Two
A river of bodies moves towards Crown Plaza and I move with it.
There is no space to slow down, no space to turn back. The crowd presses in on every side: sun-warmed shoulders, damp palms, and children clinging too tightly to their mothers’ skirts. Every toll of the bell passes through us like a command.
No one speaks loudly. No one needs to. We all know why we’re here.
The staircase rises ahead, pale stone worn smooth by years of feet climbing towards the same terrible thing. I keep my hands low, sleeves pulled over my wrists and take the steps one at a time.
Don’t touch the band. Don’t check it. Don’t give anyone a reason to look.
Above the plaza, the Alabaster Vein cuts into the sky. It is beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful. Too bright. Too clean. Each pulse of light spills across the stone, gilding the faces around me until everyone looks holy and half-dead at once.
The Mother Shard loves us. That’s what they say. She protects the Dominions, feeds the Veins, keeps the world from going dark, and once a year, she takes what she is owed.
The bell tolls again. A woman near me flinches and a boy no older than six starts crying. Someone hushes him, but it’s too quick, too sharp.
I continue climbing to the top of the stairs, where the Blessed wait in a line of gold. Veils hide their faces, their robes catching the light until it hurts to look at them directly. Circlets, chains, rings—all of it gleaming. All of it deliberate.
Beautiful things are easier to obey.
My mouth has gone dry by the time I reach the front.
“Your name?” one of them asks.
Their voice is flat, neither cruel nor kind. Somehow, that’s worse.
“Navin,” I say. My throat nearly catches on it. “Luceris Navin.”
The Blessed turns through the sheets of parchment in their hands. Slow enough that my pulse starts counting the seconds.
N.
Navin. It’s there. I know it before their finger even stops.
Of course I’m on the list. Everyone who turns eighteen is on the list.
Willing attendance, they call it. As if the Guardians don’t drag people from cellars and rooftops every year. As if anyone ever truly chooses to stand beneath the Vein and wait to be tested.
The Blessed lifts one hand and a Guardian steps from the shade.
For half a breath, my body forgets where I am. It’s not him; he’s dead. This Guardian is taller, broader, wearing ceremonial armour instead of patrol leathers, with double sunbursts gleaming over his chest.
Still, my wrist throbs beneath my sleeve.
“Welcome, Luceris,” the Blessed says, sweetness sliding over each word. “Thank you for your willing attendance. The Mother Shard looks lovingly upon you.”
I force myself to bow my head. “Thank you,” I manage, but the words taste foul.
The Guardian gestures for me to move forward. “This way.” His gaze lingers—not long enough for anyone else to notice, but just long enough.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck, and I lower my eyes before he can decide there is something worth seeing in them. Men like him always look too closely: at my mouth, my face, the way I fold myself smaller beneath their attention.
They’re the first to call people unnatural. But they’re never the first to look away.
I follow him through the archway and into the shadow beyond.
The air changes as soon as we pass through the arch. It becomes cooler and quieter.
The noise of the crowd dulls behind us, swallowed by stone and shadow. The light shifts too, less blinding here, caught and softened by high walls that rise too far to see the tops of.
We’re funnelled forward without being told to move. No one stops. No one tries to run. A line forms before I even realise I’m standing in it.
White cloth is passed from one pair of hands to another—tunics and trousers, all folded and identical. No one speaks as they receive them. I don’t either, afraid that even a moment’s hesitation will draw attention.
The fabric is rougher than it looks, sticking slightly to my skin where my sweat hasn’t dried properly. I turn my back to the others, changing quickly and keeping my movements small, sleeves down so the bands are covered.
A Guardian walks along the line, his eyes drifting over us as he observes. Further down the line, someone struggles with their ties. The Guardian stops beside them and, with measured movements, ties it himself before stepping back.
I keep my hands steady and face forward again.
The red paint comes next. There is a bowl filled with thick, dark pigment that looks almost black until it catches the light.
“Forward.”
I step up when it’s my turn.
The Guardian tilts my chin up with two fingers, cold metal against my skin. I don’t fight it. He drags a brush across my face from forehead to chin in a single diagonal stroke. It burns faintly, colder than I expected. I don’t move until he lets go.
“Next.”
I step aside.
A girl to my left stares at her hands as if she doesn’t recognise them anymore. Another boy keeps touching his wrist, pressing at the band like he’s trying to feel his Mana through it.
No one meets anyone else’s eyes as we’re moved again.
The sound of the drums filters in from ahead—faster than the bell, sharper, something that gets under the skin and stays there. It sets a rhythm, and my pulse falls into it. I hate it.
The space opens out gradually as we’re guided forward, the walls giving way to light again. The platform is ahead. I can’t see all of it yet, but I don’t need to—I’ve seen enough Choosing ceremonies. Every year, it’s the same: the same lines, the same marks, the same waiting.
The line slows, stops, then starts again; each step seems deliberate, as if something is counting us. I keep my gaze low, tracking boots and hems until the edge of the platform comes into view.
I don’t look up. I can’t bear to. Not yet.
The drums don’t stop.
They just get louder.
The platform opens out in front of us, and the light hits hard enough that for a moment I can’t see properly—just white stone, gold flare, and too many bodies packed too close together.
The rhythm of the drums is sharper here, working its way into my chest whether I want it to or not.
We’re guided into position without being told, the Offerings forming several lines that straighten under the weight of expectation.
I keep my head down at first, watching boots scrape against the stone, fingers flexing and fidgeting, the small, safe details that don’t look back.
But the centre of the circle pulls at my attention anyway.
The Blessed stand in a wide ring, their robes catching and bending the light so it shifts constantly, gold sliding over gold until it’s hard to focus on any one of them. At the far end, raised above them all, the dais cuts a clean line into the brightness.
The Crown sits there. He’s too still.
Even at this distance, something about him feels...
off. The light fractures against the metal of his crown and scatters across his face in a way that makes it difficult to fix him in place, like if I looked too long, I’d start to lose the shape of him.
I drag my gaze away before it can settle, directing it back to the circle as someone steps forward into the centre.
Sera Vayne. The High Blessed.
No one says her name, but the shift in the air is enough. Everyone seems to angle towards her, attention tightening without anyone meaning to.
She doesn’t wear a veil. Light clings to her instead, caught in the many chains and rings that drape her body so that even the smallest movement sends it flickering across her skin.
She raises her arms slowly.
The drums continue, but something else builds beneath them—a low, almost imperceptible hum that threads through the air until I can feel it rather than hear it. My skin tightens, the hairs along my arms rising as people around me lean forward.
Her voice comes when the tension has nowhere else to go.
“We are called here today,” she says, and it carries easily, settling in my skull, “to offer ourselves to the Mother Shard who sustains us.”
Offer ourselves. The words slide over the crowd like something sweet. No one reacts openly, but I can feel it—the way bodies go still, as if we’ve all been pulled a fraction closer together.
Sera’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Under the light of our Crown, we begin the Choosing.”
The drums pick up, faster now, and my pulse stumbles trying to follow.
I glance at the Crown again, and his vacant eyes give me chills.
“Three will be chosen."
The lines of Offerings shift, tension passing through us in small, helpless movements. My stomach tightens.
“Seventeen will fall,” she says, almost gently.
This time the reaction is harder to hide. A breath catches somewhere to my left. Someone sways, then steadies.
“And one will claim the power of the Crown.”
The words settle slowly, like something sinking beneath the surface. I don’t let myself follow the thought all the way through.
“Today, weakness will be tested. Those who offer nothing to the Dominion,” Sera goes on, her voice gentle, “will give themselves to it.”
Weakness. The word lands harder than it should.
A girl near me—too young, surely—exhales sharply, the paint splitting against her skin as she blinks away tears. Another makes a sound they try to swallow.
I keep still. Don’t react—don’t stand out.
The hum builds again, threading through the drums until the two sounds blur together. I can feel it now, not just around me but inside, a faint pressure beneath my skin answering the hum in the air. It wants to come to the surface. I push it down hard. Not now. Not here.
Sera’s voice softens, but somehow carries further, threading through the space until it feels like it’s sitting just behind my eyes.
“It is no small burden,” she says, her gaze settling briefly on us before sliding away again, “to bear the light of a Dominion such as ours.”
The words are slow and calculated.
“Our Crown, our Unyielding Light asks only this of you—” she continues, one hand lifting slightly towards the dais, though she does not look at him.