Ashes of the Elite

I keep walking, falling back into the rhythm of the group, boots squelching through moss and leaf-litter, the occasional root snagging at my toes. The others take my excuse of "just tripped" at face value. The tension in their shoulders slackens, and their attention slides back to the woods, to the ever-present threat of something watching us from the shadows. Only Elijah lingers near me, his concern plain in the set of his jaw, the way his eyes flick over me. I give him a quick, dismissive nod. I'd rather deal with monsters than his pity.

Zaria's another story. She throws me a glance—measured, knowing, a spark of curiosity burning in those gold eyes that I don't like one bit. I meet her gaze, flat and cold, until she looks away. I am more certain the ever that she knows who and what I am. But what her angle is I haven't figured out. To be honest I'm surprised no one else has connected my name to the three mark bearer but Ill take the wins. I can't afford to care right now anyways. There's too much else gnawing at my insides.

As we move, I turn inward, dissecting what the voices showed me. The vision of power thousands kneeling, my will a hammer that shatters armies, a world bent beneath my shadow it should thrill me. Maybe it does, in some dark corner of my heart. But mostly, it fills me with a sick, crawling dread.

What do they want from me? The voices, what even are they? Are they gods or some ancient evil, thing that rides shotgun in my head they urge me toward conquest, toward divinity, toward becoming more than human. They promise I could have everything I want if I just stop resisting, if I accept the monster they say I am. But can I trust them? Doubtful. Or are they just echoes of my own flaws and fears, a side effect of being marked three times, of having fearmonger stitched into the fabric of my soul?

I scan the faces around me everyone marching, shoulders hunched, eyes darting. I wonder: does anyone else struggle when using their powers? Do the others struggle with voices or visions or literally anything? Or is this just me Ayato Daath, the freak, the outlier, the first tripled marked human in known history.

I remember my Rite of Manifestation. The Inquisitors, robed in black, their eyes burning with zeal. The gods at least, that's what the Inquisitors say whispering from the corners of the my being into my soul, their voices like thunder and honey, their words curling around me. "With extreme power comes extreme suffering." They said as if it was a fact of life and not them cursing me. At the time, I thought they meant sacrifice, discipline, the price of greatness. But now... now I wonder if they meant this. The gnawing voices. The visions of ruin and empire. The sense that my mind is less my own with every day that passes.

Is this what they wanted? Is this what it means to be marked three times to be driven mad by the very thing that makes you strong? Is the suffering supposed to grind me down, hollow me out, until I finally break and become whatever god or monster the voices want me to be? Or is the suffering the point a test, a crucible, to see if I can hold on to my humanity through it all? Either way to hell with them.

Like what does it even mean to "become a god"? The words echo, meaningless and vast, in the hollow of my skull. Am I supposed to rule, to conquer, to make slaves of the world? Is that divinity power for its own sake, untempered by mercy or restraint? Or is it something deeper, something the voices can't explain or don't care? I don't know. I hate not knowing.

My anger simmers, a slow, red heat in my chest. I don't want to be a god. I want to be strong, yes. I want to be untouchable, unbreakable, so no one can ever hurt me again. I want control over my fate, over my power, over the monsters both outside and within. But I don't want to lose myself. I don't want to become a tyrant, a thing that rules by fear alone why would I want to perpetuate a system that took my parents. What's the point of surviving if I'm not myself when I do?