A Whisper of Destiny

1. The Unchosen One

In the Empire of Priaaggaron everyone was a Chosen One. 

Everyday, newscasters spent at least sixty minutes announcing new prophecies, divine auguries, and seers predictions anointing another chosen one. Chosen to lead, chosen to wield the lost magic, chosen to become the promised warrior, chosen to bring light into the darkness, chosen to become legend.

The Branwia Academia was renowned for schooling the most prominent of the Chosen Ones, to become Elite Chosen Ones. Ranging from weaponry to endurance, from demonology to rituals and divination, the academic offer was vast and diverse enough to ensure all chosen ones, no matter their predestined field, fulfilled their divine decree weaved upon them.

When people turned seventeen, the most chosen ones among the Chosen Ones received a letter from Branwia Academia inviting them to join their five-year-long academic program. It was a matter of pride and celebration among families, a day of rejoice for the new students, especially for struggling families from the lower echelons of the Empire whose ancestors had never dreamt of attending an Academia. Much less Branwia Academia.  

Graduates were almost guaranteed the position of their liking in Priaaggaron after finishing their training. Whatever rough times they had faced before, their enrollment and acceptance in Branwia ensured they would leave it all behind.

Leire Glorrinstrike had received her letter a month ago. And she was not happy.

When she recognized the seal on the envelope, Leire was sure it was probably an invitation for a family event. Her sister, Tadhiel, a Chosen  Enochian (the first in their family to have angelical powers from who-knew-which ancestor) was beginning her fourth year and thriving.  From Healing, to Resurrection, from Smiting to Terrakinesis, she was top of her class and had already received invitations from the Aethyrs Order of Priaaggaron to join their ranks the second she graduated.

However, when Leire opened the letter and realized it was addressed to her, a speckle of fear dawned in her heart. When she read the contents and realized it was an acceptance letter to enroll next term in the Class of 3990, her fear turned into full-blown panic.

"What is it now?" asked her mother walking in, a smoking rod on her hand and her eyes reddened after ingesting seer-mushrooms since dawnbreak.

Her mother was a Chosen Seer. Or had been. She hadn't had a premonition since Leire was born -or so she would constantly recriminate Leire. Heiress of a large fortune, she had spent the last seventeen years ingesting all manner of mushrooms, roots, herbs and tonics said to induce visions. All they did was leave her mother in a perpetual high.

Leire handed the letter to her mother without saying a word.

"So what?" grunted her mother. "Are you waiting for me to congratulate you? It was obvious they would send you a letter because of your father."

Her father, a Chosen Scholar and laureated graduate  of Branwia Academia, had been the headmaster up until ten years ago, when the Emperor recluted him to join his personal group of scribes of the Empire. 

Her parents had met during the Swellsun Festivities and Leire became the result of their five days together. Although she often denied it whenever Leire asked her, Pandora had expected Themrost would take her a bride after learning they had conceived a child together. Themrost, however, lost again in the intellectual musings of his destiny as Chosen Scholar, scorned the emotional endeavor of marriage and, instead, calculated the specific amount of gold it would take to rear their child until their prophesy was revealed and split it in two.

It was the practical and objective approach. Most people found their foretold destiny by the age of fourteen. Her father had been generous and calculated she would be one of the late Chosen Ones, ensuring money until she was sixteen.

At seventeen, Therost's gold had ran out and Leire survived on her mother's inheritance,  Tadhiel's handouts whenever she came to visit and her own work as a waitress in a nearby tavern.

"Now you can finally leave that stinky place. And stop taking my money, thinking I won't notice," said Pandora handing the letter back to Leire.

Leire should have been excited. It was a golden opportunity, perhaps the only opportunity, to improve her life. 

Except Leire was not like the others. Leire was not a Chosen One.

Leire was ten when a group of Chosen Sayers unearthen the prophecy about her sister Tadhiel. A woman born in the bloom of snow, with silver hair and golden eyes, descendant of a long line of Chosen Heros (Tadhiel's family on her father's side) and oracles (their mother's family), will wield the power of the celestials and become the awaited enochian heroine. 

Unmistakably Tadhiel.

Since that day, Leire had eagerly awaited for her own divine foretelling of her future, of her gifts, of her destiny. Would she follow her mother's footsteps and become blessed with the Sight? Would she gain access to unimaginable cusps of her mind and become a Sage or Savant like her father? Or would perhaps her ancestry combine to fashion an entirely new fate like it had happened with her sister? If Leire could chose, she would have liked to become a Chosen Enochian too. At least a chosen Conjurer.

She turned fifteen and still no sight of the path fate had in store for her. Perhaps she was a late bloomer -unlike her sister who had been a early bloomer. Certainly next year she would know what her hidden gift was.

Her worries began when she turned sixteen and all her friends had received their prophecy except her.  When she turned seventeen and knew she was not like everyone else, that there was something wrong with her, she began lying.

"I was told to keep it a secret, you know, in case there are demon spies," Leire said as convicing as possible.

Demons -that's what people in Priaaggaron called members from the Tribe of Darkness, expelled hundreds of years ago after Count Brezgoruth betrayed the Tribes of Ancients and Tribes of Elementals as they were coming together to from the Empire.

It was rumored demons had tried to infiltrate Priaaggaron since they were vanished, looking for a weak spot to launch a new attack.  However, it was always easy to spot them: they were never Chosen Ones.

Leire's lie was out of her need to avoid becoming an outcast if anyone discovered she was not a chosen one. Not a social outcast. An actual outcast vanished to the netherworld where demons and devils crawled.

Lying to her friends had been easy. Her mother was too stoned to realize her daughter was lying, her father did not care and her sister was too self-absorb in her own glory.

Lying to a school, especially Branwia Academia, was another thing entirely.  As Leire Glorrinstrike stood before the tall metal gates, glimmering with the residues of practice spells students often cast on it, surrounded by its tall walls made of mortar and granite,  her heart began pounding in fear.

How long was she going to be able to fool them before she was sentenced to exile?