As the night fell and the moon started to get her place in the sky, the clouds moved enough for everyone to see the occurrence. Was it magic? It looked like it, but Ruby wasn’t sure. She wanted to keep watching the clouds, but Aurelia brought her back, now pushing her to pay attention to the priest, who was standing on top of a slab of rock right in the middle of the courtyard.
Despite the fact it wasn’t the time for the people to start awakening yet, the priest came out as it was needed to do some kind of ritual. Ruby, on her part, wasn’t really that interested in the ritual or the religious part of it all, but as the man’s prayer started to get longer and longer, she started to see lights coming out from the floor.
A circle started to form in brilliant lights underneath the snow. The snowflakes kept on falling slowly, but the floor around the bearded man started to dry and disappear. The glowing started to pulsate and slowly a more intricate design started to form. As if the light was alive, a small tendril of light expanded from different sides of its interior, creating smaller but more intricate circles and sigils.
The man had given a sermon before he started, his voice loud and clear despite the fact the girls were sitting on the almost seventh floor. Now, however, Ruby could barely see the man talking, moving his lips at great speed with his eyes closed. Arms extended suddenly and more of the light started to come out of the man from his hands. Then, his arms lifted into the air, and with them, the magic glowing circle on the floor did as well.
The purple light started to pulse faster as it detached itself from the floor, some of the smaller circles stopping and staying in the middle of the air. It was like watching a paper garland unfold itself, but glowing pretty. And magical.
The last magic circle stopped moving a head above the priest. In the same way, the pulsation stopped and finally the magic gave a final bright pulse. Now the magic circles just stayed there, floating in the air and faintly glowing under the almost complete darkness that had fallen under the city.
Ruby was entranced by the magic circles and what she had seen just happen now. Magic was super cool, but at the same time, quite foreign. It made her nervous, but also ignited something inside her she didn’t truly understand. The only thing she was damn sure of was that she wanted to see more.
She was about to say something, but the voice of the priest interrupted everyone’s whisper.
“May the Goddess of the Night bless this day and bring darkness to keep us from the stray path!”
“May he bring darkness!”
“May she bring darkness!”
The whole crowd that was watching replied in unison, though it didn’t scape Ruby’s ears that people used different pronouns. She even saw Aurelia answer as well. However, what was really in her mind was something different. “Goddess of the Night? Bring darkness? Oh my god, did I just join a cult? Was I part of the cult already? What the fuuuuuuck.” She was screaming in her mind.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ruby replied with her best poker face. Acting like nothing was up and eyes going back to the ceremony.
Back in the first floor of the temple, the priest went away and from where she was sitting she was able to see how the crowd parted in front of the doors. Down below she could see the finer dressed people start to gossip as a long line of black-cloaked figures entered the building.
While Ruby started to stress again on how she was living in a cult-town or something, the first person on the line made their way to the middle of the circle.
The teenager then removed his clothes, revealing a blond young man dressed in a light brown doublet, a snug-fitting jacket common around the 16th century, under a plain darker brown frock. The braies, some very rudimentary version of a pair of pants – under Ruby’s judgment at least – didn’t seem too extraordinary either. Sure, she could tell the outfit was fancier than what any of the people surrounding her had, the guy even had a whole-lot of stocking action going on, reaching all the way to his knees, but it’s not like he was a screaming ‘Prince’ or anything.
“He’s not a noble, right?”
“That sod? Nah, he’s probably the kid of some merchant. See? The asshole is even holding a bag of coins.”
The brunette kept on looking. She judged him. She always did that with people based on what she saw, but it was something instinctual. She liked to think it was more about what you did with the judgment than the fact you did it. Everyone judges others at the end of the day.
“Those are some long socks.” Chuckled Aurelia.
“What happened to the nobles? Weren’t they going to go first?”
“Hah, they would never come here. This place is more for guilders and guards, the boy probably went first because there’s a few big merchants in town. The baron and the really rich of this place go to the main temple, in the inner parts of town.”
Ruby just nodded in understanding, her eyes going back to the young man. Once he stepped into the middle of the circle, his eyes closed and he literally started floating.
She just looked, flabbergasted at seeing the man float. She knew this was not a parlor trick and while, sure, she had seen the glowy circle and the whole first aid thing, but this was a man who was floating out of literal magic.
Before she could rationalize completely what she was seeing, however, the man touched the ground again after being covered by a fading purple light. Hugs and celebration followed, probably the guy’s family were the ones who rejoiced the most, as they raised their hands to the air and laughed out loud. The celebration didn’t last much though, as soon the next person followed and the guy left with the rest of his family.
----------------------------------------
A number of teenagers similar to the first one followed right after. All of them taking down their black cloaks once it was their turn. While Ruby had been entranced at first, the whole thing became quite boring very quickly, making her just look for the clothes the children were wearing.
From what she could gather, there were a lot of doublets and long socks. Those seemed to be quite in fashion for men. Women wore long dresses, long sleeves and fur capes of various colors indicating a winter outfit. The corset was no surprise, she had seen those before. But what brought her quite the interest was the hair. The hair was either braided or it wasn’t, but never covering any single part of the face. That was all it was.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Great, I joined a cult with no hairdressers. Lucky me.”
“What was that?”
“Hm? Nothing, I was just seeing that girl’s pretty dress.”
Aurelia stared for a second, but then her eyes went back to the ritual.
“This is always the boring part.”
“This is the boring part?”
“Always.”
“Okay, what’s the not boring part?”
“The people you know and the guilders, of course.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ll see. Anyway, seems like that was the last of those prissy sods. Guilder-born are up next.”
That brought Ruby’s attention back.
You could tell plenty of the cloaked figures that were approaching now were sons and daughters of the guilders, mostly because no matter the kind of cloak you had, it hardly mattered when you were holding swords, staves and even bows. Was that a scythe? Ruby just stared as the first girl approached, taking her cloak off and putting a nice display of what a girl-knight would look like.
Once the girl was done, she touched the ground as everybody else, but instead of stepping down and joining her family or whoever was waiting for her, she raised her sword and, in a blue flash, it got covered in thick ice, extending the blade a couple of feet and making it look even more deadlier than before.
Aurelia whistled. “That’s an [Ice blade] right there. She’ll get invited for sure.”
The reason why the temple got so full was because it would also include many recruits from a variety of guilds, all of them waiting to see prominent new recruits who may have a chance to become something in the outer world. Most of the time, those who were kids of current or former guilders would turn to become guilders themselves as well, but there were always exceptions.
As Aurelia had mentioned, the first people who got awakened were children from a variety of relatively successful merchants and the like, those who had a stronger voice among the middle-upper echelons of the city. None of which turned into a guilder this time.
However, you could tell immediately when someone did want to become a guilder. It was customary to show-off with a non-deadly skill and make everyone look at you, that is, if you wanted for people to pay attention to you. It wasn’t strange if someone decided to keep their acquired Class to themselves or not show-off when you already had a secured spot in a guild because of connections or the like. Besides, despite that most guilders’ children decided to follow in their parents’ footsteps, there were many who didn’t do it, thus not flashing any sort of skill.
Ruby noticed how the new adults would hold themselves high and meet with a bunch of people once they left the circle. It was like watching a newly discovered talented sportsman meet with a bunch of sponsors, all fighting for his attention.
As the line started to move, Ruby saw many like the first girl. All using different kinds of weapons and then using a fancy or flashy skill. There was even this one boy who had a trumpet with him and his skill summoned a bunch of rainbow musical notes in the air as he played. Ruby had her palms and forehead against the window looking amazed, but the boy’s presentation didn’t seem to have the same reaction as hers. She was going to ask about it, but Aurelia talked first, pointing with her finger at the back of the line.
“Pff hahaha! See that one at the back?”
“The one that keeps wiggling? Yeah, what’s up with that?”
“Guess who it is,” She just smiled.
“You did not!”
“I did!”
“Aurelia! What did you do!?”
“I may or may have not filled the fanciest looking cloak with poison ivy,”
“You already said you did!”
Aurelia paused.
“HAHAHAHAHA!”
Ruby just snorted and covered her mouth as she kept on seeing the cloaked figure in the back twitching like it really wanted to go to the bathroom.
Aurelia dried her tears as she was still laughing. “Oh my god hahahaha! My belly hurts. She had it coming though!”
“Hahaha, is this why you wanted to come early?”
“You bet.” She snickered.
As the time went by, the line started to make itself shorter and Layla was finally the first in the line. Aurelia burst into laughter the second it was Layla’s turn. The white-haired girl just threw the cloak to the ground in plain savagery, her face a mess of rage. Her hands, neck, legs, and some of her face was covered in a reddish rash that Ruby could see clearly even from where she was sitting.
Aurelia’s laugh was so loud that violet eyes quickly posed on the both of them. Layla just turned her hands into fists but said nothing, there was no time to lose. She started to walk like a hooligan at first, but soon enough composed herself, getting her elegance and poise back right after the short eruption. One foot stayed behind the other and her eyes closed. Her wand was held by both of her hands in a horizontal position as she started to float, her feet staying in the same position, making her look like a ballerina jumping. A ballerina with a rash though.
When her feet touched the ground, her hand moved to her neck in an attempt to scratch herself but restrained herself midway, raising her wand instead. Her eyes looked at Aurelia once more, but her attention went back to the crowd as she smirked. The pointy-end of her wand started to glow, and suddenly a whole flock of white pigeons just appeared. Some were flying around her or silently sitting on top of her like they have always been there.
Ruby narrowed her eyes, trying to follow along on how all this thing worked. “Is she a… bird mage?”
“HAHAHA I’LL USE THAT!” Aurelia burst out laughing, patting Ruby on the shoulder violently.
Still smiling and with her laugh dying down, she clarified. “That’s just an illusion I think. I’ve seen summons before and that’s not how they look. Still, she’ll definitely get recruited.”
“Illusions huh?” Ruby stared, just taking it all in.
Unfortunately for Ruby, Layla quickly left the central stage and was approached by several figures on her way out.
Since most of the new adults had already finished with their Awakenings and had already left with their families, the place was looking considerably emptier than before. There were still a huge number of people around, but not enough for them needing to fight for a spot to watch like before.
The children from the orphanage were in the last third of the line, so the only ones left were other commoners and the farmers. Layla had been the first of their home, but Ruby could tell it was going to be Theo’s turn soon.
Noticing how Ruby kept staring at some of the tallest figures down the line, Aurelia took her hand and with a small gesture pushed her to go downstairs. Quickly they made their way to the first floor and squeezed through the people to get a better look. From their new position, Ruby saw Xanis, the gray-skinned demon that was Theo’s mentor. He seemed calm, exchanging a few words with another demon of equal height, but bulkier beside him.
Ruby’s eyes went to the line of people quickly going forward scanning for Theo, until her eyes landed on the guy taking his cloak. Their eyes connected, both nodding at each other. Theo’s auburn hair and tan skin was covered by a set of armor just like the one Xanis was wearing. He was holding a big square shield on one hand and a sword on the other, scabbard by his belt.
Ruby saw him take a big breath before walking with confidence to the magic circle. Head held high for everyone to see.
Theo stepped on the stage and, just like every single person before him, the magic activated and he started to float. Lights glowing and pulsing as he stayed above ground. Ruby couldn’t help herself but to hold her breath for the various seconds the ritual lasted.
She let her breath go once his feet touched the ground once more, looking relaxed and easy-going as ever.
His eyes seemed distracted however, as if he was reading something.
Calmness turned into confusion and confusion into urgency. Frown in his face.
“No!” Echoed throughout the temple.
Xanis shoved the hands that were keeping him and moved towards Theo; Ruby seeing how they exchanged a few words. Theo’s chest was moving up and down, his face crestfallen, looking straight at Ruby.
Then Xanis turned around, fury in his eyes.