“How did you come by these conclusions?”

“That is no concern of yours, my Lord Parven,” said Gerick. “Now, time grows short. It is your turn to choose.” He had them, and he knew it.

A smile crept slowly across Ziddari’s bloodless lips. “Oh, brother and sister, we have done far better even than we knew. Do you not agree?” He leaped up from his chair and swept a deep bow to Gerick. “We will proceed with your preparation, my clever and immensely delightful young Prince. When the time comes for the anointing, you may release the Lady Seriana to whichever of the Preceptors you wish. They have safe passage back to Avonar after, and so will she. Is that sufficient? You have the word of the Lords of Zhev’Na, which has never been broken in a thousand years.”

Gerick folded his arms across his breast, took a deep breath, and spoke softly to me, though his eyes did not meet mine. “This is the best I can do. I am what I am. It cannot be changed.”

Then he turned his back on me, dropped his arms, and acknowledged the Three with a slight bow. “Let us begin.”

The room grew colder, the lamplight fading until each paned globe cast only a dim circle on the black floor just underneath it. The Three seemed to grow larger as they focused their jeweled eyes on Gerick.

“You will not speak again until our work is done,” said Parven. “There must be no disruption during your preparation. Do you agree?”

Gerick nodded. He showed no fear.

Notole moved to the center of the dais, carrying a crystal flask and goblet. “Have you come to us fasting?” she asked.

“He has neither eaten nor drunk in a sun’s turning,” said Ziddari, from behind her. “I made sure of it.”

The old woman nodded and filled the goblet with a liquid so deep a red that it was almost black. “This is drink such as no mortal being may taste and remain unchanged. Drain every drop, and so from this night you will require no other sustenance save what nourishes your power.” She offered the goblet, wreathed in scarlet-tinted steam, to Gerick.

“Don’t drink it!” I cried. “You are not one of them!”

But Gerick either did not or would not hear me. He took the goblet, raised it to each of the Three, and put it to his lips. The first sip made him shudder, but after that he did not falter. Slowly, inexorably, he drained the glass, forcing the last drops before taking a heaving breath, clearly fighting to keep it down.

Notole took the goblet from his trembling hand. “A potent vintage, yes? You feel it in every bone, every vein, every fiber. Your body rejects it, for it is not the stuff of mortal life. But you have learned to command yourself, and so you allow it to do its work, cleansing, transforming, making your body other than it has ever been.”

Notole returned to her chair, and Parven took her place at the front of the dais. “When you first came to us, young Prince, you offered us your sword. We did not take it from you then, for it was unproved, unworthy of us. But you will have no more use for such trivial implements. We now require your sworn bond that you will not raise your hand against us, your brothers and sister. Are you willing to surrender this symbol of your former life and so swear without reservation?”

Gerick unsheathed his sword, raising it high until it caught the faint lamplight, gleaming, glinting. But then he straightened his back and knelt before Parven, presenting the sword on his upturned palms.

“And you make this vow of your own will… freely?”

Gerick nodded.

“So be it sworn,” said Parven. A beam of amethyst light shot from his gold mask and focused on the sword. The steel blade began to glow, brighter and brighter purple, until the shape lost coherence and the metal sagged across Gerick’s hands. Gerick did not flinch, but left his hands in place until the shriveled sword vanished, leaving only the stench of hot metal and scorched flesh. Then he rose to his feet, cold and solemn, his hands held stiffly open at his sides.

Ziddari stepped forward, replacing the taller Lord, and gazed down at Gerick with his ruby eyes. “You are learning the price of your power, young Lord. Not so very high. Not for this life for which you were born. You are not the sniveling child I knew in that other place. You know blood and pain as he could never know it. You know power as he could never have touched it, and the very things that made him weak now make you strong. Now it is time to bid that child farewell. Do you agree?”

Gerick closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Ziddari laid his hands on the shining red-brown hair. “And so do I remove from you the name you were given on this day twelve years past, and the shackles it lays upon your freedom. No longer will its bidding give you pause, or its invocation cause you the least concern. No longer will its bitter legacy enthrall you, but will seem as the tale of some other who is so far beneath you as to be unworthy of licking your feet. The strength and wisdom grown in you, and the passions that have shaped you are all that will remain. You are now Dieste, who is destined to be called the Destroyer, the Fourth Lord of Zhev’Na.”

Ziddari raised his hands and Gerick looked up, and he was not the same as he had been. The graceful youth of his features, already roughened by sun and desert, had taken on a stony edge. No longer could I see the boy who had called for me to run away or who had been unable to look me in the eye as he apologized for losing his soul. He was no longer a boy at all.

“Now,” said Notole, “receive our greatest gift to you upon this, the day of your birth, the day you take your place among the mighty of the world.”

The Three gathered around Gerick. A low hum just at the bounds of hearing set my teeth on edge. Over the glowing blue circle in the floor appeared a ring of dull brass, taller than a man. Suspended in the air, the ring began to spin, teasing at the yellow lamplight and the colored gleam of the Lords’ eyes.

“You have tested the waters of darkness in these past days, but tonight you are to be immersed in them, bathed in them, cleansed of those things that will prevent the fullest expression of your power. Step into the orb, leave yourself completely open, and take your fill of what you find there. By its power and ours and your own, you will be irrevocably changed. Is that your desire?”

Gerick nodded once more.

“Then enter and claim your birthright.”

Without hesitation, Gerick stepped into the very center of the orb, woven of red, green, and purple light. His vague outline was visible inside it, his arms and legs spread wide, and his face upturned as if to embrace whatever awaited him.

“My dearest son, don’t do it,” I cried. “Hold on to yourself. Nothing is irrevocable. You are not what they are. You were blessed and beloved from the first moment your father and I knew of your life. You were treasured by my brother who raised you as his own. And your dear Lucy, think how frightened she was by the lies the world told of those with your gifts, but how she stayed because you were so dear to her. Somehow you will know of these things again. You must not forget…” And to fight off my grief and despair I repeated the long story I had written in the past days, not believing he could hear me or that it could change what was happening, but because I could not watch such evil and stay silent.

It seemed a lifetime until he emerged from the fiery orb, instantly enveloped in the smothering embrace of the Three. Notole dropped a black robe over his head, the same as the other Lords‘. His hands covered his face as they led him to the fourth throne upon the dais. Ziddari and Notole stood to either side of him and gently pulled his arms outwards, uncovering his eyes. They were black pits, gaping and empty.

Parven stood behind him, and while Notole and Ziddari held his hands away, the tall Lord fitted a gold mask over the terrible hollows in my son’s face. So his were to be diamonds, glittering, cold, blue-white stones that could never show fear or anger or love. I could not hear the words that Parven whispered as he ran his fingers around the edges of the mask, but as the gleaming metal molded itself to my son’s brow and his cheekbones, joining itself to his flesh, I sank to my knees and wept bitter tears.

“Young Lord Dieste, we welcome you to our company,” said Notole. “We are old, and you give us new life.”

“You have bathed in the glories of Darkness, surrendering the flawed vision of your race in favor of the true-seeing of your brothers and sister.”

“You have yielded your remaining attachments to the child you were and drunk the wine of immortality.”

“We are Four, and no living hand can undo it.”