Page 98 of The Awakening of Essensia

She stood, and moved to the nearest shelf, tilting her head to read the spines. She pulled down a volume: Basic Essensia Casting and Spells. She opened it, skimmed a few pages, and frowned. She’d read this. There was a copy in the Royal Library. She returned it and pulled down another. A History of Mages. She’d seen this title before too, but this binding was older, the cover embossed with a flame encasing a seven-pointed star. Inside, the first page bore a poem, one she’d never seen before.

A Rhelisar Lullaby

Crows take wing to where pale flames gleam,

Soft petals curl contented to dream,

Lanterns hum keeping talons at bay,

Blushroses guiding to those who stray.

Light cannot thread the shadows to quilt,

Deep pools too shallow to stop the wilt,

They carry no song, whisper no call,

But needles and thorns cut same to all.

Called once then twice our darlings we name,

Mirror and mask to shield and to claim,

Earth and moss, to the roots they hold close,

Forever lost by those who cared most.

Petals hold tight to full blooms of day,

Stalks root in deep and never do sway,

Mirror and mask to cradle and keep,

Take not a third for darlings will weep.

Vaelira whispered the final lines aloud. There had been no mention of this in the library’s version. No poem, and certainly no symbol on the cover. Only a dry timeline beginning a decade before the Great Fire. She flipped through and a heading caught her attention.

NAMING

Veritas, Praen, Nexa

At birth, a mage is given two names. The first is Veritas, their true name. This name is whispered by the mother to the child, in those sacred, solitary moments after birth. It is never spoken again. Not by the mother, who carries it in secret to her grave, nor by the child, who forgets it as easily as they forget their own birth.

The second is Praen, the name the mage carries into the world. It is the name known to kin, to educators, to allies and enemies alike. The mage will live their life under Praen, never knowing the true name beneath.

The purpose of this naming tradition is protection. Names hold power. To know a mage's Veritas, is to glimpse the purest, unmanifested form of their essensia, the root of their soul. To speak it is to summon their essensia. To wield it is to bind their will.

It takes great strength to wield a Veritas, and even greater strength to resist the wielding. For this reason, a Veritas is spoken only once, and never again. In times of war, it is said mage mothers severed their own tongues rather than risk revealing their child’s name to a foe.

A third name exists, but it is a tragedy. Nexa, the death name, chosen only when the mage forsakes their former self entirely. In shedding both Veritas and Praen, they sever themselves from their past, their kin, and their true purpose. The Nexa is not given but claimed by the mage. It marks the rebirth of a sinister self, one no longer beholden to the bindings of blood, memory, or mercy. Such mages are rare. The most dangerous dark essensia wielders of this world have all carried a Nexa.

Vaelira paused. She looked to where Galfri had finally settled at the table, hunched over a large map. It showed a sprawling continent, only the eastern coastline resembling anything she recognised.

“Do you have a Veritas?” she asked, sounding out the word.

“I have not heard that term before,” Galfri said, distractedly. His eyes were still on the map.

She explained, and he looked up, the candlelight catching in the lines around his eyes. “If I did, I wouldn’t know it,” he said. “Perhaps the tradition faded, or perhaps my parents weren’t mages. I was young when they passed.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together distractedly. “That kind of power, if abused, would certainly be dark magic. Best not to dwell on it.”