They walked together through a tranquil green space where the light came down in long shafts, Chasey following the village elder with her heart full of anticipation. Raven and Zephy came behind, side by side, both wearing serious expressions as the site of the ritual drew closer.
She swallowed, and tried to steady herself for the trial ahead.
The tribe's sacred altar stood in a clearing of its own: an ancient stone platform, worn smooth, ringed by trees so old they had gone silver. The elderly elf carried a brilliant purple magic stone in both hands and set it carefully on the platform to begin waking the power sleeping inside it.
Everyone present watched with intense focus — the dignified crown prince at the edge of the clearing, the priestess, the elder, the elves of the tribe standing back among the trunks.
Guided by the elder, Chasey knelt reverently before the altar and steadied her mind.
"Close your eyes," the elder said. "And confront, bravely, the shadows hidden deep within your soul."
The magic stone burst into blinding light and swallowed the whole clearing.
In her subconscious, the voices found her at once. They were criticisms from a past that was not hers, and they came from every side: that she was fake, every word of her, every smile; that she was indifferent to everyone around her; that she was utterly incapable of genuine feeling toward another living person.
The pain of it was more than she had braced for. She could not hold back her tears, and her knees buckled under the weight of these horrifying memories flooding back into a mind that had never made them.
Despite everything, she realised with dismay, despite all her effort to start a new life, the dark memories of the original character had not faded nearly as far as she had hoped. They were still here. They were still hers to carry.
Why must I endure this, she thought, when I never wished to harm anyone?
And yet — and here was the thing that could not be argued away — people had still been hurt because of her. Because of this body, this name, this history. The two things were both true at once, and she knelt there in the light and let herself feel the whole shape of it. She thought about how different people are from one another, and about the harsh prejudices a society lays on the ones who differ, and about who gets to decide which of them deserves to be trampled.
Then she lifted her head, and her face set.
No matter how different I may be, she told herself, no one has the right to trample on me. No one has the right to hurt me. Not ever again.
The radiant light from the magic stone answered the strength in her soul and surged again, blazing far brighter than before.
"It's open!" the elder cried out, joy and amazement breaking his composure entirely. "The gate — the gate to the divine realm is open!"
The elf god emerged from within the trunk of an ancient tree, radiating purity.
Chasey, looking up at him, could not help feeling that this deity's energy was far weaker than she had imagined it would be. Zephy, beside her, was staring at something else altogether: the prince, who was watching the divine presence with perfect clarity, without having undergone any ritual at all.
"How can you even see him?" the boy demanded.
"You would be shocked," Raven said, "if you knew the truth about me."
"Human," said the elf god, and his attention settled on Chasey like a weight. "You carry the primal beauty within you. Yours is a truly extraordinary existence." He inclined his head gently. "What has driven you to travel all this way to seek me out, and to bring me your message?"
Chasey pressed her hands together.
"Please recognise Zephy as leader," she said earnestly. "Grant him that, so he can carry out his mission and protect the tribes of this forest."
"No," said the god.
She looked up.
"Everything in this world has its own predetermined time," the god said coldly. "It cannot be forced. This is a trial the child must overcome by himself. No one else has the right to complete it for him — and no one else has the ability."
There was truth in it. She could hear the truth in it. And still she could not accept a rigidity that was causing so much needless suffering to so many people who had never asked for a lesson.
Before she could answer, Zephy seized her hand and thrust it up in the air.
"I've brought my bride!" he announced to the god. "So now you're obliged to recognise me as an adult!" He turned and beamed at her. "She's the perfect wife. She has a warm heart. She's gentle. She's always caring toward me—"
Chasey went along with it as gracefully as she could manage, which was not very, since deep down she only saw him as an adorable child.
"And to seal the claim," Zephy added, "we should kiss."
The atmosphere among the three of them became unbearable.
Prince Raven began to radiate a dark aura so suffocating that the clearing seemed to lose its air, his face twisted with rage he was barely keeping on its leash. Without a word he crossed the grass, took the elf boy by the collar, and lifted him clean out of his overly familiar proximity to Chasey.
"Do not move," the prince told him, in a voice like ice going over stone. "Do not cause one more moment of trouble."
The entire space fell silent under the terrifying authority of the leader of the Empire.
It was Chasey who broke the silence, and she broke it by turning to the god.
"What you just said," she declared, "sounds deeply strange to me. And deeply unreasonable."
The god's gaze came round on her. "And what could a small human like you possibly find unsatisfactory about my judgement?"
"That it's selfish," she said bluntly. "And irresponsible — toward the safety of your own people, in your own forest."
Her boldness left both the prince and the elder utterly stunned.
"You chose Zephy as leader," she went on. "You chose him. And then you denied him the chance to come of age, so that he can't actually lead anyone. That contradiction is yours, and it is the cause of all this chaos. Because he cannot officially take charge, the tribes have fallen into rebellion and slaughter. Countless people have died. Countless innocent people have been hurt."
Behind her, Prince Raven watched her back in silence, and seemed to be seeing her for the first time.
"You are the protector of nature," Chasey said. "Do you truly believe that turning a blind eye to a tragedy like that is the right thing to do?"
The elf god remained unmoved. "Suffering is a necessary lesson," he said. "The child must broaden his perspective. Everyone else will simply have to wait."
Raven's fury reached its peak.
He grabbed Zephy's collar tight in his fist, his eyes blazing with a dangerous intensity, and growled, "Am I expected to stand here and waste my time listening to nonsensical, baseless preaching?"
"I agree completely," said Zephy, dangling.
Raven glanced down at him. "This is the first time," he remarked, "that the two of us have ever seen eye to eye." Then he turned back to the ancient tree, and to the shining figure standing in front of it, and challenged its very claim to divinity.
"If you wish to test someone," he said, "do it quietly, deep in the forest, where no one has to watch. Do not put on a display of it in front of me. I am the prince of this empire, and I will not tolerate anyone who behaves like an irresponsible bystander while people die." His voice dropped. "Recognise Zephy as leader. Now. Or witness the outcome."
"You would threaten—"
"I will destroy you," Raven said, "and I will establish a new god of my own making in your place."
The elf god was stunned by the sheer arrogance of a human daring to challenge the laws of nature themselves.
Raven laughed coldly. "The power of nature," he sneered. "The great power you have always taken such pride in. Very well — let us settle which of us holds the power closer to the origin of this world."
A dark, menacing aura erupted out of the prince and bore down on everything in the clearing with crushing weight. Everyone present trembled; not one of them dared to breathe deeply. Behind Raven, rising and spreading, a massive dark silhouette loomed against the trees, a testament to a destructive power and a status that had no rival in this world.
The elf god stared at it, and realised that this power was so immense that not even the spirits of the earth could have withstood it.
"You may continue your lecture," the prince told him coldly. "After you kneel down and apologise to me."
Overwhelmed by that crushing authority, the elf god could not hold his ground. He sank to the earth in utter humiliation.
"Enough," he said at last. "It is conceded. The coming-of-age ceremony will proceed exactly as you have asked."
He promised his blessing upon Zephy, who was so overwhelmed with joy that he could not stand still, while the elder stood beside him too stunned to speak at all.
With the conflict finally resolved, the elf god dissolved gradually into the air, and peace came back down over the forest.