It was impressive, Claudia mused as she watched her sister ascend the pulpit, just how loud the bated silence of a thousand students could be. The quiet was syrup thick, viscous with anticipation for the wisdom of Grimwood’s rising star of Alchemy.
Francine cleared her throat, and her words forded the hush like heated brass.
Claudia released her breath with the rest of the audience crowded into the chamber of marble and dark wood.
From the corners of the six-sided hall, the curling smoke of incense threaded skyward, towards the domed ceiling of wrought bronze vines.
Claudia traced the precise lines of the interwoven metalwork with her eyes as she absorbed the words of Francine’s commencement address. Her sister’s words were just as precise, just as elegant, just as earnestly wrought to inspire, as that overarching dome.
“Yesterday, you basked in the shallows, experiencing but a taste of all that each Guild might offer. Today, you stand on the precipice of your highest potential.”
Francine gazed around the amphitheatre, her alchemist’s eyes sparkling with the fire of stars. Her long dark hair was a braided crown, studded with small glittering pins of crystal. She smiled, a small and secret quirk of her mouth, as her gaze met Claudia’s.
Claudia shifted forwards in her seat, mouthing along as Francine delivered her much-practised concluding line. The line which inspired in Claudia the greatest thrill—of excitement and trepidation both.
“Tomorrow, you stand before the elders of your community. The masters of your vocation. The stewards of your future. Tomorrow, you claim your spirits’ deepest calling and truest path. Your destiny. Your Guild. May the moon’s unhidden face light your way.”
Claudia sank back, breath shallow with pride, envy, and a tumultuous sort of wanting for the same regal sense of certainty her sister radiated.
As a chorus of voices echoed the blessing, Francine withdrew from the pulpit and stepped into shadow.
~~~
The sound of broiling stew and the scent of baking bread accompanied the laughter wafting from the kitchen. Claudia passed through the arch of black stone to join her mother and Francine as they worked to prepare the evening meal. Through the large, round paned window behind the sinks, Claudia could see the bobbing of her father’s head as he picked herbs from the garden.
Francine beamed as Claudia crossed the polished stone to embrace her sister tight around the middle. Francine laughed, playfully smearing creamed pumpkin across Claudia’s cheek as the younger sister relented with a squeal.
“Your address was perfect Sister Francine of Noble House Hollycouth, youngest Master of Alchemy in two generations—”
“Oh, beg off.” Francine flicked flour at Claudia, who had affected a deep curtsy.
Claudia brushed flour from her skirts with a huff. “I was being sincere. Mother, tell her how sincere I was. I crossed my ankles and everything—”
“Catch!” her mother interrupted, hurling a small rock-sized something her way. Claudia snatched the potato from the air before it struck the wall behind her.
“Alright, alright! I’m helping!” Claudia laughed as she approached the bench. “Though truly, Francine, your speech was wonderful.” Claudia smiled as she diced the potato into rough chunks.
Francine smiled in return, her eyes warm. “Thank you.”
They discussed Francine’s master project as they worked. A great undertaking of alchemical impossibility, it was expected her research would consume the better part of a decade or more, if not her life. The prospect of working for so long on one project, all-consuming and potentially ending in failure regardless, made Claudia feel rather queasy. She focused on slicing snow peas as Francine expounded her work with the enthusiasm of one truly obsessed.
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“If I could even just demonstrate it possible to transmute the primordial elements into each other, it would help me prove the elements are simply aspects of a more fundamental cosmic force that, if shaped by an appropriate matrix of intent, could open a whole new paradigm of creative potential—”
Claudia nodded at all the appropriate places, as did their mother, with supportive smiles as Francine spoke, mashing potatoes with vigour. They had heard all this before of course, though Claudia had never understood the whole of it.
After all, they had all been taught the primordial elements were immutable.
Ash, water, air, flame, void. Claudia repeated the elements in her mind like a mantra as she rolled pastry for the springberry pie. She had once worn a bracelet bearing small crystal charms representing each of the elements. The jangle of the bracelet had always soothed her as a child. A cheap piece of jewellery common amongst her peers, and long since consigned to the depths of her jewellery box.
Ash, water, air, flame, void.
~~~
Dinner that night was a rowdy affair, even by their usual standards. Their father waxed poetic about his work in the royal botanical houses, while their mother danced around the subject of her highly secretive work in the palace with hallmark mischief. “I’m not not working with rare stones, but all the pressed flowers make the project rather slow in the going.” She sighed with a smug and long-suffering air, as though expecting commiserations for her own nonsense.
No one mentioned the Choosing until after the first bite of pie, by which time Claudia was so taut with anticipation for the question that all diplomatic vagaries fled her mind.
“So, tell us at last, Claudia,” Francine started. “Which Guild will you choose tomorrow?” Their mother and father leaned forward, eyes twinkling for Claudia’s big reveal.
What she’d intended to say, practised to say, should have said, Claudia reflected later, was something like All the Guilds are so esteemed, I wish to sleep on my decision to ensure I’ve chosen the appropriate legacy, or I wish to spend more time reviewing my top three Guilds of preference to ensure their suitability to a long and prosperous future, or even You’ll just have to find out with the rest of everyone else.
Anything but what she actually blurted out under her family’s expectant scrutiny.
“I... don’t know.”
As her family continued to stare at Claudia in silence, pie forgotten on their plates, she cleared her throat and clarified, “I haven’t made a choice yet.”
Everyone started speaking at once, but her sister’s alarm cut clearest over the din.
“Claudia,” she cried, aghast. “You need to take this seriously! This isn’t one of your silly games of passing fancies. You can’t just change your mind as you please, no one would ever take you seriously! You should know this, you’re sixteen, for Fate’s sake—”
Claudia dropped her gaze to her plate with a flinch. “I know, I am taking it seriously, I just— I haven’t—”
“This is a big decision, Claudia,” Francine implored, clasping her hand. “The biggest of your life. You need to be sure. Absolutely certain of what is worth giving the whole of yourself over to, for the rest of your vocation... Claudia...” Francine’s tone softened as Claudia wrenched her clammy grasp from her sister’s delicate hand, fleeing the table and up the stairs to her room.
Her tears didn’t fall until she had quietly latched the door and slumped to rest against it.
~~~
Claudia sighed as she brushed her fingers across the spines of her shelved books; across the brass of her telescope; the crystal of her Seer’s Glass; the leather of her journals; her small clay pots of coloured ink.
Tomorrow, she would have no further need of most of these treasures. They would be packed away to make space for new tools of her chosen craft. With a huff, Claudia batted at her spinning globe, an atlas of the constellations. How was she to choose?
Claudia has always known she must, for that was the way of things. And yet. None of the Guilds called to her. No, that wasn’t quite the truth. All of them called to her. Yet none called out with the singularity of purpose, of clarity, of destiny, that her sister often spoke of.
Should she choose the Guild of Skies, where she could map the dance of stars and the songs of constellations? Or the Guild of Rangers, where she might learn the secrets of the deepest forest and chase after the myths of ghost lights? Or the Guild of Healers, the Guild of Seers, the Guild of Artisans, or Weavers, or Dreamers, or Alchemists...
Each was its own cosmos of wonder, and Claudia wanted them all. Perhaps she would cast bones about it. Again. And hope that this time she might divine the same answer twice.
With a despairing groan, Claudia fixed her ash-blonde curls around the handle of a paint brush and slouched onto her window seat. With a sinking heart and rising gloom, Claudia watched the setting sun until the crickets began to hum and sleep claimed her to fretful dreams.