“Bah, don’t listen to him, he is jealous,” the ritualist said, “My name is Alexandru and I help repair and maintain the ritual of awakening. As you have all seen, the best time to be soulmarked is the first go around. But there will be another peak, a much smaller burst of mana in about half an hour. I have constructed a secondary ritual circle over there,” he gestured to the other side of the plateau, “And can contain enough power to soulmark one or two people. You have another chance to be soulmarked. Your dreams can still come true. It can happen tonight.”

The crowd suddenly buzzed as they all discussed this new information. Some hugged strangers, some cried, and others expressed doubt.

The ritualist held up his hands, “But my rude colleague was right, this secondary ritual comes with considerable risk. Unlike the primary pulse, this ritual often has a resonance death. Sometimes no one dies, but more often than not, one person dies as one is soulmarked. Most are completely unaffected, and you are right back where you started. And this would cost an additional silver, since your guide fees do not cover this second ritual. If you are still interested, follow me over to the secondary site and we can discuss it further.”

At the mention of more death, most of the crowd left right away, heading for the trailhead. These were sensible people. If they had been fine with a high chance of death, they would have signed up with the harvesters in the first place.

Some stayed though, and Hugo realized that Marion was one of them. He walked up to his friend and said, “Can you believe it? Almost everyone got soulmarked but the both of us have rotten luck.”

“Yeah. Rotten luck,” Marion said, looking past him.

Hugo followed his line of sight to see the ritualist walking away, “You aren’t thinking of doing that, are you?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure,” Marion said, looking down.

“This is a bad idea. Most people just waste their money, the rest die. What if you are the one to die?” Hugo said.

“If I am dead, then I don’t have any more worries, right?” Marion said with a smile. “Honestly though, I feel like this is a good idea, like the universe is giving me a second chance.”

“I might consider it myself, if I had the money,” Hugo said, “But you shouldn’t. I know your parents are in the military, but you don’t have to follow in their footsteps. Choose a safer life, go be a merchant or something. Just because your parents want you to be a soulmarked warrior, doesn’t mean you have to do what they say. Choose your own destiny, don’t get killed following someone else’s dream.”

“I don’t really have another choice. My parents think I have been out on hunts for a month now. If I return without being soulmarked, they will think I am Forsaken,” Marion said. “My mother might be accepting, but my father would disown me. He is a sergeant in the army and a deacon of the Octarian church. He wouldn’t have any choice but to cast me out as Forsaken. I have to do this ritual, otherwise I will be stuck as less than a laborer for the rest of my life.”

“Hey! That’s the life I am going back to,” Hugo said, “It won’t be that bad.” His voice fell at the end. He was trying to cheer up Marion, but he ended up depressing himself. His dad died as a laborer. His dad had been skilled and brilliant, but he died working on the docks and left a destitute wife and son.

Marion seemed to catch on to his mood and said, “I can... I can pay for you too. If you want.”

“Thanks, but no. I am already in debt from this trip. As much as I would like another roll of the dice, I don’t think I could pay you back,” Hugo said.

“No, don’t worry about it. If I am the one to get soulmarked, I will be able to afford a silver, no problem. If you end up being the one to get soulmarked, you will be able to pay me back,” Marion said.

“And if neither of us gets soulmarked? Then you are just out of the money,” Hugo said.

“Trust me. Money is the least of my worries right now,” Marion said.

The two of them joined a small group trekking across the large ritual circle to end up at the small secondary ritual. Hugo recognized one other person walking towards the circle. That jerk Florin was following his parents over. There were a total of twenty four people walking over. Four sets of parents, and sixteen almost adults. Three riese, two nox, and the rest human. They took their turn paying Alexandru. Before long everyone had paid and they stood around, staring at the metal ritual embedded in stone.

It was small. Only twenty receiving spots on the ritual circle. That number made Hugo even more worried. It meant that this had been built by a human, not a nox like the main ritual circle. Nox were obsessed with symmetry and anything they made was divisible by eight.

The system of magic in this world was made for the nox, it just worked better for them. Hugo was a bit worried that he was trusting his life to a human. He wasn’t the only one worried.

Florin’s mother walked up to the ritualist as he was preparing and said, “Are you sure about this? I use runic magic myself, and I recognize all the runes you have here. They don’t make a lot of sense.” She pointed to a section of runes, “For example, those runes are time runes, why would this ritual need time runes?”

“What an excellent question. I am glad to be talking to someone that knows so much that she can recognize complex runes at a glance,” Alexandru said with a smile, “To answer your question, those are time runes, and they have a purpose. The process of being soulmarked takes time, time we don’t have. This secondary spike is much shorter than the main one. So, that section of runes right there stretches out the time for the participants. For us it will be but a moment, but they will have plenty of soul time to incorporate the mark.”

This seemed to assuage her doubts, and she slipped him a few more silvers and whispered something into his ears. The ritualist nodded and glanced at Florin. Well, Hugo knew who was getting a good spot. But this time, he was going to get a good spot himself. He muscled himself and Marion to the front of the line and placed himself within the inner ring. The ritualist just smiled at them and ignored Hugo and Marion.

Hugo noticed that Alexandru told Florin to strap on a sword. This made no sense at all. They were going to stand still for a ritual, not battle monsters. Still, he got his dagger out of his bag and tucked it into his waistband. Maybe the metal would act as a conductor for the mana or something. Marion was standing by him this time and Hugo told him to do the same. Marion didn’t have a dagger, but he slipped his eating utensils into his pocket.

The smaller ritual circle looked a lot different from the big one that covered the rest of the plateau. Hugo didn’t know anything about the runes like Florin’s mom, but he noticed that the radial symmetry was off. There was a big circle in the middle of the ritual, chock full of runes. Golden lines spread out to eight outer circles. Those circles had lines that spread out even further, but instead of going to sixteen outer circles, they only attached to twelve more circles in the final layer. He bet the nox hated using this one. A look around only found two nox out of the sixteen standing there.

He rolled his eyes at the meager nox representation in this cast-off group. It was frustrating, but not too surprising. Although nox were plentiful, they were also the dominant species. Preferential treatment for them was pretty much the world’s default state. After Hugo awakened his magic, he wanted to lord it over them, just to show them that they didn’t win at everything. He wouldn’t of course. Who knew if these nox were well connected.

He couldn’t decide if he wanted to lord it over Marion or not. His new friend seemed like he could take some good natured ribbing, but then again he would have just lost his chance at a power he had saved up for years for. Maybe Hugo should try to comfort his friend instead.

This was all just positive thinking, of course. The possibility that he wouldn’t be walking away with a magical power didn’t bear thinking of. This was his plan C, plan D didn’t exist because plan C was going to work.

Marion started talking to the boy to his right, but Hugo didn’t feel like shouting loud enough to join their conversation. Remembering his earlier resolution to make more friends, he turned to his left and said to the riese standing there, “Hello, my name is Hugo, what is your name?”

She glanced at him before turning back to stare forward. “Lina,” she said, stoically.

Hugo glanced back at the other riese people in the crowd, “Are those your parents?”

She didn’t turn to look and said, “Yes.”

“I’m from Reval, where are you from?” Hugo said.

She huffed and turned to face him, “I’m from Ettel. Do people from Reval not usually take a hint? I’m trying to center myself.”

“Why try and center yourself? We have no control over this process. And yes, people from Reval are usually very blunt,” Hugo said.

Lina stared at him for a bit then said, “I am trying to center myself because if I don’t I am going to scream. This may not be serious for you, but I have to get soulmarked by this ritual. My life depends on it.”

Hugo nodded, it felt like that to him too. At the same time, hearing it from someone else made him realize that it wasn’t true. There were other jobs, other paths for his future even if this one didn’t succeed. “That isn’t really true, is it? Your parents aren’t going to kill you if you don’t get soulmarked?”

“Well, no. But you should take this seriously,” she said.

“Taking this seriously won’t increase my chances, the ritual will decide if I am successful or not,” Hugo said.

She glanced at Hugo and said, “Maybe. Still, I am determined to be soulmarked today. Every time we try, there is a chance that someone dies. I won’t let that happen to me.”

That reminded Hugo of the girl that had burnt to death ahead of him. That could have been him, and this second ritual supposedly had a greater chance of death. He shivered. No need for a plan D if that happened. He let the conversation lapse. He really should leave. The risk wasn’t worth it. But still, anyone that grew up in the Narrows was at least a little bit suicidal. He stayed put.

More waiting. It seemed like that is all he did today. Wait. Now that the sun had gone done, there was no way for him to tell the time accurately. For him anyway. He looked up to the sky. He was a city boy and none of those stars meant anything to him. It was pretty though.

The start of the ritual caught him by surprise. Hugo startled as the center circle flared to life. Just like the other one, a column of bright light shot up into the sky. But unlike the other ritual, this light was yellow and didn’t spread out. It just glowed, and nothing else happened. Hugo looked around. Everyone looked a little fuzzy. A nox boy yelled to the ritualist, but got no response.

It was quiet. Very quiet.