I ignore them. Walk on, past the lines of empty black statues and then between the two pulsing silver ones, until I stand in front of the Aurora Columnae. It towers above me. Its radiance bright enough that I have to shield my eyes.
“Place your hand on the menhir.”
This is it. Unsurprised by this instruction, too, even if the whisper stillunsettles me more than I can say. Thenasceannability, the need to go through this test, makes so much more sense now, even if I still don’t understand how weapons alone can be providing Will to their wielders.
The only strange thing is that I have already used the Will my spear imparted. Which should be impossible.
“Place your hand on the menhir.”
I spent years fighting this. I chose to be flogged, again and again, rather than submit at the Aurora Columnae at Letens. And yet, this is not the same. This is not the Hierarchy wanting me to become one of them. As hard as it is to separate, this is no longer about making a stand.
I still hesitate.
“Place your hand on the menhir.”
“Why?” I ask the word aloud. It feels like it’s swallowed by the viscous pool.
The throbbing of the Aurora Columnae seems to heighten in response, but there is no other answer.
I stand there for several more seconds. Reluctant more than indecisive. But there is still a clock on my time here.
“Place your hand on the menhir.”
I growl, and slam my hand against the vibrating, glowing veins of the Aurora Columnae.
In Caten, there’s a ceremony required for the Columnae to impart the ability to use Will. Words that need to be said in order for anything to happen. I know this, because I have touched the Aurora Columnae there many times before. Been physically held against it by Matron Atrox as she screamed at me to submit, over and over again in the early hours of the morning, before there were any witnesses other than the priests. But I never did, and so the touch was always simply skin against unresponsive stone.
This is different.
There’s athrumas I make contact. Like a release of energy that’s been silently building around me, an invisible wave that explodes outward from the obelisk, racing through stone and away into the rest of Fornax.
Then pain in my head, sharp and cold and clear.
“SYNCHRONOUS!” The woman’s scream is panicked, a shriek so abrupt that I stumble. The word ricochets through my skull.
And then, there are pulses everywhere.
Nothing has changed in my surroundings, but to my mind, the city issuddenly alive with presence. Those statues outside shining like beacons. Thousands upon thousands of them.
As well as the two that are in here.
I barely have time to register the movement. A flicker of shadow interrupting the light cast by the Aurora Columnae to the left, a glimpsed glimmer of reflection off damp stone.
I dive to the side, rolling through the unnatural water as a spear slices the space I was standing a moment ago. I sputter to my feet, the strange, thick liquid dripping dully into the motionless pool, to find the two silver statues have moved.Are moving. Their intricately wrought heads facing me. Their spears held in attacking poses.
“Vek!” I shout my alarm and stumble backward as the nearest one jabs again, fast and fluid, belying the metal nature of its body. They pulse wildly to my vision as they stalk forward in eerie tandem. Slowly, but no hesitation or inclination to mercy.
I twist toward the entrance, just in time to see thick stone sliding down to seal the archway.
“Ohh,vek.” Hard not to panic. No other way out that I’ve seen. I keep backpedalling and then crouch, snatching up a pulsing blade I see in the water nearby.
UNWORTHY. The impression shudders through me, sick and unhappy, beginning as soon as I touch the hilt.UNWORTHY.
I flick the blade aside in horror and snatch another one, slightly longer and narrower.
UNWORTHY. I slap away another thrust from the statue, and resist the urge to drop this one too.UNWORTHY.
I scramble, out of the pool and between the columns and the thankfully motionless black statues. The farther silver statue circles around as the closer one engages me again. Trying to get into my blind spot. The dread trying to overwhelm me increases. They’re intelligent, then.
