Mountains Inside Your Skull
Never would she have speculated that The Harrowing would be such a horrific ritual. The Fade was all that she had never known and all that she had been taught to fear. It had been rife with spirits and of them one had offered her more aid than others. Caution and fear had made her distrustful, and The Harrowing had seen her proven right for it. She had woken from The Fade as the colors of dawn bled into the room. In her mind had echoed a reminder -- magic was made to serve man -- and on her tongue had lingered the phantom taste of an air that had never known the influences of man. She had felt grass beneath her hands as she raised herself from the ground then the cobbled stone of the tower. In the waking world no warmth had been left but her own.
The hours that came after her harrowing were a blur. Words had been spoken to her, but like water their voices had slipped through her fingers. Veata had spoken herself but her responses were lost to her memories. She had been escorted from the room and brought to another in a wing of the tower denied to her as an apprentice. The templar that had brought her to her private quarters hadn’t cast her a second glance as he’d ushered her inside. She did not remember falling into the bed without undressing, but it was there she laid when she woke as her thoughts filled with the only clear memories of the night. In slumber Veata had dreamt of The Fade -- of its horrors and of its terrible, beautiful world.
She had woken too late for the mid hour lunch. Not that it mattered. The mere thought of food alone left a bland, dry taste in her mouth. She did not think she could eat even if she wanted to. Instead she laid chasing from her head thoughts of The Fade until her mind was as silent as her room. Veata roused herself. The Circle was all she had known, and in childhood she had never known true silence. No space had been her own, and as she looked around her new quarters she thought it was almost too much space for a single person. She stood from the bed. Hers. With silent reverence she touched the walls. Hers. Veata could not remember a time that something had been hers. Even her robes had been communal.
For how long Veata spent reveling in the intimate details of her quarters could not be said, but it was a firm knock on the door that would interrupt her. She hastened to open it. It was of little surprise to her that a templar stood on the other side. No doubt her absence had been noted, and so soon after her harrowing she was surprised that the templar sent to report on her had knocked. “Is there something wrong, Ser?” She noted with mild interest that he was not unknown to her. Grant. He had spoken with her the night before her harrowing had taken place. Had he been one of the templars appointed to stand vigil over her? She couldn’t say. But for herself, the Knight Commander, and the First Enchanter all others had been in full armor including helms.