Ascendancy
Of course Trevalia was scared. Among the Ascendancy, fear was the motivator, the thing constantly pursuing. The red eyes in the darkness. Fear was what kept you on the tightrope. She tightened the braid of her silver hair and took a deep breath. Four seconds. Exhale. Four seconds. And so on.
She chose the Yellow Gown. The domain of Light. She read the tablets, brief pinpricks of knowledge, the gaping tryptophobic holes between gnawing at her every time she closed her eyes. Made it hard to sleep.
The gown fit perfectly, slightly longer than a tunic and made of a stiffer, scratchy linen; meant to remind you of your service to Divinity. In the mirror, as the orange sunrise spread upon the sleek stone dormitory walls behind her, Trevalia noted how well Allie the seamstress accentuated her curves without the gown being gaudily skin-tight. If she were buying the gown, she would've added a generous tip, though she would've chosen a better starting fabric.
Gosor complained to the Minders about his gown; he was removed from the Ascendancy. She watched with the others as he was given his old clothes and items—his old life—at the Golden Doors. You do not complain about your lot here. But the Minders were kind and forgiving; no one was barred from leaving, right up until the Conscript. Once you held Divinity, you were symbiotic.
She fit the old, worn leather armor over the gown, pulled the belts tight. She could do this in her sleep. The gown was new, but the armor, the weapons, the hours praying and learning the True Words, that was her last five years of seclusion atop the mesa. This muddled the fear in her mind—the rote movements of her hands, her fingers interlacing strings, fitting buttons through holes. “The Discipline,” Minder Llewelyn had said, “prevents the Pull.”
A crow cawed in the distance, followed by the low droning bell announcing sunrise. Announcing Ascendancy.
The Last Ascent was a large stone amphitheater in the round, carved into the top of the Clawed Palace. Trevalia had seen it once, as part of her apprenticeship with Minder Rowan, who drew the short straw one November and was tasked with dutifully cleaning and maintaining the area.
The theater had existed since back when people would actually pray to gods, or to the Old Man, or both. Regardless, it was as pristine as the rest of the palace; no chips or cracks, no grooves set in the stone by centuries of sitting. It felt brand new, which meant Rowan’s cleaning session was more spent idly chatting in the cold.
The theater was bisected east to west with a narrow alley which led to the round stage, a stone altar projecting from the center. Minder Isteth was currently sitting on the altar, her personal protest of the Old Man, facing away from Trevalia and the other graduating clerics, who sat in the north section, facing south.
Across from the nervous Ascendants tapping their feet and shuffling in their seats were those who held the Oath. They were a strange sort; a dedicated section of half a dozen or so sat huddled together, chatting quietly, while the Free Oathers sat haphazardly throughout the rest of their hemisphere. Brooding loners. Unlike the clerics, the Oathers were stoic and barely moved, their conversations well-manicured.
Neither side had many students. The Ascendants were numbered at seven, while the Oathers had twelve. Both sides dwarfed by the immensity of the amphitheater seating itself.
Minder Isteth was speaking with a human Oather, a woman barely sixteen. Their conversation ended with Isteth taking the woman's head in her jet-black paws and pressing their foreheads together. They spoke in unison—the chatter around Trevalia was too loud to hear, but she knew the words by heart: “Trust the Faith.” A heretical statement anywhere but here, where "faith" was explained as the connection between the person and Divinity. A somewhat more tangible notion than faith in a deity. Plus, as Minder Rowan once said, “Trust the Orb” sounded ridiculous.
It was late spring, a clear, cold morning. The winds from Lake Ephera blew cold. The stone seats were warming from the sun, a welcome relief. Isteth, herself a former Oather, struck her hollow baton against the altar, making a strange, loud buzzing sound each time. “Settle, students, settle,” she said, her voice low and raspy. Isteth's face and body were a memoir of battle, her left eye milky white from a long, deep scar. She walked with a slight limp.
She hopped down from the altar and began to pace around it, making eye contact with every student as she spoke. “This is the day you have been anticipating, hm? Lots of reading and writing. Hard to study the past when there is no past to study. But still, here you are, the remaining ones. Congratulations. This morning, you touch Divinity.”
The clerics went first with Karetto, the mountain-sized giantkin who towered over the rest of them. He stood, joined Isteth, who had clambered onto the altar to match his height, and together they recited the Prayer of Resolve. His gown was the burgundy of War. The other future Conscripts mouthed the words they had memorized from their initiation, a key kept close to chest.
And then, as described with wistful eyes by the Minders: the Divine Right, nothing more than a wisp, a tendril of orange-black vapor, descended from the orb above them. Slowly it sank, twisted, swirled, until the tip was level with Karetto's chest. There was a moment of hesitation—the Judgment. Divinity finding you worthy.
In the 800 years of the Minders Sect, only seven people had been denied Divinity, and each one had a name emblazoned on the walls of the Hall of Darkness; a hall not designed for those denied, but for those who threatened the peace of Broadsea.
The wisp touched the bare metal of Karetto's breastplate, and his head lolled backward, as if to stare directly at the orb. The gown shifted into an intense red, the red of fresh blood, and the ripples looked like blood dripping down, down, down. His eyes became all white, and glowed with the light of Divinity. If he had a head of hair, it would have been tousled by an unseen, unfelt wind, Trevalia would later learn. It all happened in a matter of seconds.
The Ascendants, not even Trevalia, felt no keen connection to Divinity or the Right; rather, it instilled in them a sense of purpose, of action. It became the arrow that pointed the way. The Oathers described it as a sense of might and power, like a fuse on a powder keg ready to be lit.
When it was over, they descended into the dining hall and ate the best feast of their lives.
