No Mark At All

Someone knocked on the door early the next morning, before Ren had figured out whether he'd actually slept or just lain there with his eyes closed for a few hours."It's open," he said, because he didn't know how doors worked here and wasn't in the mood to find out by getting up.The door opened, and a girl walked in without waiting to be invited twice. She was maybe his age, maybe a little older, with pale gold hair pulled back and clothes that looked expensive even to someone who didn't know anything about this world's fashion, though a little worn at the edges, like they'd been good clothes once and had been through a lot since. She stopped a few feet inside the room and looked at him the way you'd look at something you weren't sure you believed in yet."So you're him," she said. "The Hero.""Apparently." Ren sat up, rubbing his face. "You can drop the word if you want. I'm getting tired of hearing it.""I don't think I will, actually." Her voice was clipped, careful, like she was choosing every word before she let it out. "I spent most of my life believing that word meant something. I'd like to see if I still can."Ren looked at her properly then. She stood straight backed, chin level, the kind of posture that gets drilled into someone a long time ago and never quite leaves, even after whatever life she'd had that required it. He didn't know her name yet, but he had a feeling this wasn't just some curious noble sent to gawk at him."Who are you?""Seraphina Valencrest." She said it like it used to mean something bigger than it apparently did anymore. "My family ruled Camryn, before the war. Before it stopped existing."Ren didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything."I was twelve when the capital fell," she went on, not because he'd asked, but because it seemed like something she needed to get out before she could say anything else. "I spent six years hearing stories about the Hero who would come and put things right. Some of us stopped believing it. I never did. I kept thinking, someday, the world will remember it owes us that much.""And now the world sent you a guy who doesn't want the job.""Now the world sent us someone ten years too late, who apparently plans to spend his first morning here figuring out how to leave." Her eyes were hard, but Ren recognized what was under them, because he'd been feeling it himself since he woke up. "Doran told me what you said last night. That we took your life instead of saving it.""I meant it.""I'm sure you did." She crossed her arms. "It's a very neat thing to say, when you've never had anything actually taken from you before."That landed harder than Ren expected, and he felt his jaw tighten before he could stop it."You don't know what's been taken from me.""You're right. I don't. I know what's been taken from me, though. A kingdom. A father. Every person I grew up with who didn't make it out of Camryn before the walls came down. So forgive me if I don't have much patience left over for a boy who's had his life interrupted for one night and already wants to give up on all of us."Ren opened his mouth to argue and then didn't. Quietly, and against his will, he agreed with her more than he wanted to admit. He pushed it down anyway."I didn't ask to be part of any of this," he said. "That's not me giving up. That's me pointing out I was never given a choice in the first place.""Neither was I," Seraphina said. "Neither was anyone who lost something in that war. Nobody asked us either." She looked at him for a long moment. Her expression wasn't softer exactly, just less certain than it had been a minute ago. "I came here expecting a legend. I'm starting to think we got a person instead.""Yeah. That's usually what happens when you drag someone out of their bed."She almost smiled at that. Almost.Doran found them like that, standing on opposite sides of the small room, neither one saying anything, and he had the good sense not to comment on it."There's someone else who would like to meet you," he said to Ren. "If you're willing."The someone else turned out to be a girl with sharp eyes and ink stained fingers, waiting in a study two floors down that was so crowded with books and scrolls and strange instruments that Ren had to turn sideways to get through the door. She didn't stand up when he entered. She barely looked away from the object in her hands, a thin metal rod covered in faint markings that pulsed a dull blue whenever she tilted it."Lyra Edevane," Doran said. "She was studying at the Ashcombe Academy when the war ended it. She has, ah, taken a particular interest in your arrival.""Hold still," Lyra said, standing up and crossing the room before Ren had time to respond to any of it. She raised the metal rod toward him without asking permission, and it pulsed brighter, blue light spreading briefly across her palm before fading again. Her eyebrows went up."What is that," Ren said, leaning back slightly."A reader. It should be showing me your Origin Mark right now." She frowned at the rod like it had personally offended her. "It's not showing me anything.""Is that bad?""It's impossible." She said it flatly, like a fact she'd already checked twice before he walked in. "Everyone born in Elyria carries an Origin Mark. It's not something you can lack, any more than you can lack a heartbeat. Flame, Storm, Light, Shadow, Spirit, dozens of variations, but always something. I've read this device across half the palace guard just to be sure it wasn't broken. It reads all of them fine. It reads nothing on you.""I'm not born in Elyria," Ren said. "Maybe that's why.""That's my working theory too, but it doesn't explain what should be happening instead." Lyra set the reader down and picked up a different instrument, something narrow and glasslike, muttering to herself as she adjusted it. "The old texts on summoned Heroes are sparse, most of them were lost when the Academy burned, but the ones I have access to all agree on one thing. A summoned Hero should manifest a power called Aether. Something older than Origin magic, something that predates the current system entirely. I've been looking for any trace of it in you since you walked in, and I'm finding nothing. No Mark. No Aether. Nothing at all.""So what does that mean?""It might mean the Rite failed to properly complete the transfer," Doran said quietly from the doorway, and Ren caught the look that passed between him and Lyra, worried on his part, distracted on hers. "It might mean you were summoned incompletely. A body, but not the power that should have come with it.""Great," Ren said. "So I'm not just the wrong hero. I might be a broken one too.""I didn't say that," Lyra said, still fiddling with her instrument, not looking at him. "I said I don't understand it yet. Those aren't the same thing. Most of what I know about Aether comes from fragments and guesses. It's entirely possible it simply hasn't manifested yet. Power like that doesn't always announce itself immediately.""Or it's possible there's nothing there," Ren said.Lyra finally looked up at him, and there was something sharp and curious in her expression that had nothing to do with sympathy. "That's possible too. I intend to find out either way. You're the first genuine data point on this subject in ten years. I'm not going to waste that just because you're having a bad week.""It's been a bad twelve hours, actually.""Even worse, then. You should probably sit down before Seraphina hears you complaining about the timeline. She's not going to have much sympathy for twelve hours."From the doorway, Seraphina made a small sound that might have been a laugh if she'd let it all the way out.They let him wander the palace grounds that afternoon, under guard but not restrained, and Ren used the time to actually look at the world he'd landed in instead of just reacting to it.The guard assigned to walk with him introduced himself as Farrin, a young man not much older than Ren, and he seemed to take the assignment seriously in a way that made Ren wonder whether he'd been told to watch for an escape attempt or just told to keep an eye on someone fragile."You don't have to stand so close," Ren said, after the third time Farrin adjusted his position to stay between Ren and the nearest gate."Apologies." Farrin didn't move. "Orders.""Whose orders? The queen's?""Archivist Doran's, actually. He was very specific about it." Farrin glanced sideways at him. "He said you might try to leave. He didn't want you doing it without knowing where you'd be going.""Would it work? If I tried?"Farrin considered the question seriously, like it deserved an honest answer instead of a diplomatic one. "The gates are guarded, but not against you specifically. If you truly wanted to walk out, I doubt anyone would stop you by force. Whether you'd survive very long outside the walls without knowing anything about this world is a different question."That was fair, Ren thought, and irritating precisely because it was fair.Aldreth was smaller than he'd expected from the size of the palace, a walled city built up against the side of a mountain, streets narrow and steep, buildings crowded close together like they were huddling for warmth. There were people everywhere, more than he expected, going about ordinary business, selling bread and mending clothes and hauling water, and it took him a while to understand why the ordinariness of it bothered him so much.They'd built a life on top of a defeat. An entire city of people getting up every morning and going about their day in the shadow of a war they'd lost a decade ago, because what else was there to do.He stopped at a market stall selling something that looked like bread but smelled faintly of cinnamon, and the old woman behind it looked at him for a long moment before her eyes went wide."You're him," she said. "The one they called last night. My grandson said the whole sky lit up over the palace.""I guess I am," Ren said, not sure what else to say.She didn't bow, or cheer, or do any of the things he half expected from stories he'd read on Earth about chosen heroes. She just studied him with tired, careful eyes, the same way Doran had, the same way Seraphina had."Ten years we waited on that prophecy," she said. "Buried my husband in year three. My son in year six. Still waiting, if you want the truth of it, because waiting is easier than deciding it was all for nothing." She wrapped a piece of the bread and held it out to him without asking for payment. "Doesn't matter now, I suppose. You're here. Eat something. You look like you haven't."Ren took it, mostly because he didn't know how to refuse without it seeming worse than accepting. Farrin watched the whole exchange without saying anything, and Ren caught him filing it away behind his eyes, the way people did when they were planning to repeat something later to someone else.He thought about Doran's voice describing the Long Quiet, the Demon Lord withdrawing after conquest instead of finishing what he started, and wondered what kind of person did that. Wondered what kind of person waited ten years and then let someone else's failed magic finally succeed and call it a mercy.He didn't have an answer. He wasn't sure anyone in this city did either.By evening he was back in his room, sitting by the window again, watching the two moons climb over rooftops that belonged to a kingdom he had no memory of and no reason to care about, except that somewhere below him a girl who'd lost everything had looked at him like she was still, despite everything, hoping he might be worth something after all, and an old woman had handed him bread without asking for anything back, like feeding him mattered more than whatever he turned out to be.He didn't know what to do with that. He wasn't sure he wanted to know yet.Still, when he lay down that night, he found himself thinking less about how to get out of Aldreth and more about the old woman's bread, and the way Seraphina had almost smiled.