Hedwyn watches his companions at their practice and leaps between and among nearby rocks. He’s not as fast as Rukey, nor as strong as Jodi, but he can balance the two of them, watch and encourage them, and he’s good at making sure they are moving as one, the way the Rites intend. He was good at that even before the Reader came and looked into the three of them so deeply that nothing could be hidden and became a voice that sometimes whispered in the back of his mind, saying Now go or warning him to jump or asking him to reach out and send his presence into a phantom foe.
It’s uncanny.
The Reader, in general, is uncanny, Hedwyn admits. He looks over to where they sit, alternating between watching warm-ups and reading that book. They look over at him, though Hedwyn would’ve sworn that they’d been reading intently just a moment ago, and meet his eyes with their own. The Reader’s face is dark underneath their hood, and their eyes and teeth glint in the sunlight, just for a moment.
“It’s the Scribes’ will,” they say, hands flashing around their body. Soundless. The only reason he knows what their voice sounds like is because in the Rites that’s what guides them. He’s never heard them speak, otherwise, just use their hands. “Just be ready to do your best.”
Hedwyn thumps his chest; a salute from his time in the armies.
The Reader smiles, and turns back to the book.
Hedwyn sighs, and returns to waiting, making sure his body is limber and quick and ready to do what is asked of it. He wants to go home. He wants to learn why Sandalwood is asking this of them. He wants to know what’s with the stone-like minstrel.
So many questions, he thinks, and he hears the Reader’s amusement behind the words. Patience, dear one. You’ll have your answers in time.
And you know the answers already? Hedwyn snaps back, in the supposed privacy of his own mind. He rolls down a slope, letting the physicality of dust and pebbles ground him out of what had to be a half-imagined argument with the Reader.
If there had been something, the connection isn’t there anymore. It’s just him, and his own worries and doubts. Hedwyn breathes in and stands, letting his momentum carry him past Rukey. He tapped the cur as he passed, and Rukey’s ears pinned back. Hedwyn laughed, and put all his mind to keeping his own stamina up; his only chance at avoiding Rukey’s retaliation was to just outlast him in a run. The cur’s speed was impressive, but short-lived, and his tactical abilities were intensely variable.
Hedwyn loses himself in the game of chase-and-catch, and they weave around Jodariel and the Reader. Jodi watches, her expression softening at seeing the two of them at play. She doesn’t join in until Rukey tumbles straight into her kata, though, interrupting one of the fluid, patient movements she’s so proud of. Then, Jodi shakes her head, smiles, and jumps in one of the quick bursts of motion Hedwyn really should be used to by now. She doesn’t aim for Rukey, who’s scrambled away again, laughing and panting, but for him, landing in front of him with a crash.
Jodi taps his nose and says, amused, “I win.”
Hedwyn sticks out his tongue before he can think better of it, and is rewarded by another of Jodi’s rare true smiles.
Rukey flops down beside him and says, “Time for a break? I could do with a little rest myself before the Rites commence.”
Hedwyn looks to the sky, where the sun’s setting and the sky’s dimming. “We should make sure we’ve got everything ready.”
“Agreed.” Jodi looks down at Rukey. “Do I need to carry you to the field?”
“Nope, no need at all.” Rukey’s moustache quivers with the speed of his hop back up. “I just need to brush the dust off my robes, and then I’ll be all ready to go.”
He trots off, white fur and green tail a bright contrast to the orange rocks of the Ridge of Gol. Hedwyn looks at Jodi and says, “Let’s get the sigil.”
Jodi nods.
The Reader follows them. Hedwyn’s aware of their presence even though they don’t make a sound. Their presence fades after a moment, and Hedwyn forces himself not to turn and look to see if they’re still there or just not intruding anymore. He doesn’t want to know. Not right now, when he should be focusing on the Rite to come, their first test on a field. The first time they’ll have a chance to understand, truly, what it is that Sandalwood’s getting them all into.
So he doesn’t look back, and he changes into his robes. Rukey’s already changed, and Jodariel had put hers on earlier than either of them. The Reader doesn’t have Nightwing robes the colors of dusk and fire, but they don’t need them. They have their own robes and their own mark, and their face is shadowed enough to be meaningless when they choose.
They walk to the star-marked field in silence. Jodi carries the sigil, and sets it in the ground. No dust comes up as it slaps down, and Hedwyn shivers a little as colors fade in, marking out the crescent symbol of the Nightwings. But he pushes that aside and instead raises his eyes to his team, Nightwings not yet masked and still their own people in the eyes of the Scribes and their stars, and says, “Ready?”
Jodi’s face is set in the same grim expression he’s used to, little lines of tension around her eyes the only sign that she’s invested and worried about how this will go. She meets his eyes and nods, very slightly.
Rukey grins, his moustache twitching, and says, “I’ve been ready, chum. Let’s go!” He’s speaking fast and his eyes are just a little too wide. Nerves. But Rukey nervous is sometimes more focused, so long as he has a task, and Rukey doesn’t burn out on energy. Hedwyn smiles back at him, hoping that the cur will take heart and settle by the time the Rites begin, anyway.
The Reader’s hands flash, simple signs that any child knows: Ready, they say, and they smile.
Hedwyn manages to nod back at them.
Opposite them on the field, Lendel and his Accusers set up their own sigil. Hedwyn fits his mask over his face, and senses more than sees his friends do the same. Hedwyn breathes, and lets himself sink into the patient shadow of the mask, the robes, and the legacy he only half-understands.
The Rites will cleanse them, bring them Enlightenment. Hedwyn has faith in that.
And he has faith in the Reader, and their ability to guide them through this.
Hedwyn takes his place in front of the sigil, facing the Accusers and waiting for the stars to signal the start of the match. He breathes, and lets himself bounce on his feet, staying loose, staying ready; they’ve talked about this, they know what they’re doing. It’s all going to work out as the Scribes will it—and, Hedwyn prays, that will be in their favor.
In the sky, eight stars gleam, and light rushes between them, cascading down onto the field. A Voice echoes at the edges of Hedwyn’s hearing, but most of what he can hear is the Reader, their voice tense.
It is time.
A ball of light crashes down in the middle of the field, and Hedwyn begins running before he even registers its presence.
Hedwyn breathes, and allows himself to sink into the Reader’s touch, moving on instinct.
He can feel Rukey and Jodariel around him, and it’s less work than a breath to send the Orb to Rukey, to let him dance past the Accusers and into the Pyre in a blaze of glory.
Beneath the mask, in the middle of jumping over Lendel’s blazing aura with the Celestial Orb tugging at the space between his shoulders as it follows him, Hedwyn smiles.
His faith is rewarded; they really can do this, after all.
That one of the Accusers tackles him a moment after and sends him into the shadows between the stars doesn’t remove the sense of warmth beating at his heart. He will return soon enough, and find freedom in unity with his friends.