The drumbeat reached a thunderous crescendo. Power pulsed from my hand and up through my arm. It took root in my heart and emanated through my skin and my veins—fiery and wild. The vaulted chamber echoed with gasps and whispers. Everywhere I could see, eyes went wide with what looked like shock.

Shit. Maybe blood wasn’t the way to go.

There was a scampering from behind me as the gray-clad creature rushed up to my side, actually tearing a strip of fabric from their robe to wrap about my hand.

“Ashri-an!” they hissed .”Why did you—?” they stopped, took a deep breath and shook their head. “Later.”

The last word they said under their breath, more to themselves than to me.

Taking my left arm, the robed creature guided me into a turn, walking me to the opposite end of the circle. There, a particularly large individual with yellow eyes, huge horns and bat-like wings emerged from the crowd to stand between two of the drummers. The bards beat a faint, slow rhythm, their hands barely moving over the stretched skin of their instruments.

We came to a stop facing the yellow-eyed beast from a pace away, and my escort dipped their head in a bow and took several steps backward.

I wasn’t sure how I knew that yellow-eyes was a he, exactly. His lower parts were covered in a sort of ornate leather loin cloth, and I had no way of knowing whether the lack of breasts indicated anything one way or another—though some of the others certainly seemed to have them—or what their cultural relationship between sex and gender might even be. All I knew was that he had a scent to him that my instincts immediately regarded as he, but also as a whole lot of other things which were clearly specific to his kind and which I didn’t understand yet.

Realizing that I was cowering, I forced myself to stand straight as the beast glowered down at me. Far, far down. He was nearly twice my height, his scales gray mottled with black, his fur salt-and-pepper, his tusked and wolf-like face covered in scars. His tail lashed slowly behind him, wings flexing and relaxing, never quite pausing. And, maybe weirdest of all, he had a crystal embedded in his chest. No, not a crystal…a diamond.

I glanced around, realizing that what I had taken to be gemstone pendants on several of the creatures around me were, in fact, just stuck straight into their skin.

“Daughter,” intoned the big guy, his voice deep and grating. Then he lunged forward. I gasped before I could stop myself, flinched, but stood my ground. He stooped with his face close to my ear and one enormous hand on each of my shoulders, his scent of blood, charcoal and beastial musk suddenly overpowering.

“If you shame me again—even one more time,” he growled, squeezing until his claws bit through the fabric of my thin, dress-like garment and into my skin. “I shall disavow you forever, and all of my allies will become your enemies. Remember that.”

The warmth drained out of me. I clenched my hands as if that would stop the sudden trembling. The sharp ache in the right one made everything seem more real. And, as much as I was clearly in trouble, I hoped to whatever gods might exist that it was. Better screwed than dead.

As he pulled away, the big guy…my father, apparently, was smiling. It would have looked almost kindly, except it was just a little too wide. Bore too many of his wickedly sharp teeth.

“Zia, my daughter, accept this gift of First Gem from the whole of Clan Ashri.”

At a flick of his claw, a somewhat smaller leather-clad creature came forward. Their tunic was laced up the sides and split at the hips, and while they had breasts in addition to dense muscles, wings, and horns, my scent-instincts did not provide me with any gender-related information. Not unless you counted a whole lot of indecipherably vague and alien impressions. The creatures with wings and horns certainly had their own distinct scent marker, and for some reason my brain linked that distinction with the concept of physiological sex in a confusing sort of way. But I would have to puzzle that out later.

The new creature held a long wooden box in their hands, and they flipped it open to reveal eight gemstones. The same eight types which decked the altar, by the look of them. I couldn’t identify each one, but I recognized what appeared to be topaz, garnet, jade, onyx, and of course…opal.

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Reaching into the box, my stranger father plucked the opal from its sculpted interior. Turning back, he raised the stone, holding it out to me. But as I went to take it from him, he emitted a low growl, narrowing his eyes. I let my hand drop. He glared down at me one moment longer, then pressed the stone to my chest, into what felt like a groove over my sternum. The pulsing sensation of power intensified, focusing in the vicinity of the stone as my flesh closed around its edges, lodging it in place.

And then everything became very overwhelming very quickly. My mind reeled as it struggled to accommodate something new…something I couldn’t even comprehend at first. My legs wobbled, and the gray-robed escort hurried up to support me. My father, however, stepped back—watching with narrowed eyes.

My own gaze darted from creature-to-creature as the nature of my new addition, my new sense, became clear. Then they settled on my father. Shimmering glyphs danced at the edges of my vision, and although my mind automatically translated their meaning as it did with spoken language, that meaning was confusing.

20Gem Diamond

Summon Fire

Ravenous Flame

Undying Ember

Thundering Storm

River of Wind

Vital Downpour

Rain of Ice

Ruptured Earth

Any time I focused in a particular way on any of the other creatures, a similar array of baffling information presented itself.

20Gem? What is that? His weight?

But no, it couldn’t be that, because the one creature within view who was larger than him was only 11Gem, whatever the hell that is.

Gray-robes squeezed my shoulders in their effort to steady me, and fresh little bits of pain sparked up in the wounds left behind by daddy dearest when he did the same. I took a deep breath, coming back to myself a bit—focusing on that, instead of informational overwhelm.

I kind of hated that pain is what anchored me, but it was.

“Go forward, now, and make yourself great,” said the beast.

Following an impulse, I bowed to him. Lower even than gray-robes had.

“Thank you, father,” I answered. “I will do my best.”

As I pulled out of the bow, I glanced up to see that the beast’s pupils had contracted to mere slits, his pointed ears tilted back. Then he huffed, turning from me without another word to rejoin the crowd, his box-bearing attendant trailing after him.

“Come,” said gray-robes, taking my arm and pulling me through a parting in the crowd. As we neared the back, we passed another gray clad creature accompanying another garbed in white like myself. One with scarlet scales who looked about ready to faint with nerves. My eyes caught hers as we passed each other, and I tried to give her a reassuring look. Glancing back the way I’d come, I caught a quick glimpse of more gray-robes scrubbing blood off the altar and flinched.

Oops.

As we neared an arched, lantern-flanked exit, I slowed.

“Don’t I get to stay and watch the others?” I asked, catching the aquamarine eyes of my escort. It seemed like this was one of those group rituals, with a bunch of others like me waiting to go through it. I could learn a lot by observation. But gray-robes just sniffed.

“You would, if you hadn’t just gouged your hand open. But now we’ve got to go get you healed up.” They tugged at my arm and I relented, allowing them to lead me out of the chamber and into the high-ceilinged hall beyond.

“Why did you do that, exactly?” they asked, once we’d walked a few paces down the sparsely-lit stone corridor. “Gouge your hand open, that is?”

I took a deep breath. I’d already considered my answer to this question, my approach to this entire situation. The closest possible thing to the truth was the safest bet…I hoped.

“Because I thought that was what I was supposed to do.”

This time, it was my escort who yanked us to a sudden halt.

“What?”

“I’m going to be honest with you,” I said. “I’m having some…some memory issues.”

Gray-robes blinked.

“Memory issues.”

I nodded.

“I think it’s just the, er, stress of everything,” I explained. “It’s making me blank out on things.”

“Blank out?”

What are you, a parrot?

“Yeah, you know…the moment of truth comes, and everything just goes poof.” I demonstrated with my hands, pulling them free of their grip. “Right out of my head.”

My companion stared at me for another few seconds, blinked, and sighed. For the first time, I noticed that they were kind of pretty. Their fur and scales were silvery-colored, but had a slight blue sheen to them. I assumed they must have a gemstone embedded in their chest too, but the robes covered it. I focused on them with my new sense, and the glyphs shimmered into view.

2Gem Sapphire

Enhance Wisdom

Crystallize Knowledge

“Riiiight,” they said, as we started down the hall again. After a few more turns and a trip down a very long and curving flight of stairs, we came to a stop before a door with a small hatch set into its upper half.

“Here we are,” said gray-robes, rapping at the door with their scaly knuckles. The hatch swung open, revealing an acid-green eye framed in fur of such a dark burgundy shade that it was almost black.

“Already?” The husky voice dripped with annoyance.

“We have a cut-open palm and claims of stress-induced memory loss,” gray-robes reported.

The eye fixed on me and immediately narrowed.

“Of course we do,” scathed the stranger. The hatch snapped shut, and the door swung open. I couldn’t see into the room beyond, because the creature inside of it filled up the entire frame.

With a little shove toward the door, my escort released me and started back down the hall.

“She’s your problem now!” they called over their shoulder.