Assassin from Abyss

Kei came up the stairs onto the oval platform, and as he climbed he read the room.

The back gate, the one the commoners had come in by — locked, but middling in height. *With the right run at it, I can clear it.*

The armored guard by the stairs. *The neck, where the helmet ends and the chest-plate starts — that gap is bare. I could put the jade in there. But I’d get one try at it.*

Plan folded into plan as he came to the crystal skull. *This skull matters to them. I could hold it over them — threaten to break it, buy myself the room to run. Or throw it, and take the guard’s eyes off me with it.*

He reached out his hand. *I should have taken one of the first floor as a hostage — all that nobility, I could have leaned on their families through their fear. Too late now. I stick to the other plans.*

His hand touched the skull.

Light burst out of it, blinding, and shapes began to form across the glass. And when the light dimmed, every eye in the hall fixed on the platform, where two full circles had come up — one black, one golden — set over each other, overlapping. And the wide place where they crossed shone a dark green, brighter than either the black or the gold.

Silence took the whole of the building. No one could credit what they were seeing. Even the High Priests and the Grand Clerics came up out of their seats.

Then the moment broke, and the hall gathered itself, and Cecil drew breath to speak — and Lymic cut across him, his voice going out over the hall, angry.

" Honored Grand Clerics. Before you weigh the result of this test, hear me. This adolescent, Kaiser, was born of the vile union of a Rakshasa female and a human male. He passed the bloodline awakening by some deceit — and now he stands there showing *multiple* domain affinities. This is not possible for a human-spawn. Humans carry no beast-bloodline, and neither do the females of our own society. Kaiser is making fools of us with some forbidden spell — that is why I cannot sense it. I would have you all weigh that before you decide anything. "

The Grand Clerics looked to one another. And as though they had come to one mind without a word, each of them loosed a ray of aura from his hand toward Kaiser.

Kei saw the colored light coming and his body wanted to run — and could not. His legs would not move; he was held fast where he stood. The auras came in every color — white, blue, orange, black, brown, golden, purple, the colors of the seven domains — and swirled around him, and passed through him in turn, again and again, until they faded out.

" High Priest Lymic. We have reached our finding. "

The Grand Cleric in the golden garb, speaking slow, his voice carrying the length of the hall.

" Kaiser uses no spell. We have each of us sensed the domain affinities within him. Continue. "

That last from the Grand Cleric in the dark purple.

Lymic, robbed of his face in front of the whole assembly, waved Cecil on and turned and stormed off to his chamber on the hundredth floor.

" Kaiser , " Cecil said, " of neither the nobles nor the commoners, has shown multiple domain affinities. The black circle marks his affinity in the shadow domain. The golden marks an equal affinity in martial prowess. And it is the first time the Council has seen two affinities lie over one another — the crossing place, this dark green, is a color found nowhere in our records. It may be the color of some unknown domain. It may be what shadow and martial make when they are held together. "

He let it stand a moment.

" Kaiser. You may join the Temple of Bellicus, at our capital’s center, in one week — or the Temple of Caedis, in the outer reaches of the Cruentus Rainforest, in two. If you choose Caedis, you must reach it wholly alone, with no help from anyone. And you may enroll in both temples once you attain master level in either. "

And with that, the long-awaited true awakening ceremony came to its end.