“People plot, but the Deities decide.” - Old folk saying.

“Stay close to me. I have a bad feeling for some reason,” said Aideen her charges as they stood on the rooftop of the inn they stayed in. The foreboding she felt intensified itself for some reason, and she thought that she could smell something off about the air that night, though couldn’t exactly tell what part of it was wrong. It was an unpleasant and strange feeling. “Something about this night feels wrong but I can’t say what part exactly…”

Her charges looked at each other but stuck close to Aideen as ordered. She noticed how they subtly tried to sense things around them every which way they could, though, like how Kino tried to sniff at the air while the other three kept their ears open. All of them also tried to sense things through mana, though they kept it contained so as to not warn others of their presence.

“I don’t feel anything unusual,” mentioned Eilonwy after a while with a shake of her head and a confused frown.

“Me neither,” added Kino with a questioning look on her features. “Maybe you felt wrong, Miss Aideen?”

“Belay that, I think I get what Aunt meant with how something feels wrong. It’s a bit hard for me to notice but now that I know that there’s something to look for, I kinda feel it too,” said Áine with a serious look on her face. “My mana’s not as plentiful as Aunt or Kino’s, but I can notice something off about this night.”

“It might be related to an affinity, probably Life,” suggested Rhys with a thoughtful nod. “I feel it too, and I feel it pretty clearly. The only thing common between you, me, and Aunt Aideen in the magical sense is that all of us have some sort of Life affinity in us.”

“That might be why, yeah,” noted Aideen after some thought. Kino was growing fast in terms of mana and none of the three siblings were her match in that regard. In the same way, Kino was more sensitive than any of the siblings when it comes to detecting mana, yet she did not feel anything. If whatever they were feeling was only noticeable to people with Life affinity or its derivatives, then things would make sense.

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“Do you have any idea what it might be, Aunt?” asked Eilonwy, now more wary. The idea that there was something wrong around her and she couldn’t feel it nagged at her mind as she always favored being in control of her situation. “I don’t think I’ve heard of many things that would only be noticeable by people of a certain affinity…”

“Rituals,” said Áine all of a sudden. “Large-scale ritualistic magic would often make people of the affinity the ritual is in feel them even from far away. They’ve pretty much gone out of favor for ages, though. I think I’ve only ever read about them in the history books and other books about ancient magic. I didn’t know anyone still uses them nowadays.”

“Now that you mention it, I do recall learning about that as well,” said Aideen as she nodded. “I remember reading some old books about them in the library of… Danna… shortly after the war with Junora back then…” she stammered as she realized the obvious relation between what she had just said to the current bad feeling she was having. “Those books were still there when the rebellion happened.”

“You think they might have cribbed from them and tried to perform something out of those books, Aunt?” asked Eilonwy with some concern. Ritual magic was an abandoned way of doing magic that involved pooling the mana of many mages together to do something that was far beyond the capability of any one mage. The problem was that they tend to be horrifyingly inefficient and many of the more esoteric rituals often involve all sorts of ridiculous sacrifices and the like, things that stemmed from an immature understanding of magic and mana in the past.

“It’s not impossible,” said Aideen after she gave the matter some thought. “Danna was the capital of Junora, though, and if I remember right, most of the rituals recorded in the books had to do with the Death affinity. I don’t recall any that involve the Life affinity instead, so they probably didn’t get it directly off those books and more that they based one on what they read.”

“That’s still bad news, isn’t it?” asked Rhys. They didn’t learn much of ritual magics, but the most common use in the past was to cast devastating spells that were capable of devastating portions of an army in one go. In the present day such magics were far too inefficient and easily noticed, however, so pretty much everyone had long discarded ritual magic as a tool.

“Probably, though I’m not certain what form it might take exactly-” said Aideen, her words cut off mid-sentence as she detected a sudden flare of mana in her perceptions, coming from the Royal Palace in the distance. The flare of mana was so large and noticeable that she had no doubt it came from some sort of ritual. It was the level of power that Grandpa Aarin used when he demolished the populace of Danna with a single spell back then.

Which incidentally was another reason ritual spells went out of style, as the most powerful mages had grown to a level where they could practically do what a small ritual could all by themselves. The Bone Lord was naturally an exception as he performed feats so great that even the largest rituals struggled to achieve them.

“Careful. Whatever it is, it’s clearly happening soon,” said Aideen warily. “They probably waited for the moonless night or something,” she added as her charges gathered next to her. All of them had similarly felt the pulsating mana from the Royal Palace, even Kino and Eilonwy that previously failed to notice the odd feeling.

The mana built up, pulsed more intensely, and seemed to implode upon itself right around that time.