The dying light of the sun shone through the stained-glass windows near the top of the hallway. Sunset was only a few minutes away and Yuriko wondered what would illuminate the Temple then since she couldn’t see any light panels or bulbs.

Krystal and Mikel walked beside her while the other kids walked in twos and threes around them with the Celebrant leading the way, his off-white robes fluttering behind him. It was strange; Elder Ramus seemed to walk slowly but no matter how much Yuriko increased her pace, the distance between the Celebrant and the rest of them didn’t seem to change.

It didn’t take long before the children and the Elder arrived at the Altar room. It was a spherical chamber with the walls decorated with tapestries and other hangings. What immediately drew Yuriko’s eyes was the huge, glossy stone pyramid at the very centre of the chamber. The Celebrant brought the children to one side of the space.

“Take a robe that fits you,” he gestured towards the wall. “Make sure that it will cover your full body when you sit on the floor.”

On a table that stood flush against the wall were several squares of white cloth. The robes, Yuriko assumed. Upon closer examination, the squares were arranged according to size, growing bigger from left to right.

Yuriko was the tallest girl in the bunch--actually, she was even taller than the tallest boy, Heron Muryh, by an inch or so. Heron nodded coolly at her when he grabbed at the largest cloth square.

She gave him a sidelong glance before taking the next square. The cloth shimmered when she unfolded it. The light in the chamber dimmed as the sun disappeared into the Tidelands’ mist. She quickly slipped the robe over her head, struggling for a few moments to find the sleeves.

The weather was still cool at this time of the year though it was due to warm up as the season changed. She expected the robe to be too warm to be comfortable but it didn’t hold in her body heat and an errant breeze cut right through the cloth.

An acrid scent wafted to her nose and she held in a sneeze. Elder Ramus had lit several sticks of incense near the stone. With a wave of his sleeves, inky black smoke rose from the embers and swirled in an unnaturally precise circle.

“Sit here when you are ready.” Elder Ramus sounded calm but the look on his face made it clear that he wanted to hurry them along.

With a start, Yuriko realized that she was the only one left by the table. Blushing slightly, she hurried to the rest. Elder Ramus motioned towards the part of the floor within the circle of incense smoke. There were several small pillows where the children could sit in some comfort.

When she sat cross-legged, the robes covered everything but her hands and her head. Elder Ramus waited patiently while each participant shifted around to find a comfortable position. Despite the ease with which she sat down, it didn’t take long for her legs to grow numb. Pins and needles assaulted both legs as she changed positions. It took time but she finally managed to find a suitably comfortable position.

“I’m sure all of you are curious about what the Atavism Ritual is like. Your parents and elder siblings may have told you what they experienced but you will find that each person going through the Ritual, will experience different things.” Elder Ramus’ voice cut into the noise and drew everyone’s attention. His lips twitched into a smile when he saw their eyes fixed on him.

No wonder that Virgil had never spoken about what happens in the Ritual. Yuriko had badgered him often enough so she could find out. Her two brothers had said wildly different things. Marron told her that she would have to drink down gallons of disgusting goop and be strapped in a bed while her body flailed. Kato, on the other hand, spoke of seeing visions and waking dreams.

From the absence of beds with straps, she figured that Marron was just teasing her, and she resolved to put itchweed powder in his underwear.

“The Ritual will start when the moonlight passes through the focus and shines down on the Altar. That should happen in one hundred fifty-seven minutes and…three seconds,” Elder Ramus continued, gesturing to the ceiling. Directly above the pyramid’s tip was a circular opening about a pace across. “The smoke from the incense and the catalyst in the chalice will aid you in forming a Facet.”

He made a gesture and a dozen blue-robed men and women entered from a side door, each one carrying a gold-plated goblet encrusted with gems.

A pretty woman knelt in front of Yuriko, smiled, and presented the chalice, raising the cup to eye level. The stink hit Yuriko like a brick to the face and she felt her dinner rising in her throat. The woman’s eyes crinkled in amusement but waited patiently for Yuriko to gather up enough courage to take the cup.

Inside the cup was a clear, bubbling liquid. In it were globules of red and black, gently drifting as the bubbles rose. A glance at the other kids showed Mikel’s face turning completely green and Krystal trying to push the chalice away. Little Ashley Gin, a young woman with midnight black hair, grabbed at the goblet with trembling hands. She hesitated though.

“Yes, you’ll have to drink that if you want the Atavism Ritual to succeed,” Elder Ramus smirked.

Yuriko gulped, held her nose, closed her eyes, and drank the entire contents of the chalice in one go.

It tasted worse than it smelled. The liquid clung to her throat, nearly making her choke. Mindful of what Elder Ramus said, she struggled to swallow all of it and forced herself not to throw it back up.

“Urk!” the child beside her, a boy named Alric, tried to swallow but gagged. The liquid dripped out from the corner of his lips while he covered his mouth. The sight of it almost made Yuriko lose focus, but a moment later she would be proud to say that she didn’t vomit.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” Elder Ramus grinned, watching the various reactions to the drink. “Don’t worry, it will get worse later.”

“What?” Yuriko was one of the few kids who gasped, the others much too preoccupied with holding their dinners in. “What do you mean?” she demanded.

Elder Ramus shrugged, “What you feel now is but a taste. The Atavism Ritual is not for the weak of heart. There are some theories that the amount of Catalyst you can imbibe, and hold on to until the start of the Ritual, correlates to how potent your Heritage will be.” He tapped his cheek with a finger, “But don’t worry, that’s not always the case.”

The children who weren’t able to take in all of the Catalyst had gone completely ashen. Mikel looked sick. Some of the Catalyst spilt over the rim of his goblet, and some dribbled down his chin before he wiped it off with the robe’s sleeve.

‘How much did he manage to get down?’ Yuriko thought.

He took a few more sips but ultimately shoved the chalice back into the hands of the attendant.

“You have my respect,” the woman in front of Yuriko said when the girl returned the empty chalice.

Yuriko felt the young woman looked familiar, but maybe it was because of the robes, the dim lighting, or the pungent smoke from the incense that made her head feel heavy, that she couldn’t put a name to that face.

Faron’s Crossing was home to a bit more than ten thousand souls, and nearly a tenth of those were in the militia. Though she had lived in the town her whole life, she had never explored much past the Central District.

“Well, settle down children,” Elder Ramus continued. “Don’t force it if your body cannot take anymore.”

A few minutes later, the chalices were returned and the attendants left.

It was a good thing that Yuriko wasn’t on her feet as now, her head was spinning. Closing her eyes didn’t do her any favours; it only made her nausea worse. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed firmly at the Altar stone. Everything else in the room spun dizzyingly slow, leaving strange colour trails in the air. The Stone remained unchanging, a bedrock of stability in a sea of sudden chaos.

“Well, we have a hundred and twenty-seven minutes and twenty-one seconds until the moonlight hits the Altar.” Elder Ramus took a deep breath. “I think it's time for a little history lesson.”

“Ugh,” Yuriko moaned. History had never been her favourite subject, and what was worse was that when the Elder spoke, it made the air visibly ripple with multi-hued waves of colour.

“I’m sure you know this already--and if you don’t, I will have strong words with your parents and instructors. Two thousand nine hundred ninety-seven years ago, as stated in the history books, the Eternal Empire of the Righteous Order was founded by the Verdant Empress. Years before the founding, the plane of Rumiga was part of a greater landmass that existed in the Primordial Chaos. It was stated that a war between god-kings broke this landmass and now, we live in pockets of stable land amidst the sea.”

The stories of how the immortal Verdant Empress tamed the plane of Realmheart and the surrounding planes to found the Empire were some of the tales Yuriko had grown up with. Bravery and valour, tales of betrayal and revenge, fueled her and her brothers’ play. Even now, hearing of the Empress made her blood boil with excitement.

“All would have been well if it was just that,” Elder Ramus chuckled. “But alas, the Primordial Chaos was not without native life. Though all things come from this sea of potential, the Chaos eventually erodes everything back into its raw form only to begin the cycle anew. The planes are protected by artefacts of the god-kings’ make, which is how they endure. But the natives of the Primordial Chaos, the Wyldlings, see our homes as anathema.

“We don’t know how many there are in the endless Primordial Sea. Our only defence is that they cannot stay in our land without changing. Only with this change can they be destroyed.”

Images made out of smoke danced around Elder Ramus. Yuriko wasn’t sure if it was her hallucinating or if the Celebrant had created something with his Animus. A shape with four arms and the head of an ant swirled around her, its scythe blade-arms swishing and cutting apart human silhouettes.

Diminutive figures, humanoid in shape but with bigger heads even compared to a child’s proportions, waltzed in the air. Any other shapes that came near it were torn apart, though Yuriko couldn’t see how it did so.

“Before we continue,” Elder Ramus said as the images faded away, “have any of you thought of what Animus is?”

‘Animus is Animus?’ Yuriko thought. ‘Isn’t it like asking why water is wet? Or why does the same sun and moon rise over every plane? It just is?’

“I can see from the blank looks on your faces that you’ve never even thought of it.” He sighed. “Curiosity is the driving force of progress. Without it, then we would still be in the caves huddled with each other for heat.”

He looked around, meeting each child’s eyes. Yuriko couldn’t hold his gaze, the air shimmered and made her eyes water too much.

“Any ideas?”

A girl three kids away from Yuriko raised her hand timidly. Ishika Reyn had green, almond-shaped eyes and midnight black hair. “Animus is, uhm, power?”

“A fair point, but more than that.”

“Uhm, it is a person’s ability to enforce their will on the world,” Ishika recited.

“It’s a good answer,” Elder Ramus nodded, “for children your age, I guess.” He added in a whisper that was nevertheless heard by everyone else. Ishika’s face reddened.

“Any other guesses?”

“It is a person’s will?” Krystal piped in.

“Also true,” Elder Ramus said with a smile. “Any other answers?”

The way her father had described Animus was the same as what Ishika answered. She had never thought that there was more to it.

After Ishika and Krystal gave their answers, the other children gave variations of pretty much the same thing.

“Is it an expression of the soul?” Yuriko guessed.

“A good answer, any others?” The Elder asked with a smile.

Yuriko couldn’t think of anything else. She really couldn’t focus too much. Of the eleven other participants, about half show no signs of nausea while the others showed mild forms of what she felt. Mikel looked like he was about to fall on his face.

‘I hope he doesn’t break his nose.’

The guesses became wilder and wilder. Maryn Shaun suggested that Animus was a manifestation of Chaos in people. Krystal scoffed at her. Everyone knew that Primordial Chaos would tear a body apart. It would also dissolve the soul so that there would be no chance of reincarnation if somebody died too deep into the Tidelands or in the Chaos Sea.

“That’s ridiculous,” Krystal snapped at Maryn. “Where would you get nonsense like that?”

Maryn, a freckle-faced girl with a short brown hair, glared back, “That’s what Da always said.”

Krystal sneered, “Your Da doesn’t know what he’s saying!”

“He’s a scholar for the Empire,” Maryn shot back, “I think he knows what he’s talking about!”

“Anyone who’s touched Chaos will die,” Krystal declared, “how can there be Chaos in the body or soul?”

“Just because nobody’s done so doesn’t mean nobody ever will.”

A stocky boy named Zeyn Strider, ran his thick fingers over his light brown hair as he piped in, “My Ma also thinks that Animus is partly of Chaos.” He continued in a louder voice, “Why else would it be effective against the Wyldlings.”

“Because Animus is the opposite of Chaos!” Janus, a slender boy with brown hair and deep blue eyes, exclaimed.

Heron, his voice breaking at every other word, growled, “You boys are just echoing what your parents say. Why don’t you think for a moment?”

Yuriko would have retorted but she could barely think at this point. Thankfully, Mikel answered with the same sentiments.

“Like you would know enough to form your own opinions,” the shorter boy snapped.

“What, are you just going to echo what your parents say?” Heron snapped back.

“That’s enough.” Elder Ramus cut in with a soft voice that somehow cut through the angry words like a hot knife through butter. The children grew silent and focused on him. “The time of the Ritual is nigh.” He continued with a smile.

The tension was palpable as the children took a collective breath, followed nearly immediately by gagging and coughing as the incense smoke irritated their nasal passages.

Elder Ramus coughed into his hands, hiding a smile. A beam of moonlight shone from the ceiling, landing on the floor tile, and it inched closer and closer to the Altar while the Elder and the children followed it with bated breath.

When the moonlight touched the stone, a ripple emerged and spread outwards, hitting the walls of the spherical chamber in less time than it took to blink. It wasn’t so much seen as felt, especially when it washed over Yuriko’s body. The edges of her robe fluttered as though it were being blown by the wind. Then, the ripple bounced back from the walls and returned to the Altar before another emerged.

Every time the ripple hit her body, Yuriko felt as if her mind were being shaken loose from her body. It started with her legs going numb; she assumed it was from sitting cross-legged for so long. Except, as the ripples continued battering her body, the numbness spread upward and she found herself confronted with an odd sense of detachment. The sensation terrified her.

She could feel her body moving at about half a heartbeat later than she intended it to; she noticed and counted it out when she tried to scratch the tip of her nose and her limbs took time to move. After a minute, she felt herself moving out of her body. She stiffened and, in a panic, she tried to move everything at once. The delay between intent and action had widened so much that it now took a few heartbeats before her hands even twitched.

“Don’t fight it,” Elder Ramus voice cut through the confusion. “Let it happen.”

The tranquillity of his tone gave Yuriko an anchor point and she mentally grasped it.

“Let it happen. Let your Anima free from its body. Do not resist the pulse. It will only harm you if you do.”

A vague sense of wrongness assaulted Yuriko’s mind. Her eyes twitched as she looked around her. Krystal, who was seated a few paces away from her, was seated calmly. If Krystal were panicking the same way Yuriko had, the pulse must have been dampening it. With every pulse that seemed to push and pull each of them, a cloud began forming around the other girl’s body. As the cloud grew, so did a silhouette begin forming: pale and insubstantial, but present and standing behind Krystal.

“Let it happen.”

A clearer outline of a figure appeared behind Mikel. It looked almost like a shadow, taking on the same shape as the boy except it appeared more like an aura.

Another pulse.

A similar cloud appeared over Yuriko’s hand briefly, as though it were being pushed out of her body, but it then it returned almost immediately inside.

“Don’t resist.”

Agony.

When Yuriko instinctively pulled at the haze when the pulse happened, she felt like she was tearing something extremely important apart. And yet...she had to let go. It felt wrong to simply allow it to happen but at the same time, it hurt her when she resisted.

The other children’s Anima, the cloud-like substance that came from within them, were already distinct. Mikel’s was floating behind him, connected only by a thin tendril emerging from his back. Others were in a similar state. All of them were insensate with their eyes either closed or staring blankly at the Altar.

Except for her.

Hers was still being battered by the pulse, pushing and pulling, trying to get it to leave her body.

“Miss Davar, please let go.”

Unable to decide whether to address the pain she felt or the sense of wrongness that gnawed at her, Yuriko found herself paralysed, unable to decide what to do. Each second seemed endless, until, finally, she decided what to do--nothing. Her instincts screamed for her to act but somehow, she managed to quell the noise. She breathed deeply and relaxed her muscles. Somehow, the act sympathetically allowed her Anima to relax as well and accept the ripples drawing it out.

When she did, her view of the Altar room washed in a swirl of bright colours.