"I." he started, his voice shaking.
He remembered his family, his mother's soft smile, his father's powerful hands, his sister's giggles, and his deceased brother whom he idolized and respected so much ever since his childhood. He remembered the vows he made to keep them safe, to please them.
"I want to return," he muttered finally. His voice was barely audible at first, but with each word, it seemed to find new strength. "I want to return to them."
"Good," said the voice coldly.
Then light broke into darkness. It was weak at first, a dying spark far out in the abyss. But with every instant, it shone brighter and brighter, casting illumination on all the surrounding space.
A form stepped out of the light, its shape radiating so brightly that Lucian couldn't discern its features.
"Is that...you? The owner of that strange voice?" Lucian hesitated and was wary after seeing the figure.
The figure chuckled a warm, familiar one. "You just referred to me as a 'weird voice'? I guess I'll take the title."
Lucian gazed down at himself and gasped. His form was transparent, his limbs hazy outlines of light. He was able to move now, although his movements were weightless and unnatural.
His eyes turned toward something drifting near him his Sigil. It glowed softly, its hue changing from pale green to something darker and more intricate, but what interested him most was the symbol of his ordination that was marred and was altering.
"What's happening to it?" he mumbled, his voice shaking.
The figure moved closer. "Your Sigil is changing, your ordination is altering, Lucian. A phenomenon even your so-called gods cannot fully explain."
Lucian's heart or whatever equivalent to of one he possessed in this state pounded. His Sigil, which had always remained a consistent light green, now wildly changed color between shades of green, black, and an odd silvery-gray, and the pattern of his ordination.....it was reforming.
"Altering?" he repeated, incredulity thick in his voice. "You're telling me, my ordination is changing? That can't happen. No one no one at all has ever had their ordination changed. Not even the Myriarchs. It's common knowledge that once you get an ordination you can't change it nor can you gain another!"
The figure laughed quietly. "And yet, here you stand, seeing it with your own eyes. Tell me, Lucian, do you really believe the gods are omniscient? Or that the rules of the world are as fixed as you've been taught to think they are?"
Lucian scowled the words rousing something within him. He wished to object, to say that all those centuries of tradition and information couldn't just be incorrect. But looking at his Sigil, the pattern over it changing hypnotically, he could not ignore what he was experiencing.
"What is it?" he asked at last. "Why is this happening to me?
The figure cocked its head as if pondering how to respond. "Before I tell you, let me ask you this: What do you know about Sigils and ordination? Their use? Their origin?"
As the figure spoke, a small, glowing particle floated from its eyes, barely visible. It travelled so fast and so quietly that no one could have seen it. The particle brushed against him for a moment, melting into his figure like a breath of light, leaving no mark behind. The instant was over in a flash, unseen but unmistakably important.
'Huh. Did something happen? I felt like something touched my eyes.....meh it ain't even my physical body.'
Lucian stuttered but eventually said, "Divine Sigils are magical, artifact-like phenomena that form when one awakens their mana. They serve as both a reservoir of elemental power and as a representation of the person's divine favour or ordinates, as we now refer to them. The sigil's form is an expression of the person's inner self and the element with which they are most connected, as such Sigils help us to identify and awaken our element."
The figure nodded in appreciation. "And?"
Lucian paused to collect his thoughts before going on. "Ordinations are well...powers granted by the Myriarchs. Once an individual gets an ordination it is sealed in their sigils. Once granted it cannot be taken back. And how an individual gains an ordination is a complete mystery....though it is almost certain for the great clans to receive the ordinations of the respective Myriarchs they worship, that was the blessing granted to the Royal families. I, for example, have- or at least had..... the ordination of Axiom, granted by The Arbiter. "
'Ugh wait....why am I answering him like a student?!?'
He hesitated, but the figure waved for him to go on.
"These ordinations are not just for show or proof. They are the greater forces that determine the very nature of existence itself. They control concepts such as creation, destruction, preservation, and even more ethereal concepts such as ambition or unity. The Myriarchs only mirror what already exists."
'My mouth won't stop running! Fuck is this something that figure did when I felt something touch my eyes?'
Lucian tried to put his hand on his mouth but his hands went past it.
'Ughhh.....this is troublesome.'
Lucian glared at the figure but the figure didn't bat an eye.
The presence of the figure appeared to increase as Lucian's mouth started to run again.
"Nevertheless," Lucian said, his voice subdued, "meeting the specifications of a myriarch's favour is not simple. There doesn't exist a specific time in which one can get ahold of ordinations but one thing is for certain, Sigils are necessary for the ordinations. The majority of people have their mana awakened by the age of nineteen and so as they manifest their sigil to contain it."
'....whatever I give up. My mouth won't stop huh? I might as well comply, at least it's only about ordinations and sigils. And I might learn something from it.'
" By the time they are twenty five if no Sigil appears, that means they have no aptitude for mana."
Lucian's voice decreased. "Without a Sigil, humans cannot work with mana. There is also a distinction between sigil holders and sigil holders with ordinations. The person with ordination is more powerful than a person without it, as to why it is self-explanatory."
"Ordinations give a major power. The powers are divided into eight parts, as we can see in the pattern of the ordinates there are eight stars. When one just gets an ordinate they don't have any of the stars unlocked. Unlocking a star is up to their innate talent."
"Good," the figure stated, though weight hung behind the word.
Lucian nodded, trying to ignore the unease crawling up his spine. "But what's happening to me this alternation I've never heard of such a thing. An ordinate changing, evolving, aligning with...Something else? It shouldn't be possible."
The lips of the figure curled into a slight smile. "And yet here you are, disproving otherwise."
Lucian's eyes returned to his Sigil, which glowed softly in the distance. Its hue changed and writhed, like a tempest trapped in endless motion, and a pattern different from the pattern of Axiom, which he was used to. "Why? Why is this occurring? What does it signify?" His voice trembled, half fear, half wonder.