"Are you really going to do this?"
Ash stood by the window, arms folded -morning light framed her against the shutters. She had already dressed in the clothes Martha had left for her. The pink looked garish to me, though perhaps not as much as it once might have. I did not look up from the Darkness Binding. I had been running my fingers over its surface since before dawn, checking for damage that wasn't there.
"Yes."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
Ash turned from the window. Her eyes were careful in a way that I had come to recognize. It was the way she looked before she said something she knew would provoke me. "This is submitting to a power we don't understand. You know that. We know too little of these marks, or what they might do to those who bear them...If I can see it, then surely you can too." She said, confirming my suspicion.
"And?"
The Hero frowned. "Why are you not more concerned? What if these are new chains, and now you're walking into a set of them?"
I set the armor aside and met her gaze. Odd that she now reject power, when she had never once rejected being a Hero. Had never once rejected all of the Gods whose blessings she had taken. Perhaps I was not the only one who felt something uncomfortable and foreign each night.
"You feel it, don't you?" I said. Ash went still, and so I continued, "Your mana is thinning, as is your aura. I can feel it. Each day, there is less of both -your powers are draining." I paused. "If we fought that Divine Beast from the forest now, we would die." Ash said nothing at that. "How long, Hero? A month? Two? Before you cannot even lift that sword of yours?"
Her jaw tightened and her hand drifted, just for an instant, toward the blade leaning against the wall. "That's not-"
"It is." I stood. "I did not claw my way across a thousand years to be outmatched by children who can conjure fire with a snap of their fingers. If this world runs on Ink instead of Classes, then I will have ink." The words could not carry the weight of all the agonizing thought that had gone behind them. I did not like it any more than Ash did. I liked feeling myself diminish even less.
And this 'Ink' might answer some of the questions that gnawed at me. Why was my body different? Where had the System gone? Where were the Gods? My probing questions had revealed that these people knew none of the names I carefully mentioned -names even people in backwaters should recognize. The silence that followed my statement was not quite agreement.
"Then we both go," Ash said quietly. I did not acknowledge the 'both.' But I did not object.
Martha caught us at the door. "A word, dears." She wiped her hands on her apron. She'd just gotten done cooking. "The Inker’s name is Master Aldric. He came through twelve winters ago with a fever that nearly killed him. We nursed him for three weeks. He's not forgotten it. Just…take care." She looked between us. "He's a proud man. Don't give him reason to make this difficult."
Ash only nodded at the warning.
The Inker arrived in the late afternoon and did not come alone. The village had been preparing since midday. Lanterns strung along the dirt path in uneven rows. Dried flowers hung from doorways that had none before. The children ran in circles.
The adults were quiet. Even Tom, who could make small talk with a stone wall, was quiet. There was a reverence to it, I think, and something akin to fear too. I had often seen both directed at me, though the latter far more often.
The Inker was a lean and sharp man, dressed in dark robes threaded with silver. The ten men with him all wore silver armor. Some carried lances, others held spears or bows. A few held swords. One even had a massive hammer. All of them had visible marks in swirling branching patterns displayed on bare arms, nothing like the small dots the villagers had.
The Inker carried with him a black case strapped across his back, and when he walked, the crowd parted without being asked. A holy man, such as existed in this time. Tom and his wife had told me much. They had also insisted we not wear our armor.
He set up at the center of the square. The soldiers stood off to the side, watching. He opened the black case to reveal a rack of small vials, each filled with ink that was not ink, or not just ink. The liquid shifted on its own within the glass. I had never seen its like before.
My gaze moved to the Inker's forearms. He had two marks of his own, both intricate, and moving in patterns that formed shapes. One was in the vague shape of brown horns, and the other was an imitation of a red plant of some sort. I had never seen someone with two marks before. Never seen ones that made actual shapes.
It was Tom who led us toward the man. He had told us bluntly that our stories didn't make sense. He had explained the facts of our suspicious situation. Ash had decided to go with something resembling honesty when the time came. The fool.
"Master Inker," Tom said, dipping his head. Ash dipped hers. I did not dip mine. "These two are staying with us. They came out of the forest a few days back and then helped protect my nephew from a wolf pack on the road."
The Inker barely glanced up from his vials. "And?"
"They don't have marks."
That got him to look. His hands stilled over the case. His eyes moved to Ash first, then to me, and they lingered on my horns. "How old are you?" he asked. The question was directed at both of us, but his gaze stayed on me.
"Old enough," I said.
"She means we're both adults," Ash cut in, stepping slightly in front of me. "We weren't raised in a village. We didn't have access to this ceremony growing up. Simple as that."
The Inker straightened. He was taller than Tom, though not by much. The silver threading in his robes caught the light as he folded his arms. "As simple as that," he repeated, his voice flat. "Two grown women with no Ink." His brows furrowed as he eyed us. "And you took them in," he whispered, these words were directed at Tom.
There was a knife behind that last part. Tom tensed and Ash looked ready to say something. "They earned their place here," Tom said firmly, more firmly than I would have expected. "They aren't suspicious folk."
The Inker all but ignored him as he looked over the merchant's head. "Where are you from? Which province?" Tom stepped back and wilted in on himself.
"We've traveled extensively," Ash said. "We don't claim a single-"
"I didn't ask you." He nodded at me. "I asked you. You tell me first, then the other one can,"
"You are asking the wrong questions," I said. "And I do not answer to you."
Something flickered across his face. Surprise, perhaps. I did not think it was anger. Tom shook like a leaf in the wind.
"Is that so." He took a step closer and one of his marks was glowing faintly, the one in the shape of horns. "Do you know who I am, girl?"
Once, he would have turned to ash at the first word. I had pulled out the tongues of men far grander, for far less. Ash brushed my side. It wasn't just us now. There were other people there, staring at us from a distance. Not far enough not to hear us. That girl was among them.
Damn it.
"A man of some authoriity," I said finally, my jaw clenched.
"Good. It seems even a savage can understand that much." His posture shifted. The glow on his mark dimmed. "No marks," he said again. "At your age." He circled us, slowly, the way a beast might before lunging for the kill. "In what village were you raised that would allow such neglect? Or is it that the Ink was offered, and you refused it?" He let the question hang. The crowd had long gone quiet.
"There are words for those who refuse the Ink," he continued. "Forsaken or heretic." At the last word, some of the soldiers took one step forward. Nobody reached for a weapon. Not yet.
"We submit to it now!" Ash said. She did the last thing I had expected her to do. She bowed her head. The Hero who hadn't bowed to my might, bowed her head in front of this man. The Inker's lip curled and his eyes found mine.
"A village that holds heretics…" he said loudly. "May not last."
My head turned. I stared at that girl again -just at her. The rest might as well not have been there. The Goddess of Love had once demanded I bow before her, when she'd thought I needed her help. I had spat in her face. The Inker I could take, perhaps. The others? Even with the Hero, I did not like my odds. Too much of me had drained since waking up. I had not thought that things would go this way.
I bowed my head like the Hero had done. It felt stiff, as if the slightest bending threatened to break me. My teeth clenched, as did my fists.
"Very well," the Inker said finally, smoothing the front of his robes. "If the Ink rejects them for their age, the consequence falls on them. And on you."
"The Ink is sacred," he said, and there was real conviction behind it. "It is not given to those who have spurned it. I will make an exception, just once. For the kindness Hamel once showed me."
I wondered if this had all been a mistake.
Dusk fell over Hamel.
The square was lit by lantern and firelight. The village formed a wide circle around the Inker and his open case. Every soul in Hamel was here. I saw people I never had before. Mothers with infants on their hips, old men leaning on walking sticks and children bouncing on their toes.
The chanting began first. It was low and rhythmic, starting with the elders and spreading outward until the whole village had joined, even the youngest children mouthing words. I did not recognize the language but I recognized the cadence. It was prayer. Each word was said with the weight of religious recitation. I had heard it all before. Had been the subject of most of it.
The Inker let the chanting run its course. When it faded, he did not wait for silence to settle. He simply spoke over it. "For the uninitiated," he began, and his gaze swept the crowd without settling on anyone, "and for the children who have yet to receive the Ink, I will speak briefly on what is to come."
Briefly. I doubted that. Priests were never brief. Always I had wondered if that was their chain.
"The Ink reveals what lies within you. It does not choose, it does not create...it finds." He held up one of the vials and the liquid inside shifted like something alive. "What it finds determines your Mark. There are five orders of marks." He set the vial down. and then raised one finger. "Somatic." He might as well have said 'dirt.' "They deal with the body. Strength, speed, endurance, and healing. These marks are as common as grass and about as remarkable. Most of you will fall here. If you do, learn a trade and be grateful."
A few of the adults shifted. The Inker raised another finger. "Primal." He sounded only marginally less bored. "Some of you will have these. These marks deal with the elements. Fire, water, earth, and wind. Others you need not concern yourselves with. You will command one, and only one. Likely not even the whole of it."
The boy who could light the flame then. And Martha.
"Axiom." He raised a third finger. His tone shifted again -it was still not warm, but it carried no mocking. "They create constructs -projection of mana beyond the body. Usually these are in the form of shields, weapons and threads. Some can even form beasts, though that is far rarer." His eyes scanned the crowd.
Slowly, he raised a fourth finger. "We then have Ciphers. Their powers are over the mind and the senses. Illusion, disruption, manipulation of thought and perception." He smiled. "I happen to carry a Cipher." Every word sounded like a boast.
The Inker's posture changed. He straightened and his chin rose. One of his marks -the one shaped like horns- pulsed faintly.
"Sovereign." The Inker scanned the crowd, as if the word alone was enough. As if no explanation he could give would do justice to it. He tried anyway. Priests always did.
"The laws themselves. Of what? Of everything." He whispered, the sound carrying anyway. "One in a thousand. Ten thousand. Perhaps rarer still, nobody knows. My master, His Eminence Archon Valtheris, who leads the clergy of Koralis, bears a Sovereign Mark." There was open pride in his voice now. "He could unmake this village and everything in it without lifting a hand. That is the difference." He scanned the crowd one final time and his eyes were hard.
"None of you will receive a Sovereign Mark. None of you will ever even see one. I say this not to wound your pride but to spare you the delusion. A village like this might see one Axiom in a generation. Two Ciphers in a century. A Sovereign?" He almost smiled, did not say anything more.
Recognition moved through me. These Sovereigns sounded like a power I had commanded. The manipulation of the rules of nature. It was called [Concept Magic] in the old system. It had made me a threat to the Pantheon itself.
The Inker composed himself and shook his head. The glazed look in his eye went away as quickly as it had come. "After you receive your marks, you have to Cultivate them." He waved a hand, as if the topic bored him already. "Your Mark, once given, is small and weak. A dot on the skin, nothing more. We call it a Spark. It will grow only if you force it to. Use your mana as much as you can, though that is not nearly enough. Perhaps some of you can make Essence, that will serve better. But raw and baseless power is not everything."
"A mark requires Insight." He said the word softly, and the sound carried anyway. "With power an Insight, you might reach the Line -the next stage from Spark." He paused, looked at the crowd. Then he picked up one of his instruments and turned it idly in his fingers. "There are more stages in this process. Their names do not matter. There are many. Do try to die with more than a Spark, at least." He looked up. "All of you will receive one mark, that is the way of things. To receive two is rare, a sign of noble blood that...." He shook his head, as if the rest was so pointless it didn't need saying.
He looked at the row of children who waited for him. His expression did not soften. "Let us begin."
Then I felt it. It was faint -a pressure in the air that had not been there before. I recognized it. There was divine power in this ink, or something like it. It felt almost like a gaze, one I had grown tired of feeling. It was the gaze that had made me wage war against the pantheon itself. It was not directed at me now, but it pricked me all the same. I glanced sideways at Ash. Her jaw was tight -she felt it too.
The children went first.
There were three of them. They knelt before the Inker one at a time. He dipped a thin instrument into one of the vials. The ink clung to the tip, shifting in place. He pressed it to the first child's forearm. The child's eyes went glassy.
I froze. I knew that look too. I had seen it a thousand times, on a thousand faces. The blank, hollow stare of someone whose soul was being read and measured. It was the look every living creature wore the moment the System first touched them. The look of awakening. Nobody reacted. The parents smiled and the crowd murmured warmly.
The child blinked and came back. A single mark had formed on his forearm, so small I almost couldn't see it. It was a blue-green dot.
"Somatic!" the Inker called out, loudly. The crowd cheered. The boy ran back to his mother, holding his arm up as if it were a trophy. She swept him into her arms.
The second child went -a girl. She knelt and held out her arm steadily. The needle pressed and her eyes went glassy. She came back a moment later with a single mark, a blue spot on her skin.
"Primal!" the Inker called. There was more cheering. The girl smiled so wide it looked like it would split her face in two.
The third child stepped forward. This was a boy, younger than the others, small enough that he had to be guided to the kneeling spot by his mother. She kissed the top of his head and stepped back into the circle.
The Inker dipped the instrument and pressed it to the boy's arm. His eyes emptied. This was the moment the self steps aside and something else looks in. It had happened to me, once, a millennia ago. I had been ten, when I had awakened to the System.
My parents had been happy, I think. Had I?
The crowd was still smiling while his mother had her hands clasped together. His eyes were glassy. It started in his hand. I saw the tremor -small enough that I might have imagined it. I did not imagine it. The tremor climbed past his wrist and into his forearm. I saw the exact moment someone in the crowd noticed. A woman -not the mother- took half a step back.
The tremor reached the boy's shoulder. His whole arm was shaking now. His back arched and his mouth opened but no sound came out.
The Ink spread like black veins beneath his skin, branching outward in jagged lines. It reached his elbow and paused there, just for a moment. It continued toward his neck and the boy screamed. The scream was high -a sound I had heard before, in halls that no longer existed. I banished the thought, even as my hands clenched.
The mother lunged forward and two men caught her. She fought them. She was not strong, and she fought them as though she was.
Ash moved. I caught her arm- pulled her back hard. "Don't," I said.
"He's dying!" Ash hissed, trying to wrench free. Her strength was considerable, even now. My grip held, but only just.
"I know."
"Then let me-"
"You cannot stop this." My voice was low -only she could hear it. "Worse would happen if you tried."
The Inker was watching, and so were the soldiers. Their eyes scanned the crowd. I felt their gazes on my back.
I had heard the muttering before the ceremony. Heard whispers among the parents about the Ink 'not taking.' They had spoken of it the way one speaks of a child being slow to walk. Nobody had spoken of this.
The Inker had not moved -had not so much as shifted his weight. His eyes were not on the boy. They were on us -no, on the crowd. He was checking for any reaction but the expected one. That was a method I knew all too well. Ash's arm shook in my grip. Every muscle in her body was straining against me.
"Let me go, Lysanthia."
"No."
On the ground, the boy convulsed. The black veins had reached his neck and his scream had stopped. Whatever had been looking in was leaving, and what it left behind was just a boy, staring at a sky he would see but never know. His eyes were open and they stared at nothing. His breathing came in a thin rasp. I had watched the System do this. Not often, but enough.
The ones it rejected rarely died, but they were never whole afterward. I had not cared then. I was not sure what I felt now, only that it was not nothing, and that these people had not spoken of this as though it could kill.
The Inker stood over him. He had not moved. His face was still stone. The ink retreated. It pulled back from his veins back to the point of entry, leaving nothing behind but pale, empty skin. The boy did not move.
His mother broke free and nobody held her this time. She fell beside him. Her hands touched his face. She said his name. Said it again. She said it a third time, louder. It had been Marin.
I let go of Ash's arm. She stood rigid beside me, her fists at her sides, her breathing ragged. The Inker straightened. He withdrew the instrument from the boy's arm, wiped it on a cloth, and returned it to the case. "The Ink has judged," he said. His voice carried across the silent square. "The vessel was found unworthy."
Nobody cheered. The chanting had died some time ago. I did not know when. I had not heard its loss over the screaming. The Inker searched the crowd and his gaze settled over us -settled over me. He smiled. I knew then that he hadn't accepted our Inking as some kind of mercy or compromise.
He'd just thought it a cleaner execution.