'd scurried over, whispering urgently in her ear. You saw something flicker through her — surprise, anger, you weren't sure. But she wasted no time after that.
"We will reschedule this for another time," she'd told your tutor, who hastily bowed. You saw her hands flash in a dozen unfamiliar gestures, a strange, hot charge coming into the air as red Essence gradually flared around her. It grew brighter and thicker until it finally consumed her form entirely. Then it was gone, and so was she, whisked off to whatever place needed such urgent attention.
That exit was, of course, the reason why this meeting had stuck with you in such stunning clarity. Of all the many direct or indirect exercises of power you'd seen from her, this one was the most impressive to you then, a child of walls and rules and schedules decided by others: The ability to simply come and go at will by your own strength, with nothing and no one to stop you.
That was the point in your life when you'd first felt that burning desire to possess that kind of power, even if you hadn't really let yourself acknowledge it fully before you knew whether you would Exalt. Once you finally did years later, your resolve had crystallised into something diamond hard and immovable as a mountain: Nothing would stop you from becoming a great sorcerer.
source: Heirs to the Shogunate pg. 27
Year 1: Sacrifice Goal: Initiate into sorcery by year's end
You wake up in a narrow bed in a tower room the size of one of the closets back in your chambers in the Imperial Palace. Weak sunlight filters in through a narrow window, as if sullen at having to work its way through the heavy layer of clouds that always seems to hang over the Isle of Voices.
Out of three girls sharing this space, you're the first to wake up and get a real chance to look around. In addition to three beds, the space has three small desks and three sturdy looking wardrobes, all of the same plain-carved wood. You cross to the one opposite your own bed, conveniently located between the others. You'd been instructed that you wouldn't need to bring much in the way of your own clothing, and sure enough, a set of identical uniforms tailored to your exact size hang inside the wardrobe.
You waste little time changing into one of these, examining yourself in the wardrobe's mirror afterward. A long, high-collared tunic in pale blue, worn over red pants, with a pair of sturdy boots that you appreciate, given the relatively cold climate. Much simpler fare than what was appropriate for the Imperial court, but this entire setup is doing a good job of quietly impressing upon you that these next seven years will be a place for work, more than for finery.
You find the comb you packed, and get to work on your long, glossy black hair. It's precisely the same shade as the chips of black quartz set into your skin. Interspaced by the occasional rose pink or smoky coloured piece, they march up your limbs in intricate patterns that continue onto your back and around your neck. A single row goes across the bridge of your nose like freckles. The end result combines strikingly with your father's medium brown complexion, even with most of it covered up by this uniform.
You're just finishing with your hair when you hear a small, groggy noise from one of the other beds. It's the patrician girl you noticed on the ship, looking more than just half asleep. "... what time is it?" she murmurs.
"Well, the sun's up," you supply.
She blinks at you, as if trying to place who you are, or why you're here. Then she seems to remember, and her eyes widen in startled recognition. She gives a sound very close to a squeak, shrinking back beneath the blankets, as if embarrassed for you to see her unkempt and in her bedclothes. Which is just not sustainable, considering the current arrangement.
"What's your name?" you ask her.
She stares for a second or two, before abruptly realising that she has to answer the question. "I'm... I'm Erona Maia, my lady."
"And I'm Ambraea," you tell her. "We can't exactly spend the next seven years with you flinching at me whenever you see me. We're all just first years here."
"... sorry," Maia murmurs, which wasn't quite your objective, but at least she's let the blankets fall a bit. She's very small, with subtle Aspect markings that don't affect her hair, eyes, or skin — short and brunette, very dark brown, and light olive, respectively. Straying near to her, though, you can still tell she's a Water Aspect. The air around her is cool and heavy: Maia's mere presence feels like the anticipation of torrential rain.
"Don't worry, we don't bite!" says V'neef L'nessa, who has apparently woken up at some point in this conversation. "Or, I don't, at least. I'm L'nessa." She glances at you, smiling tiredly. "Ambraea and I have already been introduced."
Maia nods. Hopefully she's just not a morning person, although you admit that being the only patrician in the year, and then promptly being put into a room with a daughter of the Empress and a daughter of a Great House Matriarch has to be a little nerve-wracking.
"I'm so jealous, by the way," L'nessa tells you. "Your hair stays so straight!" She's got a brush and is struggling with her mass of thick, orange hair. And losing, in the short-term. You note with quiet amusement as what looks like an autumnal leaf floats free of her hair without any clear point of origin.
"Mm," you say, not offering anything else for the compliment as you finish tying your hair back out of your eyes.
"Oh, dearest Aunt, I treasure our talks already," L'nessa says with mock-formality. You struggle against the tiny smile twitching at the corner of your mouth.
"Oh! She's your—" Maia blushes as you both look around at her. "I mean, I knew who you were, I just didn't..." she looks between you and L'nessa a little helplessly. Despite how paler than you L'nessa is, the family resemblance is still there, particularly in your height and bone structure. It would have been more obvious while you were mortal, back when your hair was still red.
L'nessa gives a small laugh, although it isn't cruel. "You'll get used to that kind of thing, spending time with Dynasts. It's just what happens with enough Exalted in the same family." Your mother is a bit of a special case even by those standards, but it's not uncommon for even Dragon-Blooded who live a merely average lifespan to continue having children into their second century.
"Right, sorry," Maia says, finally rising from bed with an air of unnecessary caution. You can't help but feel like you'll be hearing her apologise for nothing quite a lot, going forward.
"I'm sorry, am I boring you, Simendor?"
Every student in the lecture hall turns to look at the girl in question, who is resting her head on her hand, eyes closed, looking almost as if she's about to nod off. She cracks open one dark eye, looking down at the instructor from her vantage point. You've all been assigned a specific seat along the tiered benches encircling the space — there's only a single lecture hall in the Heptagram, located at the base of the central tower, and large enough for the entire school to be seated in. Currently, it's fairly empty — this is less an ordinary lecture that older students would get benefit from than it is an exercise in explaining just what you're all in for as first years.
"Sorry, sorry," says the girl in question. It's the same one who'd been looking at the spirits through the mirror. Her hair is pulled up into a loose bun now, showing off the multi-coloured iridescence of the metallic crystals embedded within each hair. "It's just early, and I know this part already."
"Do you?" The instructor covering this is a Fire Aspect approaching middle-age, standing confidently down at the bottom of the circular lecture hall. Her breezy introduction had identified her as Cynis Bashura. The name hadn't meant anything to you, but you'd seen a ripple go through some of the other students as it had been given. "Enlighten us, then." A small wisp of dark smoke escapes her mouth with every word.
If the Simendor girl is taken aback by being put on the spot, she doesn't show it. Still looking halfway bored in a way that's earning her unfriendly looks, she says: "Training one's body and spirit to channel the pure Essence of the world is long and difficult, and can take months or years of dedicated work ahead of a formal initiation — it's... mind-expanding in a way that is impossible to describe ahead of time, so a lot of people need to ease into it just to manage." She seems almost to be speaking from experience there, which would be a little bit absurd. "You plan to make us ready for this through focus training and intensive study, yes?"
Her answer is apparently correct enough to make up for her arrogance, in Bashura's opinion. "More or less," she says, turning to the rest of you. "There will be guided channelling sessions twice in the coming weeks. They are recommended. There will also be several sealing rituals which must be conducted weekly or monthly, which will be introduced in the coming week. In between this, there will be lectures from instructor Zadaki and instructor Nellens Ovo, on elemental geomancy and demonology respectively. Skipping lectures when they're available is a good way to fall behind."
As she continues, explaining exactly what your average week of studies is going to look like, you glance down at the syllabus you've been given, literally entitled Your First Year: The Ten-Thousand Labours, and your heart sinks a little as you take in just how much you're expected to retain in order to make the cut here. It's not quite a surprise, but there's a difference between having been told about this by Heptagram graduates and actually seeing its imposing bulk standing between you and all your goals.
There are reasons that at least half of students who wash out of the Heptagram do so in their first year.
Bashura seems to be taking an obscure sort of pleasure out of your collective dismay. "In the future, you will need to check when lectures, practical exercises, and testing occur — these are scheduled at the instructors' convenience, and will not be reliably at the same time. These will be posted outside the lecture hall a week in advance. You are expected to manage your own time, and if you do so poorly and fall behind... you fall behind. Refer to your syllabus in order to make sure this doesn't happen to you." In what is perhaps intended to be more heartening than it is, she adds: "I have a good feeling about this batch, though. I have good money down that we won't lose more than a third of you, this time so, try not to prove me wrong!"
Article:
As a 'sacrifice' — a first year student — you have a full year of guided study ahead of you, with goals you must hit and things you must learn. The manner in which you do so is left partially up to your discretion, however. Every sorcerer has their own idiosyncrasies, after all, and the Heptagram chooses to foster these tendencies rather than stifle them.
Your precise approach is up to you, however. What is it? Although you will be doing some of everything to complete your Ten Thousand Labours, this will define important nuances about Ambraea's personality and priorities.
[ ] Theory first
Intensive study and book learning. You prefer to truly understand something intellectually before you try to grasp it spirituality.
[ ] Hands on
Experimentation, ritual, and practice. You prefer to learn by doing, with everything else following naturally.
[ ] Mysticism
Meditation, intuition, communion with spirits. As a Dragon-Blooded and aspiring sorcerer, you are attuned to the supernatural world in a way few others can imagine. You can use this to internalise the insights you'll need to become a sorcerer.
The air in the cave is blessedly dry, bearing little of the inescapable cold clamminess that seems to increasingly dominate the Isle as Autumn progresses. You sit cross-legged on the stone floor, fingers moving in complex patterns you've struggled to learn, mind full of complicated equations. Beyond the strain of your concentration, you can just barely sense... something here. Essence cousin to your own, but subtly unfamiliar — solid, eternally patient, infinitely unyielding.
Your breathing slows, and so does your heart rate, matching the intangible rhythm of the Earth in this place. For the space of two heartbeats, you have it — your anima surges subtly with the strain, your Aspect Markings standing out particularly starkly as you gather a flickering, white glow into your hands. It wavers in the direction of becoming something more, but before you can truly grasp it, it's gone again. You're left doubled over with your hands braced on your knees, trying to get your breathing under control while feeling like you've just run up a mountain and back.
You feel your instructor's icy gaze on you, and prepare yourself to be corrected on something, to be told about what you're forgetting, or to be given something else to mentally juggle on top of everything. Instead, she does something worse — she gives you the shallowest nod of approval. As if you're doing everything right, and it's still this difficult and fruitless.
The cave you and your fellow students occupy is hard to spot from without. But instructor Zadaki had led you all briskly into a narrow crack in a cliff face, and into a large, domed space within. You'd all gasped as she'd summoned a small, magical light, revealing the brilliant crystals on all sides. The air here thrums with energy, and small, fleeting shapes move among the crystals at the edge of your sight. You wouldn't have needed the month and a half of formal geomantic study you've had to recognise this place as an Earth Aspected demesne, a nexus of untapped geomantic power.
Despite your frustration, as you take a moment to catch your breath, you're forced to admit that you are doing well at this, looking around at the others. While a Dragon-Blood is attuned to all five elements, the one of her Aspect will always come most naturally. Nearby, Sesus Amiti is particularly noticeable in her lack of progress. The Air Aspect is wearing a look of concentration so intense that it's almost incongruous with her soft features, performing the same exercise you had, but with nothing to show for it but a swirl of unseasonal, wintery chill coming off of her. As you watch, it intensifies to the point of a visible glow, Amiti's anima standing out a pale, sickly blue-white, wispy and insubstantial at the edges. Frost slowly creeps over the stone around her, already beginning to coat her uniform. It's a bit of an embarrassing loss of anima control, for an exercise as simple as this, and in a setting as public as this, so you look away.
Aspect isn't everything, of course. Ledaal Anay Idelle seems to be doing at least as well as you, and is evidently pacing herself better than you, the only sign of her own exertions the Essence gathered in her hands, and a slight intensifying of the glow from her red-orange eyes. She certainly seems to have the breath to spare to attempt to mutter advice to Amiti, as little good as that's doing.
"Ledaal, mind your own efforts," instructor Zadaki says.
Amiti hunches in on herself at the reprimand, but Idelle herself takes it stoically enough. "Yes, ma'am," she says, falling silent. It's impressive, on Idelle's part. Zadaki Twelve-Feathers is certainly one of the more imposing of the school's permanent instructors, as well as among the most whispered about.
She isn't the only outcaste among the faculty: Brother Lichen is a retired Immaculate spirit breaker who'd been a slave before the Dragons had Chosen him. First Light is a sixty year veteran of the Imperial Legions and an expert in battlefield magic, who first managed to initiate into the Emerald Circle during her grueling ten years of training at Pasiap's Stair. Zadaki, though, has the distinction of being the only foreign outcaste among them. A barbarian from the Northern Threshold, rumours abound as to how exactly she'd come to work at the Realm's finest school of sorcery, with few answers to be had beyond enigmatic hints.
Gossip about your instructors and fellow students, as it turns out, is your primary source of entertainment amid the constant exhaustion of your first year.
As Zadaki walks away to address another student's failings, you catch sight of something on the fire side of Idelle. A small creature peaks up from behind a crystal formation, almost impossible to spot — something like a large rat, its own coat somehow formed out of a similar mineral substance to the crystals around it. It stares back at you with disconcertingly intelligent eyes.
"Don't get distracted by the elementals, sacrifice," the third year boy on your far side says, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. His name is Cynis Irsin, and you have the annoyed suspicion that he's taking this course because he finds this exercise relaxing at this point. "They're pretty, but not very smart. Try not to follow their example."
Your status as an Imperial daughter has done little to earn you much in the way of respect from the upperclassmen. They almost universally seem to regard you first years as temporary fixtures until proven otherwise. You bite your tongue on a reply, and grudgingly follow his advice, focusing back on your work.
The crystalline rat is far from the only spirit you'll see up close that week.
The black pool in the centre of the chamber ripples ominously as you work, despite your best efforts not to disturb it. It's a good incentive to keep your hands steady.
"Sequence number three, now," L'nessa says. She's crouched beside you, the instructions open in her lap, carefully examining them as you work. You nod shallowly, and move on to etching the binding sequence in question into the soft clay on the outside of the circle. You're not precisely fluent in Old Realm yet, but you've memorised these sequences, at least.
The Heptagram is host to a great many binding chambers such as this, housing everything from rogue elementals to summoned demons, each using a deliberately different construction and style of binding. The one you're in now is particularly nerve wracking. The circular pool of water, located in the basement of one of the towers, is ringed by an elaborate binding circle carved into the floor. The circle's eight points, however, are formed of clay charged with Water Essence — binding inscriptions need to be carefully inscribed into each one in rapid succession, but the clay will become smooth again over the course of one month.
This is the second time you've had to do this, and while it's gotten easier, it's not a great deal less tedious for you and the other seven students in attendance. If any of you were more comfortable with your Old Realm, you might just all fill in a point on the circle and be done in half the time. As is, though, the surest way to go about it is to break up into pairs, lay down temporary paper seals, and then refresh the points four at a time.
"Maybe I should have paired up with Maia," L'nessa whispers, glancing across the circle. The pool shouldn't be large enough that your voices wouldn't carry to the far side — the black water seems to swallow the sound up disconcertingly.
You don't look up from your work as you respond. "Keric isn't so bad." A little pompous, perhaps.
"To you, maybe," L'nessa says. "He makes her nervous."
What doesn't? You don't say that, though, because it even feels a little mean to think — Maia's relaxed around you and L'nessa, somewhat, through forced exposure if nothing else. You haven't seen that much in the way of her being egregiously looked down on by your Dynastic classmates... but that might just be because of your habit of shooting them a protective glare over her head if they start in on it.
You put the issue out of your mind as you continue on to the seventh and final line of the binding. This binding has been going quickly enough that you'll have nearly an hour of study time before bed, which you very desperately need. Everytime you start to make progress, it feels as though you fall behind on something else. Even for an Exalt, it feels scarcely sustainable.
You've nearly finished your line when you hear a sharp gasp, somehow managing to make its way to your ears across the pool.
"The sequence ends with ro, not ko!" Keric says, voice sharp. "That's changed the meaning entirely!"
"I'm sorry, I'll fix it!" Maia says, staring at the clay she's been digging her own stylus into. There isn't quite an opportunity to repair the damage — the rippling in the pool intensifies, to the point that it actually starts slopping over the edges, causing you and the others to scramble backward.
Up out of the water rising a hulking, translucent figure, scarcely humanoid, with a single, staring eye suspended in what would be its torso. A watery tendril lashes out at Maia and Keric. He throws himself flat to the floor, but Maia launches adroitly clear, flipping up from a crouching position to land, cat-like a short distance away. She's forced to repeat the trick a little less gracefully as the spirit brings the next furious tendril down on where she'd landed.
You burst into action before any of the others, dashing around the circle to where Maia has just evaded yet another lashing tendril. Unfortunately, the creature is cannier than you might have hoped — while it was using one of its many arms to attack her, another had reached out and seized a heavy, wooden table behind it, sending instruments crashing to the floor as it hurls it bodily at Maia. She's just come up out of a roll, and doesn't have time to get out of the way.
You manage to put yourself between her and the table, both your arms coming up to brace against the attack, willing your skin and bone to be as hard and unyielding as stone. The antique wood hits you with the force of a battering ram, driving you back a step, but breaking against your hardened stance as though it were made of bamboo, splitting down the middle and clattering loudly to the floor. Before it can react to your presence, you pull Earth Essence from deep within yourself. Using the understanding of its flow and structure you've gained so far, you will it to form around your hand, allowing you physically hurl it directly into the thing's eye. It solidifies into a spiky chunk of dark quartz crystal, hitting the spirit's most obvious weak point like a hammer blow.
The spirit reels back, letting out a deafening bellow of pain and outrage, quickly followed by another: A lithe figure darts around its lashing arms on the far side of the pool from you, a sword in her hand. More than a few people have made fun of Sola's insistence on wearing the weapon with her uniform, but you're certainly not going to complain now. Every time it tries to swat at her, she cuts it, water spilling like blood from its near-invisible wounds.
The others aren't wasting time either. L'nessa is hurriedly finishing up the last of your inscription, and Keric, having lost the stylus Maia had been using, is simply willing the clay to remould itself into the correct shape. Two other students are occupied with this process, while Nellens Garan scurries around the perimeter of the circle, trying to shore up the binding with as many temporary seals as he can.
Faster than you can react, a watery arm seizes you around the chest, pinning your arms in place and trying very hard to pick you up, seeking to hurl you into the nearest wall before you throw another elemental bolt at it. It has a lot of trouble with this last — you will yourself to remain rooted in place, just as though you were a piece of masonry stuck fast to the floor. It's still exceedingly uncomfortable, however, the spirit's crushing grip making it hard for you to breathe, even if the same trick that helped you withstand the table earlier saves you from a set of broken ribs.
The pain stops, and you gasp in a grateful breath — the tendril has been cut clean through. Maia is standing beside you with a dagger in her hand — you weren't previously aware that she even had a weapon like that, let alone where she'd produced it from so quickly.
Then Keric finishes the inscription, and just like that, it's over. The spirit's bellows grow quieter, and its attacks cease as it slowly, gradually retreats back into the pool. For a moment, everything is quiet. Most of you are a little battered, and all of you are at least partially drenched — including Maia, for once, although you think in her case it's just her anima.
Keric straightens, and fixes Maia with a glare, looking as though he's about to say something distinctly unkind to her, when you're all distracted by the doors to the chamber bursting open, admitting Nellens Ovo, looking as irritable as any time you've seen him. He looks around at you all, noting your variously elevated animas, the water on the floor and the smashed furniture in silence for a moment. "No one's hurt?" he asks, brusquely.
"No sir," Sola says, still standing with her sword pointed at the pool of water, as though it might try something funny. It's true — none of you are worse than bruised. First year students or not, there are few things on Creation that would actually enjoy taking on eight Dragon-Blooded single-handedly.
"Good," instructor Ovo says. "Then put the sword away, Tepet. What happened?" This last is a general question, but he sends a suspicious glance at Garan in particular — you've noticed that he's harder on his kin than he is on other students, rather than the reverse. Garan shrinks back under the gaze, despite having done quite well in the minor crisis.
"A slight error in the binding ritual, sir," Keric says coolly, carefully not looking at Maia, who is now attempting to hide behind you. "Hard to say what went wrong, exactly."
Ovo holds his gaze for a moment longer, then sighs. "Very well. Be more cautious in the future, Mnemon — all of you, get the offerings over with so the servant-spirits can get this mess cleaned up." With that, he very nearly storms out, leaving you all to it.
With a relieved sort of sigh, Garan moves a strand of wet hair out of his face, and goes to carry out the last part of the ritual — offerings to help placate the beast you'd all just fought for another four weeks. You all follow suit.
"Well, that could have been worse," L'nessa says, still wringing water out of her tunic.
Maia hunches in on herself. "How?"
"We could have been forced to kill it," you say. There are many varieties of spirit for which 'it' would be inappropriate at best, but you're fairly confident that that monster you'd fought was one of the more bestial varieties. Probably another elemental, if not something stranger than that.
Maia grimaces a little. "Right. Yeah," she admits. That would have been significantly harder to explain — especially if it is an elemental. Those usually stay dead after they've been killed the first time.
The three of you are climbing your way out of the basement, making your way through the adjoining passageways to the central housing tower. The one you're in now is a confusing mishmash of workrooms, ritual chambers like the one you've just come from, and assorted store rooms. "Are you both going straight back to the dormitory?" you ask, idly rubbing at a bruise you picked up from taking that table head on.
"I'm not going anywhere else while I'm this soaked," L'nessa says, philosophically. Maia only gives a small nod. She, at least, is perfectly dry now.
"Good," you say, "We should have time to quiz each other on casting mudras before bed, then."
L'nessa groans. "Do you remember what relaxation feels like?" she asks.
"No," you say, half-truthfully. "We have that lecture first thing tomorrow, don't we?" You step up off the stairs, and onto a landing you've only briefly passed before, mostly filled with doors to sealed chambers beyond your skill level. You're a little surprised to see one of the doors left ajar — that's certainly not normal.
"Oh, I forgot," L'nessa says. "That one's from the dominie, too, isn't it? So we'll understand about one word in five." Ragara Bhagwei, for all his famed brilliance, does not appear to know how to render complex topics easier for younger students to follow.
"So... you're... not mad?" Maia asks, looking up at the two of you timidly.
"No," you say.
L'nessa waits long enough to realise that you're not going to elaborate, before she sighs, and says: "Mistakes happen, Maia. We're all working ourselves to the bone, here. That slip-up could have been anyone."
Maia nods, looking doubtful. Then she freezes, letting out a small sound almost like a squeak.
A moment later, you realise why. There's a group coming back this way, from the passage to the central tower. Based on the voices that drift in ahead of them, it's several boys, and one of them is unmistakably Mnemon Keric. You have no idea what he's doing coming back the way he came so quickly. "He can't be that angry," you start to say to Maia. After all, he'd covered for her with Ovo. But when you look to where she'd been standing a moment ago, she isn't anymore.
L'nessa catches on faster than you — she's making a beeline for the open door, evidently following Maia. This is, to put it lightly, a bad idea. Rooms like that are sealed for a reason, and usually require a specific ritual to open, to prevent unprepared students from simply blundering into something potentially dangerous. The punishment for not closing a door behind yourself is generally severe.
You don't give it more than a split second's thought before following, if only to keep the two of them out of trouble. As you set foot across the threshold, Maia's already closing the door behind you both with a relieved sort of sigh. "Thanks," she whispers. "I just... didn't want to talk to him so soon after that."
"Well, I can understand not wanting to talk to Keric," L'nessa says, "but this might be a little excessive."
You cast a wary eye around the space. It's a storage room, as far as you can tell, housing a shelf or two of very old looking texts, and what look to be several odd artifacts. What looks like a spyglass of blue jade-steel rests on a small table to one side of the room. On another is a large hourglass — in place of sand, tiny beads of black jade stone trickle down, one by one. The most eye-catching item here, however, is what looks like a large, golden birdcage. A miniature raiton perches there, its feathers a strangely lurid shade of red, like drying blood.
"I know," Maia admits. She follows your gaze, although she seems more interested in the hourglass than the bird. "I didn't think."
"We shouldn't be in here," you say. You don't like the way that bird seems to be following your conversation so keenly, cocking its feathered head from side to side to better see each speaker.
"Probably not," L'nessa agrees, venturing a step closer. "Why is this bird here, do you think?"
"Placed here for safe keeping," the bird says in perfectly clear High Realm. L'nessa and Maia both give a start at this. "Are you really going so soon? You've only just got here."
"What are you?" you demand, frowning at it. Or perhaps, at him — the raiton's cultured tones are unmistakably masculine.
"Well, that's a very rude question," he says, shuffling a little closer on his perch, just as golden as the rest of the cage. With a sinking feeling, you realise that it's not actually gold. The entire thing, from the rounded cage to the pedestal, is made of solid orichalcum, its surfaces shining brightly even in the dim lighting of the windowless room. "Why don't you at least introduce yourselves first?"
You hesitate for a moment, your curiosity warring with your caution. Whatever it is that you're talking to, he's contained within some kind of warded artifact made of a magical material famed for its raw sorcerous power. That doesn't imply a minor entity. "Ambraea," you say.
L'nessa casts you a doubtful look, but adds: "V'neef L'nessa."
"... Erona Maia," Maia says after a moment, voice quiet, as though she'd prefer to be ignored.
The raiton seems, of all things, overjoyed by these introductions. "Oh, my," he says, "there's so much here! I've always loved a good mononym — so much room for it to grow, and so much left to implication by its brevity." He looks to L'nessa. "And one of the first scions of an unfolding legacy. Excellent. Delicious. I haven't been freely fed true names this good in a long time." Last, he casts an oddly searching look at Maia. "Well, two out of three is good enough, I suppose." Which seems a little unnecessarily rude, but you suppose not even strange spirits are above petty elitism.
Maia flinches, taking a wary step toward the door. Still, she's too fascinated to leave just yet.
The raiton draws himself up a little further, preening some of his red feathers. Like all raitons, his features are a mix of the avian and the reptilian — a toothy snout emerging from a feathered head, and visible claws at the end of his wings. "And as for me, you may call me Yoxien, the Directory Bound in Crimson, Defining Soul of the Bottomless Library."
With that, all three of you take a very healthy step back in the direction of the door, none of you willing to take your eyes off of the raiton. You may not have heard of Yoxien specifically, but you recognise that general nomenclature well enough — instructor Ovo had delivered a brisk lecture on demonic classifications just last week. It's Maia who gives voice to what you're all thinking: "You're a demon of the Second Circle!"
"Correct," Yoxien says, freely admitting to being, somehow, a lord of hell. Demons of the second circle are beings of great power and bespoke, alien nature, far beyond the capacity of all but the greatest Dragon-Blooded sorcerers to bind. The only reason you've seen a demon this powerful before is that one of those greatest sorcerers is your own mother. "There's no need to be so skittish — you're out there, and I, as ever, am in here. I couldn't hurt you even if I wanted to. The works of the Solar Exalted are hardly as infallible as they liked to believe, but they still do not fail lightly." As if to prove this, he leans out and raps on one of the orichalcum bars of his cage with his snout. This produces an oddly pure, ringing note.
The revelation that the demon you're talking to is being kept from doing harm by a piece of Anathema artifice is of dubious comfort to you. Seeing this, the tiny raiton actually sighs, ruffling his feathers in annoyance. "I don't want to. We've only just met, and you seem like polite enough children. Terrestrials have always been my favourites — your names tend to have so much history behind them, either explicit or omitted."
"Thank you," L'nessa says, offering a brittle sort of smile. Evidently, she's decided to treat this like an unwanted conversation with someone too important to offend with rudeness. "I'm sorry to say, we really must get back to our dormitory. It's not long until curfew, and we have our studies to see to."
"Ah, of course," Yoxien says, sounding, of all things, disappointed. "It was delightful to meet you, of course." Then he eyes you in particular, a distinctly uncomfortable moment. Like he's looking into you, and seeing something there beneath your skin. Long training prevents you from shivering. "If you're ever... stuck, I may be of some assistance. Try to remember that."
You all give courteous goodbyes almost robotically — there's something about the demon, you decide, that makes you want to match his urbane tone. The thought of him affecting you that way even so caged is enough to make you all the more grateful to be leaving.
When you step back out onto the landing, Keric and the other boys are long gone. You shut the door behind you firmly, satisfied to hear the click of the sealed lock resetting behind you. You won't be able to get back in even if you tried now, without asking an instructor to show you the specific opening ritual. "Maia?" you say, quietly.
"... Yes?" she asks, fidgeting as she avoids looking up at you.
"Do not do something like this again." She flinches, but you plough ahead, undeterred. "If Keric was a pain, I would have told him off for it. You don't have to go scurrying around, hiding in a room that shouldn't have even been open in the first place. It's not as though you don't have friends here."
Maia blinks at this last part, as if that thought hadn't occurred to her. "... right," she murmurs. "Of course. Sorry."
In the end, you still manage to get in a good half hour's worth of study.
Article:
Ambraea spends her early months at the Heptagram incredibly busy, going through her tasks in a state of outwardly-suppressed anxiety and exhaustion. The day to day grind in between her lessons begins to blur together. Still, there are moments that stand out from the rest, and connections she makes with other students.
Who stands out, apart from your roommates? For this vote, I'll be selecting the top two names, so feel free to vote for anywhere from one option to all of them, although the latter would be a little self-defeating.
"This was the worst Calibration of my life," Maia moans, before stifling a yawn. To her credit, she's waited until the lecture is already over to really wilt to this degree.
You give a bare sound of acknowledgement, still bent over the notes you're trying to finish. It's hard to disagree with the sentiment. For a Dynast, Calibration — the five days between one year's end and the next year's beginning — is usually spent in lavish feasting and festivities. This year, you were certainly thinking wistfully about the celebration that would have been taking place back in the Imperial Palace. Whatever Maia had at home would have been similar in nature, if a great deal less lavish.
Unfortunately, Calibration is also the time when the veils between worlds are thin, when the rules that govern the supernatural forces of Creation relax. There are countless rituals and sorcerous undertakings that become easier during Calibration, and a rare few that are only possible then. You all spent the past five days in sleepless nights, observing magical phenomena on the Isle, assisting with elaborate rituals, and taking detailed notes on special demonstrations from various instructors. The older students mostly took this with the grimly determined air of hardened veterans plunging back into the breach. Many of your yearmates, however, still have yet to recover days later.
You glance down at the floor of the lecture hall — the instructor has already left, along with a number of the students. You still have a concept that you need to work through on paper in order to make sure it won't vanish from your head, however. That deceptively bookish looking woman had explained to you all some of the finer, bloodier points of shadowland formation with an air of almost ghoulish good cheer. The metaphysical processes at play between Creation and the Underworld are hardly your primary point of study, but you're hardly going to pass up the opportunity for such a rare, firsthand account.
"I'll never get the observations for that summoning formalised in time," Maia says, sounding nearly at the point of despair.
L'nessa has been in conversation with a second year boy. Whatever she said makes him laugh as he rises from his seat. Now, she turns back to the two of you. "Well, I suppose I could let you look off of mine, if that would help," she tells Maia, the picture of benevolent grace. It's a look she always adopts when she wants to feel good about the grand favour she's doing someone. It would be less endearing if she didn't have reason to employ it so often.
"Oh, really?" Maia sags with relief, even as she continues to shove materials into her bag. "Thank you!"
"None of us would make it if we didn't help each other," L'nessa says. She glances at you, still hunched over your notes. "Are you coming, Ambraea?"
"I'll catch up," you say. After five months together, they understand well enough when you want to be left to focus on something.
"Alright," L'nessa says, things gathered up in her arms. She's bounced back from the Calibration ordeal faster than most of your peers, which is incredibly annoying — she doesn't show a hint of fatigue as she and Maia leave, along with most of the students. The two of them have their assigned lecture hall seating near to yours, a typical setup with roommates, especially before the year's drop outs begin in earnest. Which should be any month now, from what the older students have been implying.
You're almost alone in the circular chamber when you finally finish. As soon as you carefully stow your notes away, you hear a cry of alarm.
Looking around, you see Sesus Amiti kneeling in the stairwell, books and scrolls strewn everywhere around her, the bag she'd been carrying them in split along one seam. You take a moment to just stare — had she been walking around with half a library? At this point, pity stirs in your heart enough to walk over to her, and efficiently begin piling up the tomes that had fallen out of her reach.
"Why did you have so many?" you ask her.
She jumps in startlement, peering up at you from her place on a lower stair. Amiti isn't quite as short as Maia, but the differences in your heights is dramatic at the best of times. This vantage point only makes it more so. "Well, I... have a hard time choosing, sometimes," Amiti admits, attempting to rise with half of the mess piled in her arms. You'd worry about her falling backwards down the stairs, if she weren't an Air Aspect.
"A hard time choosing." You pick up your own half of the mess a lot more carefully, rising to a standing position.
Amiti flushes bright red, the only sign of colour in her unnaturally pallid face, nearly the same shade as her hair. Her Aspect markings are particularly striking — even her eyes have been drained of all colour, leaving them an eerie, washed out grey. "Yes! There's just... so many interesting things to go through in the library tower," Amiti says, breaking eye contact to look down at her feet. Or maybe at the reading materials cradled in her arms. "I might have overdone it, this time."
"I can help you bring what you don't need back to the library tower," you tell her, already turning toward the nearest exit to the lecture hall.
"You... really?" Amiti scurries to catch up with you, looking more than a little surprised.
"Don't look so shocked," you tell her. "None of us would make it if we didn't help each other." L'nessa is rubbing off on you.
Amiti nods, clutching her books tighter to her chest as she works at keeping up with your longer stride. She's quiet all the way out of the lecture hall, up until you get to the first stairwell.
"That lecture was fascinating, wasn't it?" she asks. She doesn't actually wait for you to answer before going on: "I didn't realise that there were so many different circumstances that could make a shadowland!"
"Isn't it mostly just the same circumstance?" you ask. Namely, a great number of people dying in the same spot, most likely in pain and fear.
"Well, yes," Amiti allows, "but, it's like instructor Sai was saying! It's not always about sheer quantity. There are so many more things that factor into it than just the number of deaths! And you can manipulate those things to make sure that it happens!"
"Do you mean 'to make sure it doesn't happen?" you ask, casting her a deeply dubious look.
Amiti blinks, caught up short by the question. "Well... well, aren't those the same thing?" she asks. "If you know how to do one, you can figure out how to do the other. And it's so interesting just academically, specifics aside! It's taking a piece of Creation and forcing it to merge with the Underworld!"
"It... certainly is." Amiti doesn't seem to have entirely parsed the discomfort in your tone, or your incredulous look. She's far too lost in recollection of the many finer points of a lecture that, for you, had been more of a grim warning than a source of delight.
You're sent reeling, a little when she changes the subject: "And weren't instructor Sai's eyes a little amazing? I couldn't help but notice while she was talking."
"Her eyes?" You try to recall the guest instructor in question. She'd been tall, powerfully built, but still bearing such an undeniably scholarly air around her that the details of her appearance barely stand out in your memory. You have no idea what's so special about her eyes. "What about them?"
This time, it's Amiti's turn to give you a look, staring up at you with a puzzled frown on her face. "They were purple," she says, as if spelling out that the sky is blue.
Well. Maybe that should have been more memorable than it apparently was. You chalk it up to fatigue, and only offer her a shallow sort of shrug. The two of you fall into silence again.
As you approach the library tower, you find yourself glancing down at the library materials you're holding. What you all call the library tower is, in fact, a vast collection of reading rooms, specialised collections, and archives on a variety of subjects, more on every floor, many difficult to find or access for a first year student. The texts Amiti is reading seem surprisingly advanced, considering all that. Especially when she's made such an abysmal showing in her practical training.
It's at this point that you notice something entirely incongruous amid the rest of your stack of books. "What's this?" you ask her.
"What's wha—" Amiti follows your gaze, her eyes locking on the thin, cheaply-bound volume near the top of your pile, and she briefly goes pink. Somehow, she manages to snatch it out of your pile without losing hold of any of her books, or sending yours spilling onto the floor. "That's nothing! That one's just... mine!"
You unavoidably catch sight of the cover as she tries to obscure it from view, the title prominent in cloyingly ornate calligraphy. "My Heart Goes with You?" you ask.
"It's a romance," Amiti admits, hunching in on herself a little. It's with a slightly defensive tone that she offers more of an explanation, as though she can't help herself: "It's all about a young Water Aspect and her handmaiden, who secretly love each other, and they dance around it for ages, but then they admit their feelings! But when the handmaiden admits her devotion, it's so true and so pure that it moves even Sextes Jylis, and so the handmaiden Exalts! But then they'll be separated for ten years while she's at Pasiap's Stair, and then fifty while she's in the Legions, but they swear an oath to always..." she trails off, looking even more mortified than before. "Well, it's a very sweet book! I've read it five times this year."
Your first reaction, rather than condemning her taste in trashy novels, is simply surprise. "How do you find the time to do anything other than your studies?"
"Well, if I didn't, I'd probably go crazy! And the readings and writing assignments aren't that hard, so far. I'm a fast reader." Then she continues blithely onward, as if this isn't a particularly remarkable thing to say.
You feel a stab of irrational jealousy at the fact that, when she says that, you actually believe her. The jealousy doesn't last long of course — even if your own progress is much slower than you'd like, it's at least been faster than Amiti's, no matter how smart she seems to be.
You find yourself hoping she manages to turn it around, somehow.
Resplendent Air, Realm Year 759
Despite the Heptagram's arcane focus and extensive academic facilities, the Dragon-Blooded of the Dynasty are, at the end of the day, a martial aristocracy. Sorcerers still need to be able to defend themselves through conventional means as much as anyone, and more than that, there needs to be a space to practice the more destructive or combat-orientated forms of sorcery.
Still, you're not entirely sure how you were talked into this.
Your opponent's blunt practice sword strikes at you again and again with hurricane force, and you strain with the effort of blocking each blow against the shield you've been handed. Tepet Usala Sola handles the weapon with a single-minded intensity, moving dancer-like through an elaborate set of sword forms. Her feet barely seem to touch the ground as each elegant strike leaves your arm a little more numb.
When it's over, she's left grinning and exuberant, eyes alight and long, brown hair blowing in a breeze that simply isn't there for anyone else. Up close, you realise she's actually slightly taller than you, which isn't common for another girl. "You're better at that than my usual partner," she tells you. "He flinches."
"How have you convinced more than one person to do this with you?" you ask, passing the training equipment to her in order to rub at a wrist. The two of you are nearly alone in the training room — there's a fifth year student going through a martial arts kata at the far end of the long, curving room, and a fourth year who seems to have fallen asleep against the wall a ways away, no matter how much noise you and Sola were making.
"Oh, the trick is to ask forcefully enough," Sola says, hanging up the training sword on a nearby rack, and the shield beside it. Her tone is joking, but you also believe it's the truth. She glances over her shoulder, looking at you curiously as you take a long gulp of water. You've done your best not to let the recent experience disturb your composure, to mixed success, you think. "That's an odd stance you were using," she says. "Who taught you?"
Despite your goals in life not necessarily being as martial as Sola's, it was always vital that you be able to defend yourself in a pinch. "My father," you say. It's been your most frequent source of contact with him in recent years, in fact. He hadn't taught you specifically to fight with a shield, though.
Article:
What style of combat did your father, Burano Maharan Nazat, instruct you in? Vote for as many options as you like, the top answer wins.
[ ] [Fighting Style] Brutal and pragmatic hand-to-hand fighting, taught to him in secret by a mere Caravaner Caste soldier. Your Essence-hardened body is the only weapon you need to rely on.
[ ] [Fighting Style] Spear fighting, such as he picked up during his stint fighting in wars of conquest in the Burano Legions. Speed and reach balance out your defensive magic.
[ ] [Fighting Style] Prasadi saber fighting, taught to him by his own father. Distinct in style from that common to the Blessed Isle, but both practical and elegant.
"Oh, the ambassador," Sola says, real curiosity in her voice.
Your father is not, of course, actually an ambassador. He is officially nothing more than an Imperial consort and the scion of a Cadet House located in a faraway satrapy — the polite fictions between the Realm and Prasad don't allow it to be officially acknowledged as anything else, an arrangement few are actually eager to change. Still, your father has made himself available as a point of contact between the Realm and his family, or other notables back in Prasad. He's also never shied away from quietly advocating for the interests of his homeland in matters of tribute and regional trade. You sometimes suspect this was why your mother chose him... but it's always impossible to tell where the brutal political pragmatism ends and the human whims begin, with her.
Instead of satisfying Sola's implied question, you only nod, and change the subject. "Do you train like this every day?"
"I alternate between different exercises," Sola says. "But, yes, I train every day. If the body is a blade, then the mind is its edge. Neglecting one weakens the other." She says this with the utter surety of someone who has had this lesson drilled into her skull, and still believes in it with her whole heart.
"I don't think I would be able to find the time," you say, skeptically. You're already going over what your next task should be in your head.
"We're all busy," Sola says. "We don't get anywhere if we run ourselves into the ground. Most students don't initiate in their first year."
You think back to that trip to the library tower with Amiti last month. It is like an Air Aspect to lose sight of practical realities in favour of ideas about how things should be. "Before I left, my mother also made sure to stress that 'most students' don't initiate in their first year," you say.
Sola pauses, taking a lingering moment to mentally process that you're referring to a private audience with the Empress, before arriving at the implications of the words. That you would be falling below expectations if you progressed at the pace of most of your peers. Just for an instant, she looks mildly horrified, which if nothing else, feels vindicating. "My mother was against my coming here at all," Sola admits, in the spirit of sudden solidarity.
This catches your curiosity. "How much against?"
Sola grimaces at the memory. "She wanted me to go to the House of Bells, like my sisters. I could learn battlefield sorcery there, if I still wanted to. We had a fight about it." She kneels down, rooting around in her bag as if looking for something. "A shouting match, really."
You have, in fact, met Matriarch Tepet Usala before, if only briefly. Even that much experience made you absolutely certain that she isn't a woman you'd want to cross or anger. "Why the Heptagram?"
Sola has produced the kind of ornate box one might purchase from a high end apothecary. You catch sight of the mon of Daana'd burnt into the lid, before she cracks it open and pulls out a small, rounded pill that she swallows without fanfare, washing it down with a long drink of water from a flask. You've seen her take these before, around the middle of the day, if usually at more of a distance. "I don't want to just be a great general and an adequate sorcerer," she says, as if the former is a foregone conclusion. "I want to be great at both. This way will be much harder, of course, but sometimes, we do what we have to to achieve what we want from life."
You nod, thinking you understand. There's a reason you've been going as flat out as you have, after all, and it hasn't just been to please your mother.
As Sola straightens, though, she cocks her head to the side, looking at something from out a nearby window. The training room is along the outer wall of the lowest levels of one of the seven towers — set up outside of it is what could be considered a testing range, of sorts, for the kind of spells you don't want to throw around in an enclosed space. You immediately catch sight of three figures there:
One of them is Simendor Deiza, her Aspect markings instantly identifiable. She's listening to, of all people, Mnemon Keric, who is attempting to regard her with a sort of haughty disdain. Whatever he says to her, it makes her throw back her head and laugh, much to Keric's displeasure.
Looking on with her arms crossed is the imposing, scarred visage of instructor First Light. Even in the perpetual gloom of the Isle of Voices, the light the sun casts on her shimmers as though it's passing through water. As ever, she's as easily read as the depths of a calm ocean.
All three of them are standing a dozen paces in front of the gnarled bulk of an upright boulder, blackened and pitted, an obvious victim of countless years of target practice by enterprising young sorcerers, now whittled down to a narrow, vertical pillar. At First Light's stoic insistence, Deiza casts one last smirk at Keric before she turns to face it. You're too distant to hear what she's saying, but you've seen her work sorcery before — she chants in a bastard mixture of Old Realm and archaic Flametongue, her fingers flashing through a series of mudras to sketch out a strange sign in the air.
"Is that the Messenger?" Sola asks, her eyes clearly following the motion as well as yours are.
"No," you say, frowning, "... the Hooded Headsman, I think." Which was an obscure and worrisome thing to conjure with even when it wasn't Deiza doing it.
A breeze stirs the metallic shimmer of Deiza's hair, against the wind, and the hauntingly inhuman laughter that it carries with it is piercing enough that you hear it plainly, carrying with it the sense of a hot, Southern summer. Silvery light leaps from her outstretched hand, solidifying into a fine metal chain as it whirls through the air. It wraps itself neatly around the very shattered peak of the target stone, and passes through it, the chunk of stone tumbling heavily to the blackened earth, cut cleanly as though by an impossibly sharp blade.
Sola lets out a low whistle. "The Hooded Headsman, huh?" You grimace, acknowledging her point. Clearly, that spell was not intended primarily for stone cutting.
Through the window, First Light seems grudgingly impressed, based on her bearing. She gives a jerk of her head in Deiza's direction, clearly asking her to follow. Grinning, Deiza actually reaches out and gives Keric a pat on the cheek as she passes. He flushes bright red, looking furious.
"Is there something going on between those two?" Sola asks, more as a joke than a serious suggestion.
"Deiza and Keric?" You can't suppress a short laugh at that. Much more likely, he was present at the impromptu demonstration for a less friendly reason. Still, it was funny to imagine.
"I've never heard you laugh before," Sola tells you, smiling.
You shrug. "I laugh when something is funny."
It was a companionable enough diversion, in the end. But seeing Deiza like that, working sorcery so easily, only serves to stoke the frustrations burning in your chest even if she is using a strange, foreign tradition. You are making progress, and good progress at that, if your instructors are to be believed. But it's not enough.
You're going to need to take more serious action.
Article:
Nearing the halfway point of the year, you are starting to hit your limits, but you refuse to allow that to stop you, against more even-headed advice.
What drastic measures do you take to overcome these limits? There is no right or good answer here. All of these are probably a bad idea, as they involve progressing very fast and often with less supervision than the Heptagram would prefer for first year students. You're a young Exalt under immense pressure in the throes of Essence fever, making a desperate decision.
This is a character defining choice, and one that will affect the storylines you get in the future.
You may vote for as many options as you like. The top answer will win.
[ ] [Initiation] Names Plucked Like Blossoms
You seek out the wisdom of the demon Yoxien, the Directory Bound in Crimson, as he invited you to. Yoxien's great powers are severely restricted by his millenia old binding, rendering him all but harmless. But he has his voice, and his vast stores of knowledge, and if he's adequately intrigued by a young Exalt, he will share secrets with her that he hasn't gifted another in many centuries.
Pick this choice if you're interested in:
A unique sorcerous initiation for Ambraea with strange parameters
A focus on demons, demon-summoning, and hell
Subplots involving Yoxien, his history, and figures from his past
[ ] [Initiation] A Tribute of Gems
In her desperation, Ambraea catches the eye of a greater elemental, who assists her with revelations of sorcery, but not for free. Her patron will be a powerful, unbound entity with their own agenda and motivations, which she will not have an opportunity to understand beforehand. Their presence will not be a surprise to the Heptagram's staff, but their taking an interest in a first year student will.
Pick this choice if you're interested in:
A rare sorcerous initiation for Ambraea, involving offerings of mineral wealth
A focus on elementals and spirit courts
A powerful and active patron who will choose to meddle in Ambraea's life
[ ] [Initiation] Geomantic Mandala
Ambraea throws herself into the Heptagram's famed geomancy techniques, seeking to access material far above her beginner level, intent on breaking through to true understanding even if it kills her. She succeeds on the one hand... but also nearly succeeds on the other.
Pick this choice if you're interested in:
A sorcerous initiation for Ambraea that taps into the raw elemental power of Creation's dragon lines
A focus on geomancy, artifice, and the structure of Creation
Subplots involving crafting projects large and small, affecting Ambraea's future plans — this will draw the attention of certain parties earlier than she'd prefer
[Fighting Style] Brutal and pragmatic hand-to-hand fighting: 14
[Fighting Style] Spear fighting: 6
[Initiation] Names Plucked Like Blossoms: 12
[Initiation] Geomantic Mandala: 11
Ascending Water, Realm Year 759
On the night of your sixteenth birthday, things hit a breaking point.
"I need to go out."
Maia blinks up at you, startled and confused. "It's curfew in a few minutes," she whispers. It's a little unnecessary — it's just the three of you alone in your dorm, and L'nessa can hardly fail to overhear.
"I know," you say. "I just... need to go out."
"Why are you telling me?" Maia asks, looking distinctly nervous.
"I need you to help me sneak out without being caught," you say, bluntly.
"Ambraea, don't drag Maia into trouble," L'nessa says, frowning at you. She's already dressed for sleep, sitting on her bed as she goes through some lecture notes. "What's gotten into you? It's not safe outside, and it's freezing, and there's a storm coming on." Raised all your life in Scarlet Prefecture, you'd thought you'd experienced winters before. This first year on an island somewhere north of Chanos Prefecture has disavowed you of that notion — the weather here turns on a dime, and the winter storms are merciless.
"I need to," you say, keeping your voice calm. "I need to be out there in the storm. I need to feel the elemental power surging in the dragon lines — drawing on Air is the hardest for me, it might be what I need. I'm so close."
"If you're close, why does it have to be tonight?" L'nessa asks.
You try to take a deep breath, to calm down, to master your frustration, hands balling into fists at your sides. But what comes out of your mouth is: "Because I've been close for months!" Both of your roommates are staring at you — it's the first time they've ever heard you raise your voice. "I've been working as hard as I can, I've been doing everything they've taught us, I've been skipping ahead where I can!"
"Yes, you barely sleep!" L'nessa says, open concern on her face. "Even less than the rest of us."
"I don't have time to sleep," you say. "I need to do something." You're pacing — with an effort, you force yourself to stop.
L'nessa opens her mouth to say something else, but Maia cuts in: "I'll help," she says. "If... you think I can." You appreciate that she's not trying to be coy about whether or not she's capable of this anymore.
You give a light sort of snort. "The amount of times we've seen you disappear, when you want to?" Maia blushes, looking down at her feet. You spare her a slight, harried smile and add, very quietly: "Thank you."
Maia's face reddens further, and she only nods.
L'nessa puts her head in her hands. An orange leaf drifts free from her hair — they appear to do that more often when she's stressed. "Just... be careful. And don't get eaten by a spirit."
You don't have Maia's utterly silent tread, or her uncanny sense for when to creep, when to dash, and when to hide — you don't even see the supernatural servants whose attentions she's evading, and you suspect neither does she. It isn't strange for a Water Aspect to have such talents, of course, but as you struggle to follow her without giving you both away, you gradually come to appreciate that Maia is either a rare prodigy, or she's had some manner of formal training. Likely both — the patrician families of the Thousand Scales have their own petty intrigues, you suppose.
The two of you slip through darkened corridors down unlit stairwells before, eventually, coming to a first-story window. At Maia's gesture, you leap out of it, landing on the rocky ground below without injury.
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Maia whispers, leaning out the window to look down at you. You don't actually think she wants to go out into the night with you, but the fact that she's offering is a small salve to your over-stressed nerves.
"I'll be fine," you say, the freezing night air harsh against your skin, even where you're dressed for it. "Just go back to bed."
Maia frowns, shaking her head. "I'll... be back in a couple hours to help you get back in. You don't want to be caught, right?"
You think about telling her not to bother, but in all honesty, you don't want to be caught either. "Thank you," you say. Then you turn to face the nighttime gloom, and walk out into it, shoulders hunched against the wind.
It's a dark enough night that this would ordinarily be a foolish and dangerous thing to do even without the spirits to think of. The ground is rocky and uneven at the best of times, and just now, it's covered in a fine dusting of snow, periodically hiding pockets of black ice. You can see with more than just your eyes, however — you flood your senses with Earth Essence, every footfall painting you a rough picture of your surroundings. Enough to avoid falling into a crevice, at least.
Eyes follow you as you go. Strange wisps light the night, sometimes accompanied by disturbingly human cries or whispers. Invisible creatures rustle through scrubby underbrush, and silent figures flit at the very edge of your perception, even enhanced as it is. Once, a many-fanged mouth had lunged at you through the mist — you'd been ready for it, seizing the attacker by its thin neck. A particularly delicate and fleeting form of Air elemental, it had all but shattered in your grip, blowing away on the breeze like loose powder snow.
That nothing worse comes for you is luck, more than anything.
All the while, even as you're forced to focus on where you're going, your supernatural senses are also straining to feel the dragon lines beneath your feet, the flows of elemental power that intertwine so thickly beneath the Isle of Voices and its mist-shrouded archipelago.
At long last, after half an hour of walking, your hands already cold in your gloves, you reach the spot you want — a small nexus of Dragon Lines of Air, Water and Earth, near the edge of a sharp drop off with the sea crashing below. For just a moment as you arrive, the clouds part enough for the crescent moon to filter a little light down to you. You decide to take this as auspicious, even if it lets you see the ominous cloud mass bearing down on you from the North.
You sweep away some of the snow on a conveniently placed stone, and settle yourself down onto it, ignoring the bitter cold from the rock as well as the biting wind. The hardship involved, you decide, should help. You haven't been taught this, but it feels instinctively true.
You've just begun to commune with this place where three elements meet when, fatefully, you catch sight of something in the water. A strangely captivating glimmer, many-hued and iridescent, moving against the current. There are many strange things in the waters here, of course, but this one makes you creep forward to the edge of the cliff, just far enough to peer down into the dark, churning water. You can't quite make out what you're looking at, but you can tell that it's vast. And you can tell the precise moment when, somehow, it begins looking back up at you. It's a cold, assessing sort of attention you feel in your mind and your bones, and it makes you shiver more than the cold.
Then, impossibly fast, the shape is gone. The clouds are already beginning to go back over the moon. You force yourself to relax, sit back up, and take a deep breath. Whatever it was, it's hopefully gone now.
"I didn't expect to see a human out in this," a voice says from behind you. It takes iron resolve not to jump, and only slightly less not to immediately whirl around and punch the speaker in the jaw. You feel abruptly, horribly unarmed and exposed — maybe Sola has the right idea, wearing a sword everywhere, even at school.
Maintaining an air of cool unflappability, you climb to your feet, and turn to look at the speaker. Seemingly they're a youth your own age or a little bit older. Ordinarily, their features and complexion wouldn't look at all out of place on the streets of Chanos, although the pale blonde hair would imply a bit more Northern blood than most — present circumstances contextualise many things. The thread-of-silver robes they're wearing are perfectly dry, but their hair is soaked, as if they've just come from a swim. And they have, in a sense — they're brushing snow and dust from off their narrow shoulders, and the ground beneath their feet has an odd, freshly turned quality, as if they had somehow burrowed into the cliffside from below the water and popped up here. You can see this in such clear detail because they're giving off a soft, white glow, almost as if from beneath their skin. It's the only thing that clearly marks them as non-human, just now.
"What are you?" you ask.
The youth gives a mocking shake of their head. You can't quite pin a gender to them, for all their beauty. It's... confusing. "And here I thought Dynasts were supposed to have manners," he says. "Unbecoming of a young Prince of the Earth, don't you think?"
You bridle at the tone, but they're right. It's also just not wise to offend an intelligent spirit of unknown power and providence when it seems more interested in talking than in trying to bite you in half. "I apologise. You surprised me," you say. "Who are you?"
"You have the great honour of speaking to Diamond-Cut Perfection." They're wearing such a profoundly self satisfied look on their face now that you're very certain they picked that name out themself.
"A pleasure to meet you," you say, still playing along. "I am Ambraea, twenty-second daughter of the Scarlet Empress." You notice a distinct shift in their bearing as you say this last. Before, they'd had the look of a bored aristocrat entertaining themselves for the space of a novel conversation. Now, they're looking at you with a thoughtful sort of interest that you're not sure you like. "Regretfully, I must focus on my meditations."
"You're a student here," Perfection says, noticing the uniform you're wearing beneath your heavy cloak. "Studying all alone at night, outside, right before a storm. You're either doing something you're not supposed to, or pushing yourself harder than you're supposed to. Or both, perhaps?"
"I'm afraid that it's none of your concern," you say. "It is extremely important that I make progress tonight. Perhaps we can continue this conversation a different time." Or never.
"You wouldn't be the first student here to push yourself too far, early in your training," Perfection muses. "Although, you have something none of the others do: My attention, in person."
"How unfortunate for them," you say, unable to suppress your sarcasm.
They take a step forward, uncomfortably close, eyes staring into yours with an inhuman intensity, hard and unyielding as a mountainside. "It was," they say, completely sincere. "I have never shared a tenth of what I know with any Dragon-Blood from your school or the one before. Much as they've sought out my knowledge."
You want to brush them off, but they're so serious all of a sudden that you can't actually bring yourself to. That desperate, grasping part of you that brought you out here in the first place simply won't let you. Still, you have your pride. "Are you trying to make me an offer, or are you just bragging?"
They stare at you for a moment longer, before throwing back their head and laughing. "I like you!" they say, deciding on the spot. The levity dries up quickly. "Fine. I know things about the elements and the deep magics at the root of Creation that you cannot imagine. That you could not learn on your own in twice the short lifespan you have in front of you. I will make this knowledge available to you, for a price."
Your eyes narrow. "A price?"
"Favours for favours!" they say. "Nothing odious, or beneath your dignity."
"That is incredibly nonspecific," you say.
Perfection sighs. "I have been... stuck in place for a very long time. Longer than your Scarlet Realm has existed. Things are suddenly very different, though. And I would like well-placed allies I can call upon at need."
"And so you ask the first sixteen-year-old Dragon-Blood you meet?" you ask.
"And so I ask the first daughter of the Empress training to be a sorcerer who I meet," Perfection corrects. "Earth is slow and methodical, but I know an opportunity when I see one."
It's started to snow now, small, stinging flakes born in on a steadily rising wind. You have to raise your voice to be heard: "How do I know you're telling the truth about any of this?"
Perfection closes their eyes for a moment, and inhales a great lungfull of frigid air. Just for an instant, their body shines like brilliant crystal, transparent and dazzlingl — then the youth is gone entirely, and you're looking up at the creature you've really been holding this conversation with:
Serpentine coils fill the space, blocking off any avenue of escape you might take other than leaping into the sea behind you. Scales in every dazzling colour imaginable, each one cut from a different kind of gem. Teeth and claws of purest adamant. A great, reptilian head lowers to regard you with an eye of faceted diamond. It's the same voice from before that speaks, somehow, but deeper, sharper, colder. "Heed me, Ambraea of the Terrestrial Exalted: I have knowledge that you seek. I will ask boons of you in return for bestowing that knowledge, now or in the future. We will be bound together by this congress. I do not offer that lightly, or suffer those who break faith with me. Do you still doubt me, or will you accept? There will not be a second offer."
For a few seconds, you're left stunned, processing the situation you've found yourself in as quickly as you can. There are certain weaker elementals that might imitate a draconic form, but you know in the very fibre of your being what you're looking at now. And, while you're not at all sure what they're doing here, you do believe that what they're offering is well within their power. Risks or not, this is not the kind of opportunity you have the luxury of spurning. You swallow, and speak:
"I, Ambraea, Chosen of Pasiap, do swear in his name to bargain future favour in exchange for sorcerous knowledge. I do not suffer betrayal either, dragon." You stare into that burning, gemstone eye with all the steely resolve you can muster. It's difficult.
Perfection laughs again, a far more intimidating sound now, before reaching out a talon that could easily punch through your whole body, just barely touching its razor point to your brow. "And I, Diamond-Cut Perfection, Lesser Elemental Dragon of Earth, do likewise swear. With the Earth as our witness." As they say this, you feel a slight tremor underfoot, and struggle not to cry out as foreign Earth essence floods your body, centred on the claw against your forehead.
You succeed in not screaming, but you still fall to your knees, gasping and shivering all over. You hear a clink of metal, and something small flashes through the air as it lands on snow in front of you. Tentatively, you reach out to pick it up by the fine silver chain attached to the object: It's a scale the size of your palm, one of the many thousands from Perfection's true form, seemingly carved from a solid gemstone. It has no fixed colour, shifting constantly as you watch in a slow, steady gradient. You can feel the dragon's essence still pulsing through it.
"Wear that," Perfection instructs you. "Sleep with it, and you will learn what I have to teach."
"Wh-why did no one tell us you were here?" you gasp, clutching the object in your hand.
"They may have," Perfection says. "The gemlord in a cavern beneath a neighbouring island. Master of a small and isolated court. Nothing overly concerning. One of my mice overheard a Heptagram instructor declaring that I would surely take at least another century to ascend to draconic form. And I might have, before she gave me motivation to hurry." The tone is thick with satisfaction.
You nod. You had heard mention of the gemlord, an ancient creature to be respected, but like all of its kind, almost fully sessile. A mass of living gemstones attended by lesser elementals, visited once or twice a year by instructors and senior students. Not a cause for major concern otherwise — the fact that this same elemental could now not only move, but literally fly and walk undetected among humans, would certainly change that. "They'll realise it was you, when they notice what I've done," you tell them.
"They will," the dragon says. "I have broken none of the strictures they've extorted from me, although I am sure they will attempt more now. Go, before the storm begins in earnest: you will hear from me very soon." Then, in a flash of scales and wings and power, Perfection soars over your head, entering the churning water behind you with barely a splash. And you're left alone.
You stagger back to your feet, slipping the chain around your neck. The metal is cold against your skin. Taking a deep breath, you set about retracing your steps back to the school, the concrete sense of the stone and thin, frozen soil underfoot helping to convince you that this all hasn't just been a strange dream. Whatever the consequences of your actions will be, you can strangely already feel a great weight falling from your shoulders — you can sense yourself on the utter cusp of the understanding you've been chasing all these months. The sensation of the scale worn against your skin is a reminder of that, as much as it's also a source of uncertainty.
You're about halfway there when a figure looms out at the edge of your sight. "Ambraea!"
"Maia?" You stare at your roommate as she comes out of the snow, flummoxed by her presence. She's wearing a cloak as well, but it's the same one she'd been using to ward off the much lesser chill of the halls of the Heptagram.
"I saw—" she hesitates. "I saw something. Did it hurt you?"
"... No," you say. "No. I'm fine. You shouldn't have come all the way back down here just for me."
Maia takes on an oddly guilty expression, before turning back in the direction of the school. "Well," she says, voice very quiet, "it's not as though you don't have friends here."
With how distracted you are, between the strange bargain you just struck and the process of getting back to bed unnoticed and the faintly warm feeling of hearing your own words repeated back at you, you don't think about the obvious until much, much later: The window of your dormitory is on the far side of the central tower from the spot you sought out for your meditation. For Maia to see even the faintest glimpse of what happened, she would have had to stay where she was, after telling you that she'd intended to go back upstairs.
Or, more likely, she would have had to already have been following you.
Article:
The first spell a sorcerer learns is known as her "control spell" — it very often deeply intertwined with her sorcery itself, allowing her to do more with it than other sorcerers, but sometimes affecting her in strange and visible ways. In particular, spells intended primarily for violence tend to have less subtle effects as control spells.
Due to the nature of Ambraea's sorcerous initiation, her control spell will be aligned with the element of Earth. You may vote for as many of these three options as you like. The one with the most votes wins.
[ ] Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Creates a massive cascade of razor-winged butterflies formed of glass or pure obsidian, aimed at the target of the sorcerer's choosing. While a skilled supernatural opponent can defend themself against this, mortal troops or other massed enemies are generally cut to ribbons. Can be used to devastating effect in naval combat, as it destroys sails and rigging and damages wooden structures. The butterflies themselves linger broken underfoot once their job is done. A well known and reliable spell for sorcerers trained for the battlefield.
As a control spell, Ambraea's control and power over the stream of butterflies is exceptional. When she's angry or overexcited, her nails turn to solid, razor-edged obsidian, and the silhouettes of butterflies seem to flit up out of her shadow.
[ ] Plague of Bronze Snakes
Pulls a horde of metallic serpents up out of the ground under the sorcerer's command, to vex her enemies or their lands, hunt down dangerous animals, or guard an important location. Under normal circumstances, these are simple, vicious creatures who will only last a single night for a novice sorcerer, or a handful of nights for those more experienced. The snakes' venom is both deadly and supernatural in nature.
As a control spell, Ambraea's snakes last longer and are slightly more intelligent than average, capable of very basic reasoning that minimises the chance of unwanted collateral damage. A single bronze snake lingers after her first experimental casting — it appears at least as intelligent as a mundane snake, and can obey complex commands as a familiar. It is unwilling or incapable of straying far from Ambraea, however, and will respond with lethal force to defend her from danger. If destroyed, the snake reforms from Ambraea's Essence within the next night.
[ ] Stalwart Earth Guardian
Creates a protective ward dug into the earth or drawn into stone, protecting the sorcerer and those closest to her while they remain within the bounds of the magically-enlarged figure, with space enough for multiple adults to lay down or sleep. Anyone approaching the figure from the outside is beset by the earth itself, the ground churning like a very localised earthquake, alerting the sorcerer to the danger and making it extremely treacherous for those with ill-intent to reach her.
As a control spell, Ambraea gains the uncanny ability to cut into solid stone with only her fingernails. In addition to being periodically useful and very impressive at parties, this allows Ambraea to create this ward on any exposed piece of stone, even without chalk or other writing utensils.
You dream of being vast, but terribly finite — immobile save for your own glacial growth outward. Earth Essence flows through your mineral body in place of blood, connecting you to the vastness of all Creation as the seconds crawl by like years. In that bizarre and ponderous existence beneath the earth, you gradually bear witness to the interplay of the five elements, and the hidden workings of the world beyond them.
It wouldn't have worked if your mind hadn't already been primed for this, gradually pried open little by little by the Heptagram's Ten Thousand Labours. You don't think you could have grasped what Perfection was trying to show you even half as quickly as you did if you'd been earlier in your studies. Even now, the alien perspective is incredibly disorientating.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" the androgynous youth asks, somehow both alongside you and not here at all as you drift amid a glimmering crystalline lattice. You would respond, but you have no mouth. Somehow, they hear you anyway. "I'd forgotten how beautiful, until now. Seeing it through fresh eyes is a good reminder!"
Even your waking hours are surreal and dreamlike, full of the whispering of the young dragon's wisdom in your mind. The trickle of your understanding gradually increases until it's an outright landslide, threatening to overwhelm you entirely.
Then one day, you wake up, and everything is changed.
Resplendent Wood, Realm Year 759
Creation is larger than before. It's not quite a sixth sense being opened, so much as it is all your others being sharpened in a way you couldn't have imagined beforehand, and certainly couldn't begin to describe now. You can sense the power in this place, in the Isle of Voices — the interplay of geomancy and spiritual energy and mightier forces you can only just begin to glimpse.
You have been given the faintest understanding of the great secrets behind the surface of the world. The laws that govern it, and how they can be changed. This is the true power of the Emerald Circle, through which everything else flows.
Coming as you are out of your haze of frantic work, you pay close attention to the student body for the first time in months. It's smaller than it was even a few short weeks ago, the attrition felt most heavily among your fellow first years. You'd been only dimly aware of faces just disappearing from the meal hall, no longer appearing in the hallways. Dorm assignments being reshuffled to pair up those left without roommates. It is stress, mainly, that leads so many to slink back home in ignominious failure. This is, of course, normal — the Heptagram separates the wheat from the chaff.
And whatever happens to anyone else, you are one step closer to being the wheat.
Eyes follow you as you descend the steps at the end of the lecture, plainly trying to catch the instructor before she leaves. Your new companion is eye-catching enough to cause a stir.
"May I have a moment of your time, Instructor?"
Cynis Bashura looks up from where she's packing up her lecture materials, looking poised to tell you she's too busy. When she looks at you, instead of meeting your gaze, she locks eyes with the serpent that's slithering up from the collar of your tunic, twining languidly around your neck. It's certainly striking at a glance — its scales are a handsome blue-green, the patinated bronze warm as it slides over your skin. Beyond that, though, the polished, metallic tones of its eyes and darting tongue mark it as supernatural even if someone hasn't seen its like before.
She blows a thoughtful smoke ring up over both your heads. "I think I can find the time," she says, a weary sort of smile creeping over her face. "This should be interesting."
The work room she leads you to is in the basement of one of the towers, warded with a basic ritual that you could have gotten through anytime after your first week. It's only middling in size, but it feels very large and very empty — there's nothing here but a few unoccupied shelves, and a dirt floor. The latter is why she chose it.
"Now," Bashura says, closing the door behind you with a firm snap, "it isn't nighttime yet, but I think you should be able to manage a demonstration."
You nod. Summonings of all kinds are often easier after dark, particularly at the stroke of midnight, particularly during nights without a moon. Times when the barriers between worlds grow infinitesimally weaker. Lesser elementals aren't quite so picky, however, even for specialised summonings like the spell that burns in your chest. "You know what I wanted to do?" you ask her.
"I've seen a bronze serpent before, Ambraea," she says. "You've certainly been busy. Show me."
Swallowing your nerves — and ignoring the slight tickle of a forked tongue flicking concernedly at your ear — you reach out for that spark of foreign Earth Essence you've cultivated inside you, mingling so strangely with your own. You'd bolstered it before going to bed the night before by ritually consigning a silver coin into the ground. You slow your breathing, finding the steady peace of the solitary mountain. There's a pulse underfoot that only you can sense, and the dragon scale hanging beneath your tunic burns cold for just a moment. Despite the part of you that simply wants to get the thing done with, you go slowly and carefully as you form the power that you need. When you're ready, your hands flash through a sequence of Heptagram mudras, signs describing the Verdigris Serpent Chant in place of you speaking it aloud.
A book you cross-referenced spoke of two different methods for the final casting of this spell. Diamond-Cut Perfection had told you of a third, only viable for one whom the earth itself already obeys. It's this last that you perform now, raising a booted foot in order to slam it down onto the hard-packed soil underfoot, perfectly in time with the last of your signs. There's a flash of bronze-coloured Essence, and this time, you're very certain that the slight tremor was felt by more than just you. You stomp down on the same spot again, and then a third time, forcing yourself to focus through the euphoria of the casting. It's easier this time than your first casting.
The dirt floor splits open at your feet, a small, narrow hole forming. Out of it flows half a dozen snakes, each an adder as long as your arm, each thin and deadly and waiting for your word. Last time, you'd panicked, looking back at all those snake eyes staring expectantly up at you, and you'd said the first thing that came to mind: "Rats!" They'd all slithered off into the darkness... except for one.
"Anyone who steps into that corner," you say, pointing to the far end of the room. As one, they hiss an affirmation and slither over the ground to the spot you've indicated, forming a strange, unnaturally still guard there.
Bashura, wisely, does not approach them. She's been watching this all transpire with a keen eye, leaning against the back wall. You see that she's actually produced a pipe, which she's presumably lit with her bare hands — a sensible enough habit to pick up, when one already had her Aspect markings. "You've been tutored by an elemental," she says.
You stiffen, and don't reach up to touch the dragon scale. On your shoulders, your snake goes abruptly still. "It's that obvious?" you say.
"No," Bashura says, gesturing with the pipe. "I'm just very smart." She frowns, as though mulling over a possibility for a second or two. Then she says, with actual venom: "Diamond-Cut Perfection."
Perhaps conjured up by the mention of their name, you feel the elemental's mind touching your own — they're unquestionably amused. No use trying to hide it. "Yes," you say.
"And just when did you get a chance to—" Bashura reconsiders the question, and her tone, taking a puff from her pipe before starting again. "You know, I've been watching you a little, this year."
You're aware that many people have, for reasons other than your great skill or dedication. Still, you're a little surprised to hear it from her. "You have, instructor?"
"To be honest, I thought there was a decent chance you'd go home early. Or not at all."
The words genuinely sting. No matter how common that is, it was never an option for you. "Why?"
"Most of us do not become flawless diamonds when we're under all the pressure in the world," Bashura says, as blunt as before. "And you are most definitely lucky to be alive, the way you've been carrying on."
"You... noticed this much, but you didn't stop me?" You frown, finally letting an expression pass through your calm facade.
Bashura shrugs. "It's our job to make diamonds out of coal, as it would happen. We can't do that without a few splitting, or falling through the cracks. I'll have words with that elemental — so will the dominie, I suspect. We were bound to need to sooner rather than later, but tempting first year students into bargains is too far to be borne. Be careful of what that dragon tries to drag you into." For the first time, her expression softens a little, as she adds: "But... congratulations. You're a sorcerer."
You don't quite let yourself heave the relieved sigh you want to at those words, but you feel your snake coil a little tighter around your neck — just enough to be a comfort.
"Put a sign up on the door when you leave," Bashura says, turning toward the door. "We don't need anyone blundering into your little pets here, before they go back to the earth."
This is not, of course, the end of things — you're questioned further on both your actions and your judgment, and called foolish by more than a few instructors.
The response from your peers is more mixed — upperclassmen seem to view you with a sort of keen-eyed scrutiny, as if you have suddenly just threatened to become an actual human whose presence they'll have to consider beyond a single year. Your own yearmates are a mix of awe and a sort of disapproving envy, depending on the student. One of them takes it a great deal farther than most, however:
You haven't had a great deal to do with Ragara Yonan, but you've seen him often enough. You remember him from countless lectures, practical exercises, and binding rituals. A quiet boy, and certainly not lazy, but also not particularly talented. Twice, he is caught attempting to go outside after curfew. The third time, he succeeds, venturing out into a rainstorm.
His body is found two days later laying at the bottom of a dry gorge with a broken neck, already partially eaten. Reflection helpfully tells you that it was probably the fall that killed him, the drop off having been nearly invisible in the darkness. Whatever had been feeding off of his body was much more likely an opportunist than anything. In the end, being fireproof doesn't protect you from splitting your skull open on a sharp rock.
You don't mourn for the boy in particular, although you're not thrilled by the thought of someone dying in emulation of you. The largest part of your disquiet is more existential than that — Exalts don't die this way in stories, it's always a glorious battle or a heroic last stand. Certainly you know, intellectually, that this isn't always true in the real world. One of your own half-sisters infamously died after too much heroin mixed with too much dreamstone dust. Cynis had been nearing two-hundred, though, already the Founder of her own Great House. This feels... different.
It is a slight wakeup call, for all that it doesn't entirely take away your giddy sense of triumph.
"Honestly, it's like you're trying to make us all look bad," L'nessa says, one night. It's one of the few truly clear evenings you've seen all year, the stars fully visible overhead. You're on top of one of the towers, expected to correctly read the heavens above, and record your findings meticulously — astrology is primarily known for divination, but it can be used in all manner of odd rituals a sorcerer might take advantage of.
"Well," you say, not quite looking up as you work, "at least you'll be able to tell your mother that you did manage to get to know me. Like she asked." Your snake is curled up on the ground beside you, dozing smugly as it digests an unlucky mouse.
She laughs, the sound kept quiet enough as to not disturb the others at their work. "As difficult as you make that! Although to be fair, you're still one of the more approachable aunts I have."
You crack a smile at that. "Yes, I imagine so."
You both fall silent for a moment, concentrating on your work. At length, she speaks again: "This year will have been the hardest part, supposedly," she notes.
"Yes, I'm sure it's nothing but smooth sailing from here," you say. It won't be, and you know it — you still have a great deal to learn over the next seven years, even if you've made an auspicious start in only one. One spell does not a master sorcerer make.
"Naturally," L'nessa agrees. "Try to keep up with me, won't you?"
You only smile at that, as the two of you look up at the heavens, both already thinking ahead to the remaining years of your schooling, and even beyond. Neither of you can see the storm on the horizon yet, but how could you? After all, no one expects the Imperial Mountain to crumble or the sky to fall. For you in particular, either of those things are as easy to contemplate as what the future holds.
The end of the first year approaches, and you have not only survived, but triumphed. You will now have the short months of the academic break to recover and bask in your accomplishments.
Returning to the Imperial City is impractical by ordinary means, from the sheer length of the voyage. Anticipating this, you have been given permission to stay in the Empress's personal residence in the city of Chanos, one of the many she maintains across the Blessed Isle. The break is, among other things, intended to keep secondary school students connected to the Dynasty as a whole.
As a young student of sorcery, you will not precisely be swamped with offers to attend salons and gallas. You do intend to do more than merely moping around in a strange house with no one but servants for company, however — some of the connections you've made during this year offer opportunities to begin to take your first baby steps toward establishing yourself as your own woman, rather than merely your mother's daughter. This is a vital time in every young Dynast's life, where you work to forge lasting networks among your peers, as well as impress your elders.
Article:
The following choices reference gaining ties and scrutiny — these are informal ways to track who Ambraea has been directing her efforts towards, and who else is taking notice. Scrutiny is not necessarily bad at this stage, with your place in Dynastic society not yet secured and the tentative alliances you might form yet so fragile. Over the long term, however, you cannot please everyone, and all Great Houses have enemies who they will judge you for associating too closely with. This will not preclude having a positive relationship with certain individuals from a given Great House, but it may make things more interesting, from time to time.
You may vote for as many options as you like, but only the option with the most votes will be picked.
During the break, you...
[ ] Stay in Chanos, but accept an invitation to call on Sesus Cerec, Amiti's mother, at her estate outside the city
Its unsavory reputation aside, you could do far worse than working to associate yourself with one of the three Great Military Houses of the Realm. Even if Amiti herself has shown no great talent at sorcery, her mother is a well respected legionary officer both within House Sesus and beyond, with more power and influence than you can possibly guess at yet. However, long term, you cannot hope to attach yourself to one of the military houses without drawing suspicion from scions of its rivals.
+1 ties to Sesus Amiti, House Sesus
+1 scrutiny from House Tepet, House Cathak
[ ] Accept an invitation from your elder sister, V'neef, to call on her in Eagle Prefecture, traveling with L'nessa via sorcerous conveyance
House V'neef is a wealthy and dynamic young house, and attaching your fortunes to it in its early days may reap substantial benefits down the road. V'neef yourself is popular and gregarious, well known for being a gracious host. Both the fledgling house and its matriarch have powerful enemies kept at bay mainly by your mother's attentions, however, and at some point you will be perceived as taking sides in the intrigues and enmities of your elder siblings. Perhaps unavoidable, in the long term.
+1 ties to V'neef L'nessa, House V'neef, V'neef
+1 scrutiny from House Peleps, Mnemon
[ ] Exchange favours with Diamond-Cut Perfection in order to return to the Imperial Palace at supernatural speed, making a grand statement about your sorcerous progress
Doing so will cause a minor stir at court, and announce you as a rising talent, as well as deepening your entanglement with a powerful and enigmatic elemental. You can count on a chance to speak privately with your father, at least, and to see servants and palace officials who very literally raised you far more than either of your parents did.
+1 ties to Diamond-Cut Perfection
+1 scrutiny (general))
Four years, seven months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress
It's a very similar voyage by ship to the one you took nearly a year before, but the atmosphere is completely different. You're not sailing into the unknown, giddy with nerves and anticipation — you're all on your way to leave your long months of isolation, undefeated by your studies, and set to enjoy a well-earned rest.
"I'm going to be staying with a cousin," Maia says, leaning against the railing of the ship. You wouldn't normally be this close to the edge yourself, but Maia being here helps — when a cold, salty spray crashes over the railing, it parts around her in clear deference, leaving the two of you dry.
"Home's too far?" you ask. You have the vague impression that Maia's household is on the southern coast of the Blessed Isle.
"I was born in Incas Prefecture," she agrees. Incas is wealthy and prosperous, nearly clear on the far side of the entire Isle from Chanos.
Your snake — newly dubbed 'Verdigris' — is around your shoulders. She gives a long, curious look in Maia's direction. Noticing this, Maia tentatively reaches out a hand toward Verdigris. Sensing your friendly feelings toward the Water Aspect, the snake stretches out to flick her metallic tongue over the palm of Maia's hand inquisitively. Maia smiles, and is distracted from spending anymore time glancing around at the rest of the ship.
Like that first day, things have mostly broken off into groups for conversation during the voyage. You and Maia are by yourselves, and not just because you're both standing a little closer to the side of the ship than many would like. Looking at the uninviting glances some of the others are sparing Maia, it's clear that the realities of the world outside of school are already reasserting themselves. Someone in Maia's position was to be tolerated when you were all shut up in the Heptagram together, roughing it without so much as a servant to your names, but no one else seems to have been scrambling to include the patrician girl in their groups. Not necessarily out of malice, in all cases, but certainly in some.
You understand what you're doing here. It's a sincere friendship — you enjoy her company, find her intelligent and talented, and don't regret having had her assigned as your roommate. You don't like to see her shut out like this. But you're also consciously deigning to show her more consideration than you entirely need to, and based on the grateful look in her eyes, she knows that, too. Perhaps there are some who would read something manipulative or false into this — but the concept that all your friendships would have a practical political element, positive or negative, is something that's been drilled into you from your earliest years. "Chanos is quite nice in the summer, I'm told," you say.
Maia smiles. "Do you think they just say that to make themselves feel better about the winters?"
"Yes, probably," you admit, and she laughs at your frankness. Ahead, the fog is beginning to thin, even as the unnatural storm winds that shroud the Isle of Voices begin to recede.
The port of Chanos is as busy as you recall it from the year before, awash with sailors and merchants, ships crossing the Inland Sea in both directions. This city is the famed Gateway to the North, through which the wealth of countless great nations flows back into the Realm: feathersteel, blue jade and other mineral wealth both mundane and fantastic, furs and rare timber from the Northeast, whale oil and ambergris from the White Sea, and much else besides. It's also the home port of the Air Fleet, the Northern branch of the Imperial Navy. Warships and other naval craft occupy a healthy chunk of the bay's shoreline, the city heavy with Imperial marines as well as with soldiers of the Sesus House Legions.
Above all of this, banners fly stark against the snow-capped mountains in the distance, the Imperial Mountain dwarfing all others. The red and black, dried blood shade of the House Sesus banners, as well as the true scarlet of the Imperial Navy.
Amid all this, the Heptagram maintains a small but well-kept private dock. Despite how busy the port is elsewhere, the crowds give your ship and its disembarking passengers a wide berth, and few captains seem inclined to moor their ships alongside the sorcery school's vessels.
Disembarking is more or less orderly, transportation having been arranged by the various students' families beforehand. Most students are not so eager to make an impression that they'd be gauche enough to summon magical transportation in the middle of a busy port, even where they were advanced enough to do so. Most students.
Simendor Deiza says something to the knot of students she's been talking to. Once again, you recognise Mnemon Keric, currently preoccupied with shooting her a disapproving look. That look quickly turns to shock as Deiza puts two fingers in her mouth, and lets out a long, piercing whistle. Short moments later, a spirit materialises out of thin air — a gigantic wasp, glittering in all the colours you can imagine, a creature of such beauty that, even knowing what it is, you feel your heart stir with wonder and admiration. Deiza pulls herself up onto its back, gives a parting grin, and then girl and creature both are gone in a rush of wind and a deafening buzz of wings.
Trust a Simendor to call up a demon just to show off. You refuse to be impressed.
Your own transportation is much more respectable, once you've extricated yourself from a procession of courteous goodbyes. You spot a familiar face among the servants and attendants waiting with the assorted carriages staged nearby: A thin, solemn looking young woman, hair and eyes a seafoam blue that betrays Western heritage, despite her otherwise unremarkable servant's dress.You don't bother to suppress a very small smile at the sight of her — Demure Peony has been your personal servant for years, and it's good to see her looking the same as always. Or, almost the same.
"My lady Ambraea," she says as you approach. She gives you an appropriately low bow, and doesn't raise her head until you give her permission. There's something uncharacteristically nervous about her beneath the expected courtesy — exposure to so many strange, Exalted sorcerers, you assume. Although, given the way her eyes track Verdigris's movements, maybe there's a simpler explanation.
"Punctual as ever, Peony," you tell her. An unremarkable bit of praise that alludes to a shared joke — this is far too public a space for open familiarity, after all.
You don't receive so much as a smile, however. Peony merely ducks her head again. "I will strive to never be anything less, my lady," she says, opening the carriage door for you.
The stiffness is a little odd, but you don't give it too much thought, as you step up to duck through the door. You will end up thinking a great deal more about it later as it would happen, but here and now, you're far too beguiled by thoughts of collapsing into a very large, very soft bed.
Dragons all know, you can use a good rest.
Interlude 01: Favoured Daughter
You prefer not to think of yourself as a particularly spoiled creature. Perseverance and fortitude in the face of hardship are both among Earth's many illustrious qualities, after all. So you have refrained from joining in on the quiet griping from some of your yearmates about the conditions at the Heptagram: The shared rooms, the simple meals, the lack of any personal servants or various creature comforts. Brushing your own hair out everyday has certainly been an adjustment, but you comforted yourself by considering some of the stories you recall having heard from graduates of the Cloister of Wisdom. You'd all had proper beds, at least.
You would be lying if you said that this bath wasn't the single greatest of your life, however. The hot water seems to scour away the very memory of the clammy weather back on the Isle of Voices, heated from below by the geomancy of your mother's official Chanos residence. The Empress has homes like this in major cities across the Blessed Isle, and even in some particularly important satrapies. You strongly suspect that she hasn't so much as spent a night in half of them, but it's the principle of the thing. As long as the residence is there, properly maintained and waiting, it serves as a reminder that she might choose to show up for a stint at any time. It reinforces the knowledge of just whose Realm you're all living in.
The Chanos residence is a tall, narrow Fire Aspected manse, the red stone of its construction pleasantly warm to the touch. The baths are its best feature, each one large and spacious, deep enough to come up to your chest while standing, capable of heating to comfortably hot unnaturally fast. You fully intend to spend at least an hour like this, but you've barely been soaking for all of twenty minutes when you hear a throat being politely cleared.
You recognise the voice. "... Yes, Peony?" you ask, sitting up as you reluctantly open your eyes.
She stands near the door, polite and waiting, bowing once as if in thanks for you acknowledging her at all. "You've received a letter, my lady. I thought you would like to see it sooner rather than later. Apologies if I've overstepped."
You consider her, and the letter she's carrying on a handsome, carved wooden tray. She's sensible about these things, in your experience, and wouldn't be interrupting you to show you nothing of import. "Who is it from?" you ask.
"It carries the seal of House V'neef."
Silently mourning the loss of the rest of your bath, you sigh, and rise up out of the water.
In short order, an attendant helps to towel you off, then slips a robe around your shoulders. At a nod of dismissal from you, she scurries out of the room, taking obvious care to stay as far away from the cushion where Verdigris has been napping as possible. "Let's see, then," you say, taking the note from off the tray. Sure enough, the large, bulky letter has been sealed in brilliant green wax bearing the mon of House V'neef.
Unfolded, you see that it's actually two letters — one of them is from L'nessa, passing on her well-wishes and coyly noting that she hopes to see you sooner than expected. The other it's attached to illuminates why.
"It's from Matriarch V'neef," you say.
"Is it, my lady?" Peony asks, not breaking her air of servile composure.
"She's inviting me to visit her in Eagle Prefecture," you say.
Peony nods, but doesn't comment. You bite back an irritated remark that she hasn't reasonably earned.
Demure Peony was very plainly named by someone with well-founded hopes for her career as a servant. A girl within a year of your own age and the daughter of your wet nurse, you'd grown up together, playing out the type of childhood companionship common among Dynasts and the children of their servants. Things had changed, of course, once you'd both gotten old enough for propriety to demand a certain distance. Then again when she'd entered your service directly, and again when the Dragons had Chosen you. Still, there'd been some warmth there. Some familiarity where it could be permitted — neither of you are prone to effusive displays of emotion, but a reference to an old joke here, an unasked for opinion there... you wouldn't have identified it as something important to you, until it was suddenly gone.
You've always been someone who could, if an uncharacteristically vicious mood took you, destroy Peony's life, and you've both understood that for many years. For the first time, though, you cannot shake the niggling feeling that behind her veil of professional courtesy, she's afraid of you. The thought of several months in this very nice house, alone except for strangers jumping at your every mild reprimand, starts to feel a lot less appealing, even with this very nice bath available. "Well," you decide, since this is apparently a one-sided conversation, "we'll be leaving the day after tomorrow. By ship, apparently, with only enough room for one attendant." Which obviously means Peony.
Peony nods, showing no visible reaction to the sudden news that she'll be traveling all the way to Eagle Prefecture. "Understood, my lady. I will make preparations for your departure. Shall I arrange for a visitor's gift?"
"Yes, thank you. Something memorable, but within my price range," you tell her.
Peony nods again to acknowledge the praise. "I should begin at once, then. With your permission, my lady?"
"You're dismissed," you tell her, and then try hard not to pay attention to the tiny flinch she gives on her way out, when Verdigris raises her head and yawns. With a sigh, you bend down to pick up the snake, and feel her wrap reassuringly around your arm. You'll think of... something to do about Peony, you suppose. You're just not sure what.
Your mother's Chanos home is strategically just on the edge of Emberswathe. The wealthiest and most defended part of the city, populated almost entirely by households of House Sesus and various hangers on.
This makes for a slightly circuitous route to the small dock that L'nessa's instructions have directed you toward. You can't help but notice that it's almost as far away from the naval docks as possible — House Peleps commands the Navy as its imperial remit, after all, and Peleps is no friend to House V'neef.
It's a gloomy, overcast day even out of the shadow of the buildings. You spot L'nessa right away, deep in conversation with a boy you recognise as a fourth year Heptagram student, the only other member of her fledgling house currently in attendance. Supplies and luggage are piled up neatly on the docks, managed by what look to be a crew of sailors. Oddly, you do not currently see a ship.
The door of your carriage is opened for you, and you step out into the cool summer air, making your way briskly down the dock toward L'nessa. You're aware of Peony following you at the expected distance, and of the activity of your things being removed from the carriage. "Well, the wind seems right for sailing," you say, as you draw near, "but I'm afraid you might be missing something."
L'nessa laughs, delighted. "An actual joke!" she exclaims. "The academic break suits you, I see! You look lovely."
This last is in reference to your outfit, sleekly practical for travel by sea. In particular, the finely tailored jacket you're wearing will keep out the worst of the wind while out on the water... as well as being exactly the right shade to match most of the chips of black quartz on your face and neck. For the first time since departing for the Heptagram, you're also wearing your sword, the curved length of the ornate, Prasadi style saber hanging at your waist. Diamond-Cut Perfection's scale hangs fully visible from your neck, accompanied by Verdigris, who is currently lounging in pride of place across your shoulders. You've gotten used to standing out ever since you Exalted and shot up a head in height in the same year. Based on the reactions from the mortal crew today, though, you must be cutting a particularly imposing figure despite your youth. "I can make those, now and again," you say.
"I'd be skeptical, if I hadn't just heard it," L'nessa says. She looks back over to her companion. "Fish, this is Ambraea, my aunt. Ambraea, this is my nephew, V'neef Darting Fish."
"Adoptive nephew," Darting Fish says, giving you a respectful bow of his head. "An honour to formally meet you, Lady Ambraea." He's a scant inch taller than you are, dressed well, but humbly, by Dynastic standards. He has a deep brown complexion, with hair and eyes a shade or two darker — but when they catch the light, his eyes seem to shift colour strangely, like the sea under a changing sky. His correction has the air of not wanting to seem above himself. That there's that much of a pecking order between V'neef's daughter by birth and, presumably, a grandson by one of her many adoptive daughters doesn't surprise you. Five years ago, Fish would have been a first generation Patrician. V'neef's Ascension had happened just in time for him to secure a seat at the Heptagram. Everything from his posture to his overly careful manner of speech betrays his discomfort with the high station life has conspired to thrust him into.
"I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well," you agree.
"You two are no fun at all," L'nessa complains, without a trace of venom. "Anyway, Fish was just about to bring out the ship."
You watch with interest as Darting Fish reaches into the inside of his coat, and pulls out what looks like a somewhat lackluster daisy, a little too long out of the soil. "Lady L'nessa, if I could ask for your assistance?"
L'nessa smiles good-naturedly, and reaches out a slender finger to touch the withered flower. There's a tiny spark of Wood Essence as the cutting immediately perks up, petals unfurling to their full glory. "There," she says.
"Thank you," Fish says. "One moment." He steps past you to the edge of the dock, staring out into the water. In one hand, he holds the flower. In the other, his hand flashes through a series of one-handed casting mudras. You can sense the power he's drawing from the ocean itself, and the Dragon Lines coursing through it, until finally, he casts the flower into the water. You feel a swell of sorcerous Essence, and the tiny plant floating on the waves explodes outward. Part of the stem becomes huge, elongated, wood-textured, solidifying into a green-tinged hull, even as the rest curves up, petals forming sails as expertly shaped as anything turned out by Imperial shipwrights.
In short order, what you're looking at is a small-sized craft, plainly suited for at least coastal sailing. Right away, the crew spurs into action, leaping onto the deck with ropes to secure it before it can float away. They at least seem used to the spell enough not to outwardly show fear of it, although you think you catch sight of Peony jerking back in shock. Onlookers from elsewhere on the docks look away quickly, and go about their business.
Despite having been formed from a living plant, the ship is clean and dry inside, smelling faintly of nectar and greenery, and seeming at least as watertight as any other craft you've ever been on. It takes a little while to bring aboard the supplies and luggage, but not so long, with everything already staged on the dock. There is limited cabin space, of course — just enough to put you and L'nessa up together, with a small space left aside for Darting Fish himself.
Soon enough, you're slipping out onto the bay, heading for the Inland Sea beyond. You pass by a navy galley going the other way, the sailors aboard giving the V'neef mon flying from the conjured ship's mast a look of wary contempt — at least until a particularly hard look from you sets them to ostentatiously minding their own business.
Darting Fish takes the helm himself, giving calm orders to his handful of sailors in what you have to admit is far better Low Realm than you speak. Under his attentions, the flower ship moves far faster than any you've ever been on, rapidly leaving Chanos and its bay behind, heading west along the shoreline. You'd trusted that the ship L'nessa would be traveling on would be able to cross the distance to Eagle Prefecture quickly enough to not eat up nearly the whole break in travel, but you have to admit, you're impressed.
And so it is that, two days aside, you spend the first week of the academic break sharing an even smaller room with L'nessa than you had at school. You consciously avoid directly contacting Perfection — if they found out about this situation, you know they'd laugh at you.
Article:
The visitor's gift is a tradition dating back to the Shogunate, demonstrating your friendship and gratitude to your host. While it is merely a social nicety for someone as wealthy as a Great House matriarch, this is your first time being invited as an adult, and it is an excellent chance to make a good first impression. Despite her youth, Demure Peony's judgment is very reliable in matters of hospitality and etiquette, and you have no compunctions at all approving her choice of gift to present to your half sister.
What do you plan to present to V'neef? This choice will affect how she reads you, but also informs the direction of Ambraea's first stumbling steps toward establishing herself in wider Dynastic society. All of these options will fall within the bounds of good taste.
[ ] Something mysterious and arcane: A novelty, but one that emphasises your fledgling status as a sorcerer
[ ] Something safe and traditional: An entirely respectable gift that demonstrates a commitment to stability and tradition
[ ] Something exotic: A gift that emphasises the foreign side of Ambraea's parentage
You don't go all the way to the Prefectoral capital of Eagle's Launch. Instead, your destination is a coastal estate on the Prefecture's easternmost extreme. As the flower ship is lashed to a private pier, the setting sun is warm on your face, and the sea air fresh and bracing. Due to the vagaries of currents and Dragon Lines and distant proximity to the Elemental Poles, the Northwest coast of the Blessed Isle is considerably milder and less gloomy than Chanos had been, and you're all already enjoying the change of weather.
The rocky shore here gives way to a rolling green dotted with farms and vineyards, and you can already see the manor house that is your destination. L'nessa describes it as 'just part of the lands given over to the house when mother was ascended." It's not a manse in its own right, but still apparently a very nice place to spend a few weeks nonetheless. You assume a benefit is that it's not so distant that the matriarch won't be able to maintain important correspondence during her stay here, and could even rush back to the city at need. She's presumably still very integral to day to day goings on, for such a young house.
"How is your stomach?" Your voice is pitched for Peony's ears only as you prepare to disembark.
"Better now I think, my lady," she says, not allowing herself even the smallest frown. Sea voyages normally don't trouble her unduly, but the accelerated speed of the flower ship caused particular difficulties for her. You don't miss being mortal. After a moment's quiet, she adds: "I will be able to carry out my duties tonight as expected." As if that's the only reason why you're asking.
"... Good," you say. Verdigris tightens ever so slightly where she's wound around your arm beneath your sleeve. You've already grown used to that sort of thing as a comforting gesture from the snake, and you appreciate it. With a tiny sigh, you walk down the gangplank.
At the end of the pier, your host is waiting along with a number of servants, and a carriage to bring you up to the house itself. As you approach along with L'nessa and Darting Fish, she addresses you first, as her guest. She smiles, inclining her head in greeting: "Ambraea, I'm so pleased you could make the journey! It's lovely to see you again." Matriarch V'neef has all the radiant youth of a Dragon-Blooded nearing her sixties, the gentle approachability of her countenance casting the features she shares with your mother into a wholly different light. Now that you see them standing near to each other, her hair is a deeper shade of autumnal red than L'nessa's burnt orange, her impossibly green eyes making for a very pretty contrast.
You bow your head precisely the correct amount to address the matriarch and founder of a Great House. "I was honoured to receive the invitation, Matriarch V'neef."
"Oh, please," she says, "we don't need to stand on quite so much ceremony — my L'nessa has told so much about you in her letters, after all. 'Elder sister' would be fine." As she says this, her smile is deeply affecting, exuding genuine welcome and a touch of tentative warmth.
Exercising one's right to dispense with formalities is another way to emphasise power, though, and something about it all gives you a strange, tangled sort of feeling deep within your chest. You can sort that out later. "As you wish, elder sister," you agree. Without you even needing to say a word, Peony is suddenly there at hand, head bowed, holding out the treasure she's guarded all the long way from Chanos. "A gift, to show my gratitude for your hospitality," you say.
It's a teabox of carved ivory, intricately adorned with a pattern that is almost, but not quite floral — enough plausible deniability to still be considered aniconic art. That alone would be a fine work of craftsmanship, but as V'neef examines it, you see the moment when she spots the true beauty of the piece — when viewed from above at just the right angle, the lid of the box is somehow revealed to have a scene of a family of elephants. Distinctly less than aniconic, but respectable enough, obscured as it is, and gifted from one Dragon-Blood to another. It's not something that you would have chosen to give to a more fervently devout or old-fashioned matriarch, but from V'neef's reaction, you think that this was right on the mark.
"Tea from the shores of the Dreaming Sea," you say, as Peony carefully opens the box to show her. You all know that the box is the better part of the gift, but it's good to keep up the pretense, and the tea alone would make an acceptable gift.
"However did you find this in Chanos?" V'neef asks, but it's not a question she expects to have answered. "This is beautiful, sister — thank you, it's more than generous." The box is closed again, and wrapped back up, as Peony passes it to one of V'neef's servants, her head still bowed. She's really outdone herself, frankly, but Peony always has tremendous luck when it comes to ferreting out improbably well-chosen gifts. She'd found the Prasadi-carved box at an insultingly low price from a trader who apparently didn't know what he'd had, and she'd haggled him down even further, despite recognising the style from a similar piece your father owns.
Only with your greetings exchanged and the gift formally received does V'neef move on to L'nessa, reaching out to take both her hands in her own. "It looks as though the Chanos climate hasn't done you too much harm, daughter." You've heard the rumours about V'neef's overly familiar parenting style, but it still takes you a little by surprise.
"I'm not entirely sure myself yet," L'nessa says, smiling back.
"It's good to have you back with us, regardless," V'neef says. She holds the look for a lingering moment longer, before breaking it off and releasing L'nessa in order to look at the third Dynast in your group. "Darting Fish," she says, voice pleasant, but a great deal less warm. "You have my thanks for going so far out of your way to attend me here."
"It is my honour, matriarch," he says, bowing considerably lower than you had.
She doesn't correct Fish on his formality. Instead she turns to the three of you, and says, "you must all be tired and hungry. A meal should be ready soon, and rooms have already been made ready for you." This is your cue to all follow her to the waiting carriage, leaving the servants to manage your belongings. You don't immediately follow it.
"Apologies," you say, "but if you would excuse me for a brief moment?"
You think you register a barely noticeable blink of surprise, before V'neef smiles again, and says "Of course."
"Thank you." You bow again, and then purposefully stride a few paces away, kneeling down on the hillside, well aware of all the stares you're getting. You hold a hand over the grassy earth, willing it to follow your directions. With a modest effort, it opens up a hole as wide as your fist, and as deep as your forearm. Reaching into the inside pocket of your jacket, you produce a silver coin, and slowly, reverently place it in the hole, before covering it back over with the same earth you'd shifted out of the way.
As you return to the group, you feel Verdigris slithering up out of your sleeve, her green head peeking up from beneath your collar to reoccupy her ordinary place around your neck, now in full view of the entire group. You get the distinct impression that L'nessa is trying not to grin behind her hand.
Despite your fatigue, dinner is a particular treat after the uninspired culinary year you've had. It's full of seafood, and exotic western spices, and the truly excellent wine that Eagle Prefecture has always been famous for.
You're seated beside V'neef, as her guest, and she keeps you effortlessly engaged throughout the whole of the dinner, showing no awkwardness at all in the differences in your age and status, or in the strangeness inherent to your own side of the conversation concerning your recent year. She doesn't even blink as Verdigris makes her way down from your shoulder to coil herself up in your lap.
"... and by the time he turned back around, gloating over how she'd missed the start of class for the third day running, she was somehow in her seat already," V'neef says, smiling at the old memory. "It quite took the wind out of his sails, I think."
"What did she say?" you ask.
V'neef laughs. "She insisted she'd been there the whole time 'I know your eyesight isn't what it used to be, sir'. No one had actually seen her come in, so he couldn't actually prove that she hadn't been."
You can't help but crack a smile at that. You catch sight of L'nessa, deep in much more subdued conversation with her father, Tepet Igan. A tall, imposing Air Aspect from an entirely different branch of his family than Sola — there's not much in the way of family resemblance between him and his young daughter. The rest of the dinner party is filled out with a smattering of cousins and local hangers on. Not a large crowd by the standards of Great House matriarchs' tables, but enough to make the dining hall not feel too empty. The large, glass windows give you a spectacular view of the setting sun reflected on the sea, even as servants efficiently light lamps in the background.
Despite your best attempts to remain impartial and level-headed, you can't deny being charmed by it all, and flattered by the attention of your host. You know she's doing this for reasons of her own, but that's true of absolutely everyone in your life. Still, though, something nags at the edge of your mind.
"What did she do after graduation?" you ask.
"Oh, Alona? She's satrap for a nation in the far West," V'neef says. "We all expected her to find success, of course. You can tell who's going to go places fairly early on, sometimes."
There's a veiled compliment in there that you're sure you're supposed to recognise. "There hasn't been so much time to think of such things, this past year," you say. "I'm told the second year tends to give more room to breathe."
"And I'm sure you had more pressure on you than most, even by your school's standards," V'neef says. She leans in closer, dropping her voice to keep her words from carrying. "I hope that our honoured mother's well wishes found you before you had to set sail," she says. "It is her habit to send them, after one of her children excels so early in their studies." You realise then, what's been bothering you about V'neef — half of what's been bothering you, at least. She's speaking to you with an air of sisterly confidence. Even if it's for the purposes of winning you over to secure you as a contact in the future, it's not a way you've ever been addressed in your life.
You're not sure you like it.
"I received a letter," you agree. It had been a thing of coolly impersonal formality, but, Dragons help you, you had drunk up every bit of the praise as though it were the very ambrosia of heaven. Beneath it all had been the only message that really mattered: you have not disappointed her, so far.
V'neef nods, her face taking on a sympathetic cast. "You must have been relieved to receive it. For me, I was nearly sick with worry until I heard her say that she was pleased with my progress."
You pause infinitesimally. Your tone is carefully guarded as you ask: "She told you so in person?"
"Yes," V'neef admits, "but the Spiral Academy being in the Imperial City made it easy enough for her to have me attend her, at need." There's a note of humble self effacement in her voice as she says this, casting it as a matter only of practicality.
For one precarious instant, the savage envy trying to claw its way out of your chest is too great for you to trust yourself to reply. It's only then that you truly understand why, perhaps through no fault of her own, more than one of your other half-siblings loathe this woman. You idly stroke Verdigris's head before she can start hissing. "That would have been convenient, elder sister," you say.
Then the next course arrives, and rescues you from having to continue this line of conversation.
Despite your physical exhaustion and your voicing your intent to do so, you're too troubled to immediately go to bed after dinner. So you find yourself in the guest chambers that have been provided for you, sitting in a comfortable chair, a warm cup of green tea held in one hand, Verdigris on the floor, peeking out from beneath the chair with a lazy, watchful air.
"I think she was pleased," you say. "Genuinely, not just for the sake of ritual niceties. Well done."
"Thank you, my lady," Peony says. Her back is currently to you, as she finishes carefully organising your clothes in the wardrobe. V'neef's servants had already hung them up serviceably enough, but she's taking the liberty of arranging them to your preference without needing to be asked. The rooms that have been set aside for you here are technically larger than the ones you had back in Chanos, although they're not half as large as the ones kept for you in the Imperial Palace.
There's a moment's hesitation, before Peony adds: "I... had heard she had a fondness for elephants."
That genuinely surprises you. "Where did you hear that?"
Peony looks over to you, an expression going over her face like she's regretting having broached the subject. Still, she answers. "From some of the older servants at the Imperial palace, who knew the matriarch when she was young."
"Did you talk to other servants about Matriarch V'neef often?" you ask, a little taken aback.
"Well, no!" Peony says, wincing. "It's just the sort of harmless gossip that tends to go around the servants' quarters, my lady. Nothing mean-spirited, or of any real consequence! Many of the palace servants love her very dearly -- she was always good to them."
This, at least, fits what you've heard yourself -- out of all your half-siblings, V'neef is famously good at winning the hearts of common people. The question that burns on the tip of your tongue isn't about V'neef though. From the minute tightness coming into Peony's shoulders, you can tell that she's waiting for you to ask it: had anyone ever spoken about you that way?
You settle back into your seat, take a long sip of tea, and with deliberate effort, let the question go. All you say instead is "Still, very well done, Peony. Where would I be, without your singular grace and dedication?"
It's a question you've asked before -- an old joke, as much as a genuine compliment. And you can't help but feel a stab of disappointment when she simply says "My lady is kind to say so." But then, after so long a pause that you've given up on anything further, she adds the expected reply in a very quiet voice: "And... I'm sure you would be somewhere."
It is not, you know, everything being back to normal. There's still that strange distance between you that you don't know how to cross anymore. For that one instant, though, things are right again.
As her guest, you spend a great deal of time in V'neef's company in the coming days and weeks. She is unfailingly polite, witty in a disarming way, generous in her largesse. It's insidiously easy to forget that she's as powerful a woman as she is, and you think that you'd like her, despite all your wariness. At least, if it weren't for that image of your mother personally praising a sixteen year old V'neef for her efforts, burned irrevocably into your mind.
You hope that you're doing as good a job as you think you are at hiding this from her.
On more than a few days, however, your host is effectively L'nessa — it's perfectly acceptable for V'neef's family to entertain you in her place, as long as this doesn't stray into an insulting dereliction of duty, but you're quite certain this was part of the plan all along. Even while ostensibly taking a few weeks' leisure out in the countryside, the matriarch clearly has business that she's attending to when time allows. That you and L'nessa are already more or less close friends only makes this more seamless.
"Mother's a little displeased with me," L'nessa confides, enough good humour in her voice that you don't think it's an active source of dread. The way it would be if you'd been the one to say those words. Then she punctuates this announcement by taking one of your tigers.
"What did you do to earn that?" you ask, moving an elephant out of danger. You're both seated at a stone table in a lush garden, protected from the noonday sun by an awning, a supply of delicate snacks and cold drinks on hand as you pass the time with a game of Gateway. Neither of you are spectacularly good, which at least makes for an interesting match — you're each intelligent enough to spot one another's mistakes, but not so good as to avoid making them entirely. Verdigris is taking up her usual place across your neck and shoulders, but she's not bothering you too terribly while you play.
"Well, I finally got around to telling her about Maia's little secret," L'nessa admits, hand hovering thoughtfully over a carved emerald fox as she speaks. Your own pieces are polished amethyst, the three-tiered board itself made from clear, crystalline glass — it's the kind of incredible extravagance that you have been surrounded by your entire life, and merely accept as a matter of course.
You frown. "What secret?"
L'nessa laughs, and moves an eagle instead, neatly walking right into the trap you've been putting together for the last three turns. You're too distracted to be immediately pleased by this. "Why am I surprised? Of course you didn't notice, with the kind of year you led."
"I was busy," you say, before your elephant drops down from a higher level in order to take one of her tigers, left exposed by her too-eager advance.
"Yes, you were," L'essa says, pouting at the state of the board. "So busy, apparently, that you didn't even stop to consider what house is fostering our roommate?"
You look back on your interactions with Maia — somehow, it had failed to seem significant that at no point during the academic year had she mentioned which Great House her family had struck a bargain with to secure her place at the Heptagram. Part of this simply speaks of skillful evasion on Maia's part, of course. There's probably some truth to L'nessa's jab, however. "Why would she keep that a secret?" you ask.
"Oh, I'm quite certain it's Peleps, and she's worried about making things awkward with me," L'nessa says. "Mnemon's out — you just know Keric wouldn't be able to not be smug about that, otherwise. And besides that, the Erona have quite a good reputation for producing Water Aspects, especially for patricians. I imagine there was a marriage contract or two involved to shore up a failing household at a bargain." She's trying to salvage the game at this point, but you've decidedly put her on the backfoot.
"Your mother is displeased that you didn't mention this earlier?" you guess, moving in for the kill. Most of your thoughts are tied up in trying to consider how you feel about this revelation, though. Trying to avoid conflict with L'nessa over this does feel a lot like Maia. Such an arrangement would mean a few years of service to House Peleps, at minimum, and very likely her own family's interests being aligned with the Great House's for at least a generation... and decidedly against House V'neef's. You can't help but feel a little unfairly stung at the thought that she'd been lying to you by omission as well, though.
"Mildly," L'nessa says. "It's not a huge factor, but she wants to know about the interests I've got at play around me." Her voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper as she adds: "I think she feels a little out of her depth with the actual sorcery aspect of it all, so she's fixating on this sort of thing."
"I'm sure she'd love to hear you say so," you say.
L'nessa laughs. "Oh, she'd hate it. It rather undermines the tact she's taking with you, I think. Ugh, you've won, haven't you?"
"So it would seem." You can't hang onto worries about Maia or bitterness toward your half-sister, just then. L'nessa's good mood is infectious, and the air is pleasantly warm, filled with the scent of flowers and the sea. The cry of gulls is far enough off in the distance to be scenic, along with the faint sound of crashing waves. You take a long sip of chilled wine and just enjoy the moment.
"Gateway, or have you found another game to lose at, L'nessa?" a voice asks, making you both start. A young woman is sitting on the edge of a nearby wall that had decidedly been unoccupied a moment before. Your hand shoots out to steady the arm of the servant who'd been refilling your glass — the stranger's sudden appearance had startled him rather worse than it had you, and you don't fancy having cold white wine spilled all over your dress. You ignore his profuse apologies and obvious fear at the scrutiny Verdigris is giving him, in order to give the newcomer a hard, searching look.
"Oh, hello, sister," L'nessa says, an annoyed sort of calm setting over her features. "Yes, it is Gateway. Must you do this?"
"At least until I stop catching you off guard," the woman says. "I'd have thought you'd have learned a spell that stops me from sneaking up on you, by now." She doesn't look a great deal like L'nessa or V'neef, but now that you look, she does bear a striking enough resemblance to Tepet Igan that you assume this is one of L'nessa's handful of blood siblings. The woman is tall, leanly muscled and dressed for riding. More eye-catching are the Wood aspect markings in the form of flowers twining through her dark hair, and the sheathed daiklave laid out on the wall beside her, as though she'd been carrying it when she stopped. It's not hard to see why she'd need to ask what game you're playing: she wears a cloth embroidered with a pattern based on the mon of House V'neef tied around her eyes. Matriarch V'neef's blind swordmaster daughter is not exactly unknown to you, by reputation.
With a small sigh, L'nessa gets to her feet. "Ambraea, this is my elder sister, V'neef S'thera. Sister, this is Ambraea, our guest, and my classmate."
You get to your feet as well. "Pleased to meet you," you say, despite your annoyance at the sort of introduction S'thera thinks is suitable.
"Oh, you did sound like an Earth Aspect," S'thera says. "They mentioned you were here — you really do have a magical snake with you, don't you?"
"I do," you say, putting a protective hand on Verdigris's cool, metallic head. "And, I didn't realise Earth Aspects sounded like anything in particular."
"The breathing," S'thera says, without further explanation.
"Sister, what are you doing here?" L'nessa asks, dropping any pretense of ceremony. "I thought you were back in Eagle's Launch."
S'thera laughs. "I'm on a hunt, actually. We were passing by, so it seemed like a good opportunity to water the horses, and pay my respects to mother."
"What are you hunting?" you ask.
"Hellboar!" S'thera says, with an eager sort of grin. As if a hunt for the Blessed Isle's largest and fiercest land predator is her idea of fun. "A huge male's been terrorising the countryside. I was showing Kedus the Prefecture when we heard — Tepet Kedus, my fiancé," she adds this last for your benefit.
"You're not going after it just the two of you, are you?" L'nessa asks, slightly appalled.
"Of course not," S'thera says, waving the thought away. "We have a whole hunt with us, hounds and all. And V'neef Argan — Dancing Boar's youngest, she just graduated from the House of Bells. Wasn't back a day before this came up."
"I'm sure mother will be thrilled to hear all about this," L'nessa says, sounding skeptical.
"Oh, yes, I fully intend to give her a chance to fuss a little, it's why I'm here," S'thera says. "But it's important work — the monster's ruining perfectly good grape plants, and it's starting to get a taste for fieldworker. And who can they look for for protection, if not their betters along the Perfected Hierarchy? We'll be gone with her blessing within the day. Where is she, by the way?"
"She went to inspect some property to the north," L'nessa says. "She should be back inside the hour."
"Well, I suppose you'll be graced by my presence a little longer," S'thera says. "Ambraea — Burano Nazat is your father, yes?"
"Burano Maharan Nazat," you say, trying to make the correction gentle. Your father would not be pleased at the omission of his jati name. "Yes, he's my father."
"I've heard his swordsmanship is part of what caught the Empress's eye," S'thera says.
"He is a very accomplished swordsman," you acknowledge.
"Have you learned anything from him, or have you been too focused on learning to cavort with demons?" she asks.
Your eyes narrow, not liking that characterisation at all. "He has instructed me in Prasadi saber fighting," you say.
"Fantastic," S'thera says. "I'm sure there's a more interesting way to pass the time until mother arrives than this, then."
"Sister..." L'nessa says, voice a little anxious.
"Oh, I'm not going to hurt her," S'thera says. "I'm just proposing a nice, friendly spar. If that doesn't sound too strenuous, Lady Ambraea? After all this Gateway and feasting and being casually introduced to various young, eligible V'neef men."
Verdigris lets out a low, unfriendly hiss. "It does not sound too strenuous," you say, keeping your voice as calm as possible, aware that this matters a great deal more than your expression does in this situation.
"Excellent!" S'thera says. "There's a nice courtyard just over there. I'll wait for you to be ready."
A short time later, you're dressed for swordplay, Peony walking along behind you with a practice sword held uncertainly in her arms. "Are you quite certain about this, my lady?" she asks you, with what sounds like genuine concern.
"Is there some reason I shouldn't be?" you ask.
"Well, lady S'thera has quite a fearsome reputation, doesn't she? And you haven't exactly..." she cuts herself off abruptly. "Apologies, my lady. Forgive me for speaking out of turn."
"The worst thing she can bruise is my pride, Peony," you say, giving a slight sigh.
"Also your body," L'nessa says, tone critical as she falls in beside you, leaving the main building and heading back to the garden courtyard. "She is quite good at that."
"I'm hard to bruise," you promise her, which is true enough.
"Particularly your head," L'nessa says.
V'neef S'thera is waiting for you, leaning against the stone arch that serves as an entrance to the courtyard. With her are two unfamiliar Dragon-Blooded, Fire Aspects both. "Here you are!" S'thera says, straightening up from the arch as the three of you enter into easy speaking range. You assume she heard the sound of your footsteps. "These are my companions: Tepet Kedus and V'neef Argan."
"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Ambraea" Kedus says, giving you a respectful half bow. He's a thin, pleasant-faced young man, his hair and complexion both distinctly red-tinged. Argan follows his lead with the gesture, but stays silent — she's a stocky, powerfully-built woman, her features partially obscured by a mild heat shimmer.
"Likewise," you say. You shift Verdigris into your arms, and glance over to Peony, who very valiantly does not shrink back in horror, but you can tell she very badly wants to, from the way her tanned complexion has gone ever so slightly paler. Taking pity on her, you look to L'nessa. "Would you hold onto Verdigris for me?" you ask. "She won't hurt you."
L'nessa herself does not seem particularly eager, but she's at least not actively afraid of Verdigris. She holds out her hands, and at your urging, Verdigris slithers off of your shoulders, down your arm, and then up L'nessa's to hang around her neck. "Stay here," you tell the snake, voice a little stern.
"Your pet is protective, I take it?" S'thera asks.
"Yes," you say, accepting the training sword from Peony, who seems a little sick with relief.
"I'd appreciate not getting bitten in the ankle, although Wood Aspects aren't particularly easy to poison," S'thera says.
"Verdigris is well behaved," you say. "And... if it's all the same, I don't think you'd enjoy this poison very much." You very much doubt that Verdigris's bite would outright kill an Exalt, but you're not joking when you suggest it would be unpleasant — you've seen the petrified statues she makes of her prey, before she swallows them whole.
S'thera laughs, leading you into the courtyard. It's a place of shaded stone benches and charming water features — it feels more like a place to relax while writing poetry than one where you'd stage a fight. Arrayed against each other on opposite sides of the courtyard, your misgivings come decidedly home to roost. Blind or not, she moves with the easy grace of one utterly comfortable with a sword in her hand, her posture speaking of an easy confidence that you very much don't feel. It's not the first time you've sparred with an older Exalt, though, and you've already agreed to this. So you follow her lead, taking a position at your own side of the makeshift arena.
The moment you start, you know two things — you're entirely too rusty, and you'd be severely outmatched regardless. Perhaps predictably, S'thera seems to have no trouble at all knowing precisely where you and your weapon are. She wins the first bout in four moves, bending out of the way of a slash like a willow in a storm before somehow getting her blade up under your guard and levering the weapon out of your hands.
"Again?" S'thera asks.
You nod grimly, accepting your retrieved sword from Tepet Kedus, who actually gives you an encouraging smile. "Again."
You last a little longer on the second and third bouts, even though the third does finally end with you on your back, staring dazedly up at the sky above. For the first time since you left Chanos, you feel a familiar, cold presence stirring in the back of your head, their attention caught by your pain or exertion or both.
"Are you having a good time on your trip, my lady?" Diamond-Cut Perfection asks, voice sly in your head. Your only reply is a powerful sense of annoyance you shoot back, and of course that only makes them laugh.
"You have a solid foundation — excellent instruction, I think," S'thera says, offering you a hand. You're not too proud to accept it. "You're letting it go to seed, though. What's the point of being a snake witch or whatever you're going for, if you can't keep your head on your shoulders in a fight?"
Now she just sounds like a less polite version of Sola. "There hasn't been a lot of room for other pursuits, this first year," you say.
"Well, something to think about," S'thera says. "Very interesting style, by the way — I would love to have a go against your father."
"He isn't exactly hard to find," you point out, and Sthera laughs.
"No, I suppose not!" She says. "Thank you for the match, Aunt. I should really prepare to greet my honoured mother. Take care." And with that, she departs.
"Delighted to meet you, lady Ambraea. And to see you again, L'nessa," says Kedus, bowing politely before he follows his fiancée.
"I think I like it better when you call me that," you say to L'nessa, accepting a somewhat agitated Verdigris back from her. She laughs — for all their differences, you can't help but notice it's the same as S'thera's.
In the end, it's a fairly enjoyable several weeks, and you make some real inroads at building ties to a wealthy and growing Great House, one you'd be able to really leave a mark on. While you can't quite bring yourself to like V'neef as a woman, she has been a perfectly able host, and you think that she at least finds you interesting.
You have plenty of time to consider the possible future where you put yourself into this family's orbit — marriage to a nice V'neef boy, your household bearing your name, but your children growing up intertwined with their father's house. Men do not hold a great deal of interest for you romantically, but you're perfectly prepared to find a tractable husband to produce heirs with, whatever else might be in your love life on the side.
It's still six years before graduation, though, and you have a long time to consider your options before your mother starts pressing you to make choices you can't take back. In the more immediate future, there's another year of studies to consider.
Now that you're a sorcerer proper, you're far from done. But as you continue to branch out in your studies, a goal starts to form in your mind — the kind of sorcerer you're building toward, and the kind of woman you hope to present to the Dynasty at the far end of school. There will be room for course correction, of course, but that will come later.
Article:
Ambraea's sorcery will always be tied to Earth and spirits of Earth. What is her immediate area of focus as she hones it? Choose a long-term goal. You may vote for as many as you like, but only the top vote will be picked:
[ ] [Goal] Eyes of Black Diamond, Smile of White Fangs
Ambraea has not inherited her mother's legendary charm and charisma, but she is beginning to demonstrate some of the Empress's commanding presence. She can hone this to her advantage, with sorcery intended to beguile and misdirect, becoming a quiet social predator at the edge of high society. This is a skillset that any house or major faction on the Blessed Isle will be able to appreciate, although some more than others.
Focus: Subterfuge, misdirection, social intimidation, inscrutability
[ ] [Goal] The Serpent Witch
Sorcerers are unavoidably social outcasts within the Dynasty, figures of dread and fascination both. One can find a way to work around this, or to use it to their advantage. Ambraea can lean into the uncanny and esoteric aspects of her craft, honing the unique strengths of her sorcerous initiation to become the kind of sorcerer that every Great House both fears and considers indispensable, capable of protecting her allies and bringing woe down upon her enemies.
Focus: Curses and afflictions, spirits, 🐍snakes 🐍, dread mystery
[ ] [Goal] Stone Towering Toward the Sky
The motto of your father's faraway clan is aspirational — one can build for a hundred years and never touch the sky, but even the process of reaching for it is ever worthwhile. Ambraea can build on her natural toughness and stoicism to craft herself into a remote and irreproachable edifice, untouchable on and off the battlefield. Invaluable for any house with even modest military ambitions — which is all of them, although some more than others.
What storyline would you like to follow in your year two? The character named as central will appear very prominently within this storyline, but this doesn't mean you won't see other characters as well. This list will get longer in subsequent years, meaning you may not have time for all options. You may vote for as many as you like, but only the top vote will be picked. This vote is separate from the first:
[ ] [Storyline] Endings and Different Colours
You made tentative friends with Sesus Amiti in your first year. A strange girl, morbid and friendly in equal measure, is she really as talentless as she seems? And who is the strange guest instructor who seems to be paying her particular attention?
Availability: Year two
Central character: Sesus Amiti
[ ] [Storyline] Metal Honing Stone
You have so far not had a great deal of contact with Simendor Deiza, but the cadet house scion has not made a good impression so far. Tensions only increase with further contact, and rivalry cuts both ways. Just what are Deiza's motivations for acting the way she does toward her social betters?
Availability: Years two or three
Central character: Simendor Deiza
[ ] [Storyline] Swords and Legacy
You and Tepet Usala Sola are both driven to live up to the high standards of powerful and capable mothers. You can forge this into a deeper bond through dangerous misadventure, both growing in the process and finding someone you can rely on.
Availability: Years two to five
Central character: Tepet Usala Sola
Four years, four months before the disappearance of the Scarlet Empress.
"Have you noticed people treating you differently?" you ask.
L'nessa glances up at you, having been fussing with the fastening on her cloak. It's a gloomy Chanos morning, and the steel grey sky overhead does not promise a warm voyage. "I suppose," she said. "Definitely a few people who seemed less eager to spend time with me — it was nice, having you over the break."
"Yes," you agree, a little less effusively. You trust L'nessa to know you well enough to not take offense at that. "A lot of servants keep looking at me like I might curse them, or feed them to Verdigris." The snake around your shoulders stirs slightly at her name, and you idly stroke a hand along the scales over her nose.
L'nessa laughs. "Yes, well, you're a little scary," she says. "It's not necessarily a bad thing! I think you make it work for you, sometimes. And, well, peasants will be a little more superstitious than the rest of us. It's not really their fault."
You sigh. "I suppose." There hasn't been a major turning point in how things stand with you and Peony in the weeks since your return to Chanos. You'd like to think she's getting more relaxed again, but... well, it will be something to work on when next you see her.
The two of you are already on the pier, ready to board the familiar ship back to the Isle of Voices, having shared a carriage through Chanos's narrow streets. You're looking forward to it — for all the crushing workload of the previous year, you still have a tremendous amount you want to learn.
"Hello, Ambraea!" says a voice to your left as you approach the gangplank. The speaker is familiar — as small and devoid of colour as the last time you saw her.
"Hello, Amiti," you say. "I trust your break was pleasant?"
"Oh, pleasant enough," Amiti says, narrow shoulders giving a noncommittal sort of shrug. "Quiet, but that was nice, honestly."
"Did you get much reading done?" L'nessa says, with a tone that tells you she's poking gentle fun of Amiti's hobbies.
"Oh, yes," Amiti says, "quite a bit of it. We had a bit of a strange problem at one point, but nothing too bad — hardly any deaths. I'll tell you about it later, if I don't forget." With that, she drifts off ahead of you, boarding the ship.
"Nice girl," L'nessa comments, following close behind you as you step up onto the gangplank. "A little strange, though."
You can't actually dispute that. There's sufficient distance between you and Amiti that you feel safe replying — she's already become seemingly embroiled in conversation with Ledaal Anay Idelle. "I wasn't sure if she was coming back this year," you admit. You're glad that she has, you find.
"Well, she did seem quite dedicated to her studies, even if she's not getting any results yet," L'nessa says. "Not all of us can become a proper sorcerer so quickly. Oh, there's poor Maia."
As you step up onto the deck, you spot Maia's mousey figure standing off by the railing, determinately not talking to anyone. As she spots you, you deliberately make eye contact, as if silently signaling that it's alright for her to approach. She responds to it with visible relief, threading an impressively deft path through the crowd, seemingly unaffected by the rise and fall of the deck underfoot.
"Maia! Ready for another year?" L'nessa asks, taking the smaller girl by the shoulders.
A little startled by the sudden show of intimacy, Maia nods. "It's been a long break," she admits.
"Nothing too bad, I hope," you say.
Maia fidgets in place and doesn't make eye contact, looking very much as though she wishes she hadn't said anything. "No, nothing... too bad."
You decide not to pry immediately. "I visited with L'nessa's household," you say, changing the subject. "Eagle Prefecture was lovely."
"Oh, I've heard that," Maia agrees, plainly relieved. "I've missed you both," she admits.
"Oh, us too," L'nessa says. "No one back home gets quite as adorably flustered at the drop of a hat."
Maia going bright red does not do a great deal to immediately prove her wrong. You allow yourself a very small smile — you missed her too.
You're most of the way into the journey, the smothering fog having closed in around the ship, air and sea churning with unseen horrors that you're only spared due to Instructor First Light speaking the proper incantations into the wind.
The first years are mostly grouped up together, trying very hard not to look frightened and overwhelmed by it all. You and your yearmates watch them from the lofty vantage point of hardened veterans eying new recruits, and pointedly keep a lid on any similar nervousness you might have. There is still some mixing between the sacrifices and the older students, however.
Tepet Sola stands beside a boy you don't recognise — he's pale where she's dark, stocky where she's tall, and boyishly plump where she's lean and athletic. Still, the familial connection becomes obvious as you make your way across the deck toward them and catch their conversation:
"Still no word about Joti, then?" Sola asks her companion.
"No," the first year boy says, failing to entirely disguise his nerves. He's much younger and more uncertain than you'd ever looked last year, surely. "She's just... gone. Last anyone saw her, she made it all the way to Arjuf, but nothing solid after that."
"Someone went missing?" you ask, stepping up to them.
"Oh, hello, Ambraea," Sola says. You both politely ignore the way the boy jumps at the sound of your voice. "My cousin, Tepet Joti — we weren't really close, but I'm almost the same age as her brother, Aresh, so I saw her growing up." She makes an awkward face as she adds, in a lower tone, "Joti's well... leftover child, you know?"
You grimace in understanding, knowing the term well: A child born too soon after her parents' last due to their carelessness or misfortune, and therefore highly unlikely to Exalt. "Did she just run away, then?"
"We think so," the boy says, forcing himself to look you in the eye. "Just... no one expected her to be so good at it, you know? Thirteen-year-old mortal girl off on her own for the first time."
You nod, and there's an awkward, somber moment that passes between the three of you.
"This is also my cousin, Tepet Lapan," Sola says, breaking the silence "He'll be one of our new sacrifices. Lapan, this is Ambraea." The boy jumps again as she claps a hand on his shoulder. His eyes are incredibly blue, shot through with wisps of grey passing slowly through them. Another Air Aspect — he seems a little slow in parsing the significance of your single name, but you can tell the moment where he realises who you are.
"A pleasure to meet you!" he says, stumbling over his words.
"Likewise," you say. Turning back to Sola, you add: "I assume you intend to keep up your. martial studies as well, this year?"
"I do," Sola says. She's still wearing the sword, after all. "Why do you ask?"
"Would you like a sparring partner?" you ask, deciding to simply be direct.
Sola's smile widens. "Well, I wouldn't say no! It'd be more interesting, anyway. Did I manage to convince you of the importance, last year?"
"You did," you say. Then, after a pause, admit: "... and I may have been made a fool of by V'neef S'thera, over the break."
Sola lets out a laugh. "Well, there are certainly more embarrassing people to be made a fool of by. I can't promise you'll be up to her standards by year's end, but she's not exactly summoning elementals at age sixteen, is she?"
"I suppose not," you admit.
"Is... that the shore?" Lapan asks, sounding very much like he wants it to be, as he watches the vague shape through the fog grow larger.
"Yes," you say. You can sense the land more and more as you get nearer. "Don't look too relaxed yet — the walk up to the school is the most interesting part."
Lapan's eyes get a little wider. "Interesting?" he asks, looking between you and Sola.
"You'll see soon, sacrifice," Sola tells him. It doesn't seem to be a great comfort.
Year 2: Swords and Legacy Goals: Discover a rare spell, acquire more snakes, improve your familiar, begin to cement your reputation.
(And get better at swords.)
The room you arrive in is technically not the same dorm room as the previous year, but it might as well be — same tower room with three beds and three matching sets of furniture.
With a small, fatigued squeak, Maia lets herself fall face first onto her mattress and lays there, unmoving.
L'nessa laughs, opening up the wardrobe opposite her bed to check on the sets of identical blue and red uniforms hanging there. "We're one of the few sets of three still entirely intact, you know," she comments.
"I suppose that's true," you say, thinking over the number of students from your year who will not be returning.
"That just goes to show our collective dedication to excellence," L'nessa decides.
Maia, who is apparently still conscious, lets out an uncontrollable giggle, muffled by the mattress her face is pressing into. "Ambraea is a little bit of an outlier," she says, lifting her head just enough to speak.
"I'm sure you two won't be too far behind me," you say, sitting down on your own bed more sedately. Verdigris immediately slides down off your shoulders, and sets about finding a good place for a nest somewhere in the immediate vicinity. The beds are raised in the northern style, so you expect her to end up sleeping in the dark space beneath, like she did at the end of last year.
L'nessa laughs. "Oh, no pressure at all!" she says.
You shrug. "Without incentive, how do we excel?"
"Who said that?" L'nessa asks, recognising a quote when she hears one.
"My mother," you say.
L'nessa groans, reaching into her wardrobe for a nightgown. "Well, I can't exactly argue with my esteemed grandmother, can I?"
This time, Maia's giggle is distinctly nervous, and she pushes herself up to a sitting position. "It's not usually a good idea, anyway." When the two of you glance at her, she turns bright red, and hastily adds: "Well, it's not, is it?"
You shrug. "Not unless you have a particularly good point to sway her on. Or unless you amuse her, which is not necessarily reliable."
"I would hope that the Scarlet Empress has better things to do than fret over mild differences of opinion from secondary school students," L'nessa says.
Which is self-evidently true. You're entirely certain that she has someone reporting to her about your activities, but it's hard to imagine that the Heptagram isn't already playing host to someone on the All-Seeing Eye's payroll who can simply add you to their existing duties. Being watched by people who will report back to your mother is just a fact you've lived with for the past sixteen years.
"I'm... just going to try to sleep," Maia says.
Which sounds like such a good idea, you don't take long to follow suit.
She's simultaneously the best and worst kind of opponent — she's better than you, but by little enough that you can tell precisely what you do wrong every time she beats you. So you can tell that you're learning... but it doesn't mean you're exactly catching up to her in a hurry.
"You're always a little bit more aggressive than I'd expect from an Earth Aspect," Sola says, slumping down to sit on a flat stone near to your impromptu practice area. It's a rare, halfway decent day, and the two of you aren't going to pass up the opportunity to steal an hour to take advantage of it.
Sunlight, tired and grey, filters through the gloom overhead, enough to burn off the worst of the mist for once. The cool sea breeze is pleasant enough against your face as you take a seat yourself, lowering yourself to ground at a more dignified rate. Unlike Sola, you're sitting directly on a bed of uneven pebbles, but they're comfortable enough for you. "Well, we do all contain multitudes," you say.
"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Sola says. "The first thing you learned was to summon a horde of venomous snakes. Those would be damn useful on the right sort of military campaign, you know. Weakening the enemy before they even have a chance to take to the field." She moves to flick a strand of sweat-soaked hair away from her forehead. Even in the relative shelter of the boulder behind her, it still blows gently in the phantom breeze that seems to accompany her wherever she goes — Sola is just lucky that she makes the windswept look seem dashing.
You raise an eyebrow. "True enough," you say, "although it doesn't seem like the most... honourable tactic."
Sola shrugs. "War is messy. A commander's honour is important, and winning every victory cleanly is an ideal to strive for, but the general who isn't willing to consider all tactics at need serves her house and her empress poorly. Or so my mother has tried to drill into my head. I'm not about to go around acting like a Sesus, but I'm not going to refuse to see the value in something a little distasteful."
"I like Amiti," you say, holding out a hand for Verdigris to climb back up to her ordinary perch. The snake has gotten very good at not getting too agitated watching you spar. You can hope she's getting better at separating out the nuances of the situation.
"Well, she does seem harmless enough," Sola admits, with a little bit of reluctance. "They're not all bad, as individuals. Just entirely too slippery as a group." She doesn't waste a lot of time on the notional virtues of House Sesus, however. "When I used to do this with my cousins, we'd make a bit of a game of trading old family stories, and try to all find ones no one else had heard of."
"That sounds hard, when you're all Tepets," you say.
"Yes and no," Sola says. She's getting that medicine box out on her lap now. You haven't exactly asked her what the pills are for, but by this point, you can make a fairly decent educated guess. "It's easy to get a repeat, but... well, we've got a lot of history to plumb through for this sort of thing. Easy enough to bring up a particular story about a famous ancestor that no one else had heard of."
"Are you asking me for one, then?" you ask.
Sola grins. "Only if you're interested."
You consider that, and it seems harmless enough, before you both have to hurry back to wash up in time for a practical lesson. You certainly have stories like that on both sides, although your mother was much less inclined to indulge childish whims in this regard. You have as little idea of who her ancestors were during the Shogunate as anyone else does. Prasadi history, on the other hand, is nearly as interesting as early Realm history, and is far less likely to have been something Sola's heard before.
Article:
So, first vote of year two — this one lets me establish the story we'll be focusing on here for this, and gives an opportunity to flesh out certain things about Ambraea's family history.
[ ] A story of the conquest of Prasad and the breaking of a god
[ ] A story about a young Exalt and an Anathema who tried to ensnare him
[ ] A story about a Pure monk and a fair folk prince
