Ascension of Blood

CHAPTER EIGHT - Initiation

CHAPTER EIGHT

Initiation

The Hall of Ascension was on the ground floor straight opposite the main entrance. Mijora eyed the stone doors of the Academy, remembering her recent flight through them, and the cuts on her palms throbbed at the memory.

Outside the hall, they were met by another six-eyed figure. They were taller than Four, and had a face that was neither masculine nor feminine, under the paint of the eyes and deep hood it was impossible to tell much detail other than they had a particularly long chin.

"Listen up." Said Chinny. "I want you to line up in Offerings. Psymancy first, then we'll have our Necromancer, Osteo's next, and our Ami's rounding the rear. Chop, chop, chop. Come on now." There was a rustle of feet as all the blue cuffs shuffled to the front, and Mijora was shoved to the back. Ahead of her with red cuffs was the small boy who had yet to speak a single word, Minka, and then Dexi.

"This is what's going to happen." Said Chinny, hands clasped behind his back. "I will open the doors, and we will enter Hall. Once inside, you do not speak unless spoken to. We will walk across the hall to the altar where the initiation will begin. There will be no questions."

If he heard Lunars quiet "Aww, but I have questions." He ignored it and turned to the door.

The doors opened to him without lifting a hand, and without hesitating, he was striding into the Hall of Ascension.

The room beyond was alight with the glow of the eternal fire, torches lined the walls, and ahead at either side of the altar was to fire pits of the stuff. The six-eyed figure led them down the centre of the massive hall. On either side was two long tables, four in total, and at three of them Vessels were sitting watching their parade down. There was probably no more than forty people in the hall, but there was room for more than double that. Mijora glanced at them as she walked. She dubbed them (the rest of the acolytes seated) as Shadows instantly, as they were all wearing the black robes with coloured cuffs, faces lost. Mostly reds, blues, and whites, with only a couple of purples thrown within. But the intensity of them all within her range of perception would have been too much if she focused onto them as individuals and instead indulged within a fantasy that they were unimportant instead. Nameless and faceless. (She could feel their hearts beating, though, and this made it difficult to ignore them altogether.)

They stopped at the altar. It was a magnificent thing; a triangle structure with three circles entwined within. The statue (sculpture? Thing?) was sat upon a slant, so even at the very back of the hall, it could be seen. It was surrounded with varying object of crystals and orbs and flowers

Lady Evelyn Hyde stood to one left of the altar, and on the right, five six-eyed figures stood in varying sizes and shapes. Mijora picked out Four instantly as the smallest of the lot, standing next to the only Six-eyed one who broke the pattern by wearing a blindfold and having all six of the eyes painted on; two sets across the cheeks, and one set across the blindfold itself where their real eyes ought to have been. All Mijora could think was how the bastard to could see? The six-eyed one who walked them down the aisle joined the others, hands hiding within his sleeves.

Mijora's stomach turned.

"Acolytes," said the Headmistress, stepping forwards. The word was a soft speech, but she needed not shout as her voice echoed and held a might weight to it. "For those returning we welcome you back with a smile and open arms, and for those who arrived last night under the rumble of our Annihilation — hello, and welcome to the Douterra Academy for the Arcane."

A round of applause and quiet chatter echoed throughout the hall.

"Today is a day of new beginnings. Today marks the first day of the next lunar cycle, the Sixth-hundred and twenty-sixth year since the fall of Calamity, since the Age of Offerings without of which none of you would be standing here before me today.