The morning dew was always best in spring.

When it was cold at night and warmed up quickly, little droplets just on the brink of melting, yet solid, still. Freshly cast beads, gemstones gleaming in the sun’s golden rays, glittering blue like all precious things do.

And when I picked them up I might smile to myself. I might laugh aloud, and hoist the thawing baubles high, as Blessed no doubt did plunder sourced from the very depths of the Labyrinth, from the bowels of Knossos itself. Surely, when I brought them home, I’d be a wealthy man.

I’d imagine myself a place in the Aristocracy.

A Cell, a whole Cell, to call my own. Why not? The Cells hadn’t changed hands for centuries, but then, why should that matter? A whole Cell to call my own. Cell Tharros! Mom always said our name stood for courage, in the old tongue, so it’d be a well worthy name for a Cell.

I’d have it all. A plot of land, a territory vast, and wide, and overflowing with fruit trees and fertile fields. An inheritance to bestow upon my children, and their children, and their children for generations after them.

I sighed, and closed my eyes, and allowed the vision to solidify.

Great rows and columns of Blessed manifested themselves from nothing at all, rising proud and strong, clad in glowing plate and bearing runic steel, the finest Grimnir himself had to offer. Their imaginary coat of arms I hadn’t quite decided on just yet, oft flip-flopping between several designs, and thus remained, presently, quite blank. Nevertheless, they bore it proudly.

They knelt as one, and I did, too, as High Lord Valour swooped down from above, his helm expressionless as ever, knighting me for one and all to behold.

The crowd went wild.

Of course, everyone was there.

All the Cell heads, and all their hosts. Syn, Nycta, Uther, Grenblyd, Patrusc, Agni, Regis. Everyone who mattered, everyone of significance, and all of Burrick for good measure, never mind the fact that none of us were Blessed. Aldwyn and Ewan and Raynie, and Mom, for why shouldn’t she be there, too, and Dad–

I scowled, as the fantasy flickered in my mind.

Dad’s face was empty.

In place of more conventional features, and quite out of place amongst the otherwise-faithfully reconstituted parties in this delusion, my father had about him naught but a rather disconcerting visage of plain, pale flesh.

He was the only one I couldn’t imagine well.

I’d never seen his face, before, not really, and Mom didn’t like to describe him. The most she’d told me was that I had his eyes and her hair. But whensoever I attempted to place upon his blank, disturbing paleness such countenances as my own, but older, handsome in a roguish way, it just…never quite seemed to fit.

Regardless I forced the illusion to be, puppeting this false version of my own flesh and blood to approach me, to embrace me as the crowd around us roared, to apologize and console me, to promise that it was all only a test, a jest, that he just wanted to be sure, to be sure I was worthy, worthy of his Blessed blood.

Mom joined us, then, hale and whole and beaming, not a trace of waifish, ghoulish ghost I’d seen her last. And, together, the three of us held hands. And laughed. And smiled. Like a real family.

I felt a wetness in my palm, and looked down, the reverie dissolving around me.

The drop of dew had melted.

I rose, shaking the damp earth and any further remnant droplets from my leathers. My hands were thick with clotting blood and stank of offal, and I wiped them on nearby greenery.

Dew was not treasure.

Entropy crystals were as far from dew as a mundane was from an Immortal. And there were no good Cells, not really, save perhaps for Uther, or Regis. Mom was dead and Dad long gone, and good riddance to him, as far as I was concerned.

Blessed were just about as like to gut you as give you the time of day.

I hiked up my belongings–two skinned, disemboweled hares–hefted them over my shoulders, and promptly set off back in the direction of Burrick. I couldn’t shoot worth a damn, sadly, but I was a fair enough trapper. The song was always stronger in well-traveled places, and so I managed to ferret out all the hidden paths and frequented forest thoroughfares time and again.

Good thing, too. What with Ewan’s training and the cabin’s constant upkeep, I was always hurting for time and money. The skins would sell well–harefur boots proving a sight more warming, and comfortable besides, than hide. In the wilds, with cold winters aplenty, they were ever in demand. It never hurt to have some extra meat on the table, either.

I breathed deep, the clean forest air sweet on my tongue. My steps were sure, carrying me through brush with scarce a sound, despite my weighty quarry. It was easy. At this, I’d had years of practice. I wasn’t hunting anything, right now. No. I sought something else, as I tread.

Silence.

Normal places were so noisy. People, clamor, commotion. It was incessant. Exhausting. They drowned out the song. Deep in the wilderness, in the forest, there was noise, too, but much lesser. And now, barely into spring, it was quiet indeed.

My movements turned languid, regular, subconscious. I half-held my breath.

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And I searched for the song.

It was hard to hear, at first. Same as always. The song was ever-elusive. It hid well, hid in plain sight, such that to realize it, alone, was accomplishment enough. Even after half a decade, with all the energy in the world and nothing better to do, I’d scarcely began to fumble for it.

First, I picked out the trees.

Their tune was soft and sturdy, slow and steady. It was the creaking of wood, the cracking of branches. The soft rustle of their leaves. They’d been here for decades, centuries perhaps, and would continue long after most of us became the soil that nourished them.

I moved them aside, and pushed deeper.

Beneath and between and upon the trees, was life. Abundant life. Crawling and hopping, climbing and trotting. It was a frantic song, a burning need for meat and plants and water. It was an anxious song, of hiding and creeping and holding breath. A deadly song, of stalking and smelling and fangs-on-flesh. An orderly song, of marching and working and for the hive, to the death.

It was a staccato of flimsy, fluid-filled things all competing for survival.

I moved it aside, and pushed deeper still.

I fell down, tumbling through trance, further than ever I’d fallen before. Subtle vibrations, perturbations in earth and sky, in star and stone, filled my ears.

I heard the sizzling, scorching, scourging song that beat down from impossibly far above. It was the sun’s light; heat and life and power. I heard the soothing, calming, cooling song of water deep in the earth and high in the sky. It was moving in subterranean caverns and drifting in wispy clouds, it was melting and freezing and evaporating and changing. I heard the grumbling, grinding, grating sound of rock moving far, far beneath the ground. It was thick, impenetrable armor, it was slow, unstoppable force, and throughout all, it endured.

But there was something else. Something more.

Something softer than even the softest tones. Something subtler than even the smallest fragments of melody. Hiding behind falling raindrops, trapped under shifting soil, borne forth as radiation from above. It was here, and there, and everywhere. It permeated all things, all people, all places. It was too small to see, too soft to hear, and yet without it there would be nothing. It was…

It was…

Nothing.

It was nothing. There was nothing there.

Nothing to see, nothing to hear. No secret truth that I might divine, from which I might glean a mere morsel of power. Try as I might, I was no Blessed. In truth, even my discovery of the song was, at best, a cute quirk, and, at worst, a most troubling omen of swift-encroaching mental illness. More psychosis than power.

Still, as I tread amongst the shifting trees, sliding over outcropped roots, edging ever nearer my intended destination, I permitted myself to, once more, imagine it. Just…just once more. Just for a moment.

Blessing.

In what had become, pathetically, something of a weekly ritual, and only because no one else was around to watch…

I tried it.

I licked my lips, worked my jaw, shook my shoulders, cracked my neck, held out my hand before me, and said the word.

“Grimoire.”

The space before my outstretched palm remained just as empty as it’d ever been.

No ancient tome manifested before me, describing to me the nature of my Blessing, notifying me of my Attunement. I sighed, feeling just as foolhardy as ever.

And yet, who could blame me?

What mundane child, or adult for that matter, didn’t dream of it? Of this? And being nineteen, jam-packed right just between the two, I dreamed of it most of all.

I dreamed of what form my Blessing might take.

A common exercise, most especially amongst mundane children, one I’d never seemed quite able to relinquish. Might I be Brute, or Stranger? Mover, or Master? Breathe fire, as the Divine Dragon? Craft wonders, like the Runemaster? Perhaps I’d be fortunate enough to secure so potent a Blessing as the Almighty, Valour, himself. Ancient and undying, able to wield lightning itself with my bare hands.

I figured no matter where they lived, most kids my age wanted to be like Valour.

Sadly, few Blessings boasted such might. Many were strange, situational, or just plain weak. And even if I lucked out, even if the divine Triumvirate themselves saw fit to bestow upon me one of their premiere gifts, there was no guarantee I’d be able to evolve it. To progress it. To become ascendant.

But I wouldn’t mind that.

Not really. Not at all, in fact. Priest knew I worked hard enough, as is. Ewan broke me anew each passing day, and each morrow I came right back to him. No. Even a chance, even the meekest, humblest power would be manna from heaven to me.

The problem was my parentage.

Blessed don’t often have proper kids with mundies. They seldom legitimize us. We’re a company of bastards. Forsaken. Unlike the children of two Blessed, half-bloods don’t get powers from birth. It’s almost worse than being mundane.

Some ‘Crats hate half-breeds in particular.

Some think we pollute the bloodline.

Some go out of their way to hunt us down.

Funny enough, doesn’t stop ‘em breeding mundies. Plenty of Forsaken always being born. Except, if we want to get Blessed, we have to do it the old fashioned way. The way everyone did it, back in the old days.

If we want Blessing, we have to trigger it ourselves.

I don’t know much about Triggering, honestly. I mean, I know it’s supposed to happen on the worst day of your life. But then, I never triggered when Mom died, so I’m not sure I believe that. Mom might’ve known, I guess, but she didn’t talk about it. Never talked about it. It never happened to her, and she never wanted it to happen to me.

Master Ewan once told me some ‘Crats kept mundy kids in cages. Locked ‘em up. Tortured ‘em daily, in the hopes they might trigger. Seemed foolish to me, at the time. A recipe for disaster. I did think about trying it once, after Mom died, but ultimately decided against it.

After all, Ewan never actually said if it worked or not.

I could tell Mom felt bad about it, though. She’d never said as much, probably for my benefit, but I knew she’d been sad I wasn’t Blessed. Maybe some part of her thought that, despite my heritage, the High Priest or the Gods might smile upon us, and Bless me anyways.

I knew why she’d felt bad, too.

Because she’d told me the stories.

Mom’d been a historian, once. When she was younger. An ‘archivist,’ whatever that meant. For me, it meant I was one of the few kids in the village who actually received a proper education. And then some.

Mom knew a lot about the Ancients.

And when I was younger, before she got too sick to do so, Mom would tell me stories.

Legends from before the collapse. The Holy Triumvirate, but not the usual dogma. No, she’d tell me about Heroes, clad in colorful costumes, who’d go out and fight evil. Grey Knight Alexandria, the Lord of Light, the High Priest, but others, too. Thousands of them.

It might’ve been blasphemy, but I didn’t care. Every night, no matter how meager our food, no matter how threadbare our sheets, her stories would keep me warm and full and whole. Gods, but I loved those stories. Even now, I don’t regret hearing a single one.

There were no heroes nowadays.

Not on Bet. Not anymore. But as a child, I’d thought that maybe I could be one. Maybe I could be the first.

I’d damn well never abandon my son, at least.