She had always been haunted by destiny—a shadow that had evaded her for far too long. An impossible manifestation to catch. Yet her new path forward in life swept like a current through her veins as Vesper Ardan stepped out of the caravan outside the open gates of Vraetis. 

The warm sun in the cloudless sky kissed her face, as though in greeting. Perhaps well wishes from above—and a sign that shadows were in abundance and no longer out of reach. 

Now, that was a fortuitous thought. 

A moment of disbelief had her faltering as her feet touched the cobblestones, keen and weary eyes staring at the village before her. This was real. She was here. Vesper didn’t need to remind herself that this was a long time coming. 

Three years past twenty, she had feared her time to join the Pentarium would never arrive. Then again, she had always been behind—lingering at the tailend of study rooms to avoid being called on, hiding against the wall at parties to avoid being asked to dance, even choosing the serenity of the library rather than the busy parlors where she would have had to socialize. 

After years of anticipating this moment, this blessing, it had culminated into not awe and excitement as she had expected, but instead a mixture of relief and dismay. 

The former was expected, but the latter . . . 

There was no denying Vesper felt disappointed that it hadn’t been more climactic; the moment she discovered she would be joining the magickal military of Nyroria. Years that felt so long and arduous they seemed more like decades had chipped away pieces of her, like picking at a wound so it would never be allowed to heal. She had expected more, which was perhaps her own fault for allowing herself to have expectations at all. 

Moving aside for the other travelers waiting in the cramped wagon, Vesper touched the mark under her wrist, where the newly blessed alchemy signo had appeared just half a fortnight ago. The image of a potion bottle imprinted on her pale skin, a marker she had feared had skipped her—refused to be blessed to her, more like.

She let out a quivering breath; her fears were whispers of the past. There was nothing to fear now but the unknown of her fresh future, ready to be molded into who she would ultimately become for the rest of her life. 

She waved off with a mental hand the many nights waking from nightmares of being trapped without her true destiny bestowed to her—left behind to a fate she could not bear to ponder when her aspirations were so much bigger. Still were, if Vesper was honest with herself.

This was what all who had a beating heart had to embrace, though, when they were guided by divinity. Some dreams could never be, not when it was ultimately decided for them. And Nyrorians were chosen for their sector between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one by Anslem, the Supreme Being residing in the Kingdom of the Cosmos. 

It seemed Anslem also knew Vesper was behind and had chosen her two years after the cut off date. Knowing their deity saw her shortcomings was rather soul crushing, but feeling the signo magickly etched into her skin seven days ago had left Vesper frozen where she had stood among the gleaming marble columns and towering bookshelves of the palace library. Her favorite refuge. A hideaway from the elaborately decorated prison she hadn’t been allowed to leave since her parents were assigned residence in the capital.

A brief moment of unbridled joy had filled her to the brim, followed quickly by a tinge of disappointment at seeing which sector was granted to her. Then the anxiety came—swift and unforgiving as a winter storm. Of what it meant to finally leave the only place she knew, had been raised, and would finally be on her own. 

Finally be free.

As she entered the town leading to the famed Arx–the base housing the Pentarium Sectors of Nyroria’s magickal military–it was almost like walking into one of those dreams. The ones that had dangled liberty she craved so dearly from beyond the gilded bars where she had been trapped, alongside those that were so keen to take liberties rather than offer them. 

A veritable landscape of hope, dread, commitment, and complacency were laid before her. She could barely believe it was real. Vesper wondered if she would merely wake up in her room any second now for how drastically different Vraetis was from Khidora.

She had spent her life cushioned by the luxuries of the palace in the country’s capital, and now she would have a life completely unfamiliar to confront as part of the Pentarium. An alchemist, one of thousands—a pebble in the index of almost fifteen thousand total soldiers in training. The actual number of those in active duty was unknown, to safeguard from spies and enemies; the bases spread across the vast realm of Nyroria to guard its many exposed borders.

Most recruits would wonder what would be offered to them here,  but not Vesper. No, the more important question to her was: what did she have to offer? The magickal military was no small effort to join, to pass through its ranks, and meet the requirements to become a full-fledged comrade. The training was meant to produce only the best of each sector, but Vesper wasn’t foreign to discipline. Khidora had its own laws to follow, unlike the other towns in Nyroria. 

As far as she was aware, anyway. 

Vesper still felt those laws like an oil coating her skin, rancid oil that was impossible to wash off. The kind that’s foul smell would linger and haunt the senses. She had been stricken with a plethora of “principles” that applied to only her sex, making her upbringing a sheltered and biased cage, like a bird forced to never spread its wings and soar. 

Her metaphorical wings had long since been clipped, but what good was freedom now when she couldn’t fly? The cage was thousands of leagues away from Vraetis, yet there was no one to tell that could offer her safety, that would not abuse the knowledge and betray her with it. As the capital sifted only the highest qualified residents to live there, not many were aware of the emperor’s archaic views of women outside of its lavish walls.

She knew there would never be a day that went by where she wouldn’t forget the suffocating decorum that was vehemently enforced—lashings and cold cells of the dungeons for any of the fairer sex who did not adhere to them, did not conform to them. It was all meant for breaking women into prized figurines; the end results being for all to admire and many to do what they pleased with them.

Vesper wondered if the rest of the country ever found out about such customs, what they would do. Would they revolt or be complacent? That question was probably the reason why the emperor never let the lesser populace within his private city. You couldn’t rebel if you never knew there was cruelty being done in the first place.

While it was no peaceful stroll to be a woman in the capital, it was still a stone’s throw easier than what most citizens had to live with in Nyroria. At least, in terms of comfort and tolerance. A woman of nobility seemed the uncomplicated path for most of Khidora’s females rather than having their deity enlist them for one of the five sectors of magick—a mage, a druid, an alchemist, an equitem, or a cleric.

Did anyone stop to think if the uncomplicated path was actually the safer choice? Perils came in many faces; animal, vegetable or mineral, there were dangers in more than just brute men and hungry beasts.  

There was no mistaking Vesper’s tremor of trepidation at what awaited her beyond the village. Its gray cobblestones stretched far ahead, past the open obsidian gates, shops crammed tight to line either side within. Flower boxes hung off higher windows and colorful fabric awnings shaded the shop fronts enticing offerings.

It was marveling at how much a small town could hold. Vraetis was already brimming with hundreds of tyros, novices of magick. More people than Vesper had ever seen this close considering her balcony at the palace had overlooked the forests beyond the white-washed walls surrounding Khidora and not the packed streets of the city beyond the palace gates.

There was comfort in knowing that all of them were gathered here for one purpose, every recruit carrying a similar pack or farm sack of their belongings over one shoulder. Travel clothes consisting of sturdy boots and pants, tunics of fine fabric or simple muslim depicting who came from money and whom from poverty. 

War had been seeping into the realm for centuries, millenia really—their enemy only growing bolder with each cycle, and more of Nyroria’s young adults were experiencing coruscate because of it. Coruscate was what Vesper had waited for since she turned eighteen; the moment Anslem blessed them with their sector signo and underground magick. Only those chosen by their deity had their magick awoken, while the rest were left for a life of simpler burdens. 

And while there were many enemies across the sea, the current war stemmed from the neighboring kingdom of Draconia’s constant attempts over the last two thousand celestial cycles to steal the country’s most valuable resource: dragons. 

Taking a deep, slow breath, Vesper shouldered her bag more securely and strode into the masses. The wide street of Vraetis Village held thousands of bodies comfortably, so once the bottlenecking at the gates fanned out, the crowd no longer pressing in on her from all sides, she felt like she could breathe easier. Keep the anxiety swirling in her chest at bay.

She had never left the towering levels of the palace before. She felt like a small child learning to walk without any guiding hands for support—a pathetic comparison when she was in the prime of her life. Vesper tried not to wince at her limitations.

She sent a brief prayer to Anslem asking that her unfamiliarity with people, with young adults like herself, wouldn’t hinder her time here. Something that most didn’t have to fear, something as simple as human interaction, yet it was Vesper’s weakest vulnerability. And quite pathetic in her own eyes. But what stemmed from lack of friendship that was far worse . . . was the crippling loneliness she had felt from her earliest memories as a child.

To be lonely was perhaps the cruelest method of torture for native society. Vesper didn’t let herself spiral into her usual melancholy. Not now. She wouldn’t tarnish the excitement of her arrival day and forced her mind instead back to the moment, to take in her surroundings. 

Simple stone masonry greeted her every step deeper toward the central courtyard. It was nothing like the marble and limestone used to build the wealthiest city in the nation. Vesper read every sign and window as she passed by them, appreciating the new experience and what was on offer. 

Apothecaries, smithies, leatherworkers, apparel stores, crystal boutiques, bakers, greenhouses, a butcher. Everything the Arx needed for each sector to be fitted and stocked with ingredients, weapons, and every object in-between. It was no wonder Vraetis was the only town in the country with a village specifically funded and used for a military institution. 

Magick flowed so freely here too that Vesper could practically taste it on her tongue—a cool blend of mentha and the stark blast of smoke. It made Vesper smile, feeling her own surging in her veins. A simple magick for the most part, for mixing potions, but it was still better than nothing.

She wouldn’t dwell on it—that disappointment. This was the first time she was out from under the intimidating wing of her father’s status. Vesper just wanted to find her place, her purpose, her people. Those who accepted her for herself, not her surname or physical appearance. 

It had been impossible growing up swathed in fine fabrics and rules to show off her beauty for the benefit of entitled men, but here, in the military, it had to be more achievable. It was the fodder that had fueled Vesper to pack up her life in just a day and then journey the last six to quickly put as much distance between herself and Khidora as possible. 

She hadn’t even looked back at the sprawling splendor of the capital when she joined the caravan at the break of dawn the morning after her signo came. Her body was still stiff from the long ride, the little sleep leaving her functioning on adrenaline alone.

Just breathe, Vesper reminded herself.

She had to remember that she was out of her elixir and needed to avoid any reason for her body to require it until she could make more. The very reason she had lagged behind all her life enjoyed rearing its crude head at the worst times. It didn’t help matters that her mind lingered on the discouraging notion that her father hadn’t come to see her off. 

Vesper should’ve expected it with his busy schedule, but it still stung, even as she knew not to let it. It was always a bitter bite to be reminded how little she had seen of her father since childhood. Some words of advice would have been a blessing coming from him, but it had always been duty first for Nicolas Ardan—sprinkled with unintentional neglect. 

Vesper understood his onuses were greater than most, and maybe it would hurt less if that was the real reason, but she knew it also had to do with the long-plagued grief of losing her mother nearly twenty cycles ago. 

In an attempt to mollify her own loneliness, Vesper had spent her life buried behind books to learn alchemy, planning to follow her fallen mother’s path rather than her father’s more valorous onus—a paladin, the highest honor in the country. And her father’s fame took it one step further by being assigned as Emperor Ameilinus’ personal knight and protector, the commander of the paladins who protected Khidora.

Vesper supposed that the glamour note he sent her shortly after her signo appeared congratulating her and wishing her well in Vraetis had been his way of a farewell. Notes were the most parenting she’d had from him. Cherished papers she kept in a notebook, a piece of her father’s strength and courage staying with her as his only child left the confines of the palace for clandestine duty.

A heavy breeze drifted through the village, whipping awnings and flags, sending scents of sweets and roasted meats from various shops into the air. Vesper held down her long, cerulean hair until it passed, glad for the reprieve of crisp wind after being among such clustered body heat. 

Her gaze fell on the array of hair colors of the people around her, a wondrous spectrum to see—purple hues, every green imaginable, black, reds ranging to orange, grays and whites, yellows . . . A roll of the dice was about as accurate as knowing what hair color a babe was born with. 

Vesper’s mother had had periwinkle blue hair, while her father’s was a deep burgundy. Genetics clearly took a side with her and mirrored more from her mother, from the thick waves of their hair, the same ivory skin, down to the small, straight nose and delicate chin. Just one of the reasons her father had trouble spending time with her. The pain in his eyes when he saw so much of Itaene Ardan in his daughter . . . It had left their relationship nearly in cinders, the only line keeping them tethered being those occasional, sacred glamour notes. 

Losing her mother had only been the beginning of Vesper’s lonely upbringing. Physically, she still had her father . . . albeit distantly. An echo of a father, but she was grateful for it none-the-less.

Vesper shook off the nagging thoughts and spotted the pandits responsible for recording everyone that had experienced the most recent Coruscate. 

While kingdoms had been built and crumbled through the ravages of time and politics—Nyroria itself heavily military-influenced—every soul in the world relied on the Divine Will of Anslem. He was the only one who held true sway over destiny, choices, magick . . . everything. The Maker of the Universe, the Master of Balance and Creation.

It was the pandits’ onus to ensure Nyrorian’s followed the destiny blessed upon them by Anslem. His Marshals of Fate. Even the emperor had to concede as far as Anslem’s guiding force went. 

Vesper joined the queue for the directory, multiple lines that stretched for more than half the village’s length. Shop owners stood at their doors, waving products to those who waited in the queue for quick purchases. Vesper almost bought some of the delicious pastries on offer when she waited near the bakery, but refrained given her stomach was in knots.

She was free falling into the unknown, no longer secure behind the shadows of her father’s reputation and influence. As hungry as she was, Vesper knew the disquiet roiling in her gut wouldn’t take well to sweets or a savory meal. Not until she was settled at Alchemist Manor.

Today was significant for every resident who experienced Coruscate. It marked the start of their new destinies, presided over by the pandit seer, Elder Kael, and she had every right to be nervous. To be in the presence of Elder Kael was a gift, an intimidating one at that, and a once in a lifetime event. He had a direct link to Anslem, making him the median between militia and magick, keeping harmony between the two.

Vesper shuffled further ahead with the rest of the tyros as more finished being logged and meandered off to find somewhere to bide their time away from the registry tables.  She would never admit it aloud, never utter it to a soul, that she had dreamt of seeing the dragon signo instead of the alchemy one upon her skin. 

Part of her had secretly been fascinated by the equitem since she was a child. A dragon knight was the elite of the Pentarium, the toughest and highest rank of the five sectors. The mightiest force of the world, not just the country—because who would dare fuck with dragon riders?

Draconians were brave enough to try given the divided history of the two nations; they were one of the main reasons that all of the young adults of Nyroria were currently in Vraetis binding themselves to their duty to defend the country.  It was also a very real reason for Vesper’s stomach to churn. It meant that she was now going to be training to create potions and elixirs used in active battles. 

Crafting them in Khidora was a mere convoluted trial run to what she would do here. In the alchemy sector, her potions would directly result in destruction and death. An unseeing culprit to life being taken, rather than protected. A person’s existence expunged by liquid in a glass jar. Such power in such a small solution. But it was her onus Anslem had marked on her, so she would do her part to safeguard her country.

Besides, it was foolish to hope for the dragon signo when Vesper hadn’t even been allowed to train in Khidora for anything physical—at least not knowingly. She had long idolized her father and the equitem, and it had devastated her once she was old enough to understand why the palace was too strict for her to join them. Women were not considered equal to men there and couldn’t fight, couldn’t train or learn skills at all apart from their education . . . which was why Vesper was more relieved than stressed to call Vraetis her home now.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the warm spring day nor the sweat beading on her brow went through Vesper’s body. There was another more poignant motive for why she had long dreaded Khidora and happily left it so quickly. That was the trouble of having so much time to wander into your own mind. When misery was mostly what she knew, it always found a way to keep her company. Yet, it was hard to avoid fading into her own head for company too.

The memory was a permanent dark mark, a small internal scar she loathed and did her best to ignore every waking hour. On Midsummer’s Eve nine cycles past, Vesper had been returning to her room after the annual ball held for the occasion. She would never forget the group of lusting, drunk, privileged young men who had cornered her. The way their pupils were so dilated, high off altum, as they gazed at her like she was a feast to devour. And it was not the kind where they sucked their fingers to savor every last taste. No—it was the kind where they would rip into skin and break apart the delicacies like savage beasts in the wild.

Having to listen to them tell her that it was her duty as a lady of the palace to provide them with pleasure, that they could use her body as they saw fit—Vesper had made a silent pact with herself after she managed to get away mostly unscathed: She would never be defenseless again. 

Secretly undermining the emperor’s principles for her sex, Vesper convinced–begged–a kind soldier to teach her how to fight the very next day. She knew their schedule like the back of her hand. Knew where to sequester a single paladin away without being noticed. It was practically a death sentence, to defy their ruler under his very nose, if they were ever caught. A one way trip straight to the dungeons for an equally barbaric punishment, but Vesper had risked it and Dedrick, her instructor, agreed—even with the possibility of losing his esteemed position and the security it gave him.

Vesper sent him a silent thank you for how she was able to brave the world alone and stand with confidence knowing she could defend herself, even among the untrained alchemists and not the fighting equitem. 

Since that night where she had sobbed in the steaming tub of her bathing room wearing the ripped remains of her gown, virtue still mercifully intact, any male now sent her skin bristling. 

Danger, danger, danger, her body would hiss at her, heart thundering the moment she was alone with any man. Vesper’s wariness of the opposite sex only added to her anxiety, her physical issues, her long list of mental weaknesses. Physically, she was now in far better shape to take on an attacker than most women—not that anyone knew that. The secret lessons she would take to the grave, by her lithe figure, her thin arms hiding the muscle apart from when she flexed, her thighs small but shapely, stronger than any could ever assume.

Her body was a secret weapon, her own protection, her own salvation from those who saw her as nothing more than a vessel of pleasure to play with. It calmed the storms that tended to threaten and sink her composure, an ever looming tidal wave of fear that she wouldn’t be her own hero when she needed it most. It was why she would continue to train, to hone her body even when there was no danger in Vraetis, let alone the Pentarium.

She would protect herself just as thoroughly as she would the realm. 

 

__________________

 

Vesper finally reached the large oak table, the sun beating down on the packed street, not a cloud marking the vivid blue sky. Dozens of pandits in red robes were stationed at the table, notating everyone who had received a signo in the annual sacred experience. One that occurred in spring as the winter snows melted in the north, and one in autumn as the leaves changed their palettes to gold, orange, and red.

“Name,” croaked a pandit with wispy white hair and a gaunt face. The robe hid any kind of shape beneath the aged skin.

“Ardan, Vesper,” she answered, her sleeves already rolled up to her elbows to help with the heat and allowing her to show him the mark on the underside of her wrist. 

As an official alchemist-to-be now, Vesper wore the same style of clothing that most alchemists fitted as their uniform—gray trousers, short brown boots, a blue tunic, and a wrap-like vest to keep the excess material from catching fire under the chemist burners in the lab. 

Many others were dressed in similar fashions, then there were the black tactical-wearing equitem, green robe-wearing druids, and maroon tunic-wearing mage expectants. No one wore the gold robes of the clerics, though that wasn’t a surprise. There hadn’t been one in hundreds of celestial cycles. 

Elder Kael was the last to be gifted cleric magick by Anslem, his being the Sight, which he was blessed with after the previous Elder holding the power finished his life cycle. 

As mysterious as the Way of Anslem, there was no predictability with clerics. Clerics weren’t typically chosen during the age range for coruscate either, but rather whenever Anslem decided to bestow the magick on someone—a choice to keep those under his domain humble. Rewarding actions and sacrifice rather than the time when duty called. Some considered their deity had a wicked sense of humor for it. Vesper found it a sound decision when ego and pride were as thick as morning fog for most people. 

Elder Kael had been a fain–a non-magick person–when he was blessed with the Sight. Vesper couldn’t imagine that kind of shock to be a normal person one day and divinely blessed with a rare magick the next. Not to mention, becoming the new leader of the pandits, ensuring the sacred tomes were seen only by his eyes, and that the realm remained faithful to Anslem’s bidding.

While there was no exact science behind who was born fain and who would wield magick, the people of Nyroria tended to become inclined with an affinity for a certain sector as they aged, giving them time to prepare for the Pentarium or their normal livelihood. 

Druids, for example, were typically peaceful individuals and naturally developed basic magick the more they were drawn to nature and nurturing those around them. 

Mages could siphon their magick through talismans once they officially began training and tended to gravitate towards agility talents long before their signo appeared.

Alchemists were inclined to foraging herbs and academic training, bright and gifted students with a penchant for obedience, books, and crafting tonics. 

And then the equitem were equally obsessed with three things from a young age: fighting, dragons, and magick.

Vesper waited for the pandit to log her signo in his ledger, glancing at all of the others like him down the table. She hadn’t seen many of Anslem’s worshipers in the capital before. Emperor Ameilinus corresponded with Elder Kael only when Anslem required it, reminding the ruler of Nyroria that he was not above divinity—much to the emperor’s chagrin. 

Pandits lived a humble life in Edostey, a village surrounded by farmland and forests far from civilization. Their outdated customs were a trade secret, honing a close link to Anslem, whom they worshiped in their ten-thousand-year-old temples. The first location where evolved life was placed on this world.

“May Anslem bestow his best to you and your destiny. Next!” the pandit said to Vesper and waved for her to step aside.

So much for ancient, humble men, she thought. 

Vesper headed deeper into the village, gazing across the open courtyard where the stone archways were set, each with a path that led to the designated sector’s zone beyond the town. Hills and miles of grounds stretched out between the village and the locations of the different sector’s, too far for Vesper to see over the barren slopes beyond the arches.

She found an open spot against the low stone wall and sat to wait for the official blessing from Elder Kael before they were released to their sectors. The outdoor benches of the pub nearby were packed with new recruits, boisterous and some clearly drunk. 

Vesper decided it was better to avoid it, uneasy at the sight of so many young men at the height of their pride for making the cut to be one of the Pentarium—and brimming with ale. Never a good combination in her experience. 

The sun was nearly at its highest point in the cloudless sky, and now she wished she had refilled her canteen when they stopped last night along a stream to freshen up and give the horses a break. The caravan had only stopped twice a day to different towns, picking up new tyros to bring to Vraetis and so the travelers could relieve themselves in the leagues of woods. There hadn’t been many opportunities to eat a full meal or rest in the back of the caravan. Dinner couldn’t come soon enough and Vesper hoped she had an appetite by then. 

And an elixir. 

What she would give to have even half a vial of it. 

The square continued to fill, yet the most she received were looks of lust from some equitem tyros and a few male mages. Those were easy to ignore, but nothing really helped distract from her growing physical fatigue.

She would rest well tonight, finally having a real bed again. 

More than an hour passed before the pandits gathered at the far end of the courtyard, a new long table set up in red silks to match their robes. 

Vesper had purposely chosen the caravan that would arrive later in the morning just so she wouldn’t have to wait even longer for the directory notations. Some tyros had been there since dawn, judging by their sunburns, and had occupied themselves at the pub given how badly they swayed on their feet, reeking of drink.

Silence finally fell over the square as several intimidating mages in dark red leathers escorted Elder Kael before the town. He came from one of the archways leading out of the village, avoiding any potential threats moving through the heavy crowds. 

The mages’ hoods were drawn up, despite the heat of the day, to obscure their faces. The signature uniforms for the Tueri assigned to protect the pandits were distinct, adding a touch of fear through their ominous appearances. The air around them seemed electric, like lightning poised to strike. 

Vesper could practically feel their protective glamours cast over the head pandit, warning her to keep her distance—or be foolish enough to combat their formidable powers. No one, not even the drunks, were brave enough to attempt fighting the Tueri. They were the paladin-equivalent of mages, reserved specifically for the presiding Elder of the Pandits.

The very wind came to a stop, the noise of the crowd dwindling to complete silence. Even the shop owners stopped peddling their goods.

       This is it, Vesper thought and sat taller, drinking in every second of the moment she had stopped believing would ever come—the beginning of her destiny.