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The ruins were still and silent as they approached. A light mist had settled over the evening, giving the world an ethereal, unreal quality before they'd even begun.
It seemed to be an unspoken tradition that no words be uttered while each of the new witchers stripped down to their breeches, and Aiden felt a chill erupt over his body as he slowly bared himself to the red light of the setting sun, chewing on his lip as he considered what he knew of the Trial to come. The Cats were born from pain and death, and of all the schools, theirs lost the fewest of their number to this Trial.
Kiyan beckoned him over, a soft smile on his lips. It wasn’t often that he turned gentle like this, and it was often only for Aiden. It always left a cold, twisting feeling in Aiden’s gut, knowing that Kiyan favoured him. Kiyan's kindness rarely extended past Aiden, and it was uncomfortable to watch him turn from callous and uncaring with others to doting and paternal with Aiden.
"I've given Death many gifts over the years," Kiyan whispered to him, unravelling his braid to fix the loose strands of dark hair, so like Kiyan's own. "She will smile on you, I know it. You are the gift she and her sister gave me. You will serve her well."
Aiden’s shiver had nothing to do with the chill in the air. He knew that Kiyan was proud of every kill he made, but to hear it said in such a reassuring tone left Aiden feeling as though someone had dropped ice down his shirt.
He was saved the ordeal of dredging up a response by the sound of Treyse calling the names of those to undergo the Trial.
"I cannot tell you what you will experience tonight," Treyse said, eyes roving over the soon-to-be-witchers gathered before him. The setting sun at his back bathed the sky in crimson, and the mist swirled around them, the ghosts of the past flooding the ruins to be with them during their Trial. "What I can tell you, is that you must make your own sense of what you experience. Walk softly, guard your spirit, and trust in those who came before."
Guxart stepped up next, holding a bowl of paints.
"Our school was founded by the blood of those who built these ruins," he said, voice solemn. "We honour them by walking among them, and accepting the wisdom they choose to share with us. Step forward and receive your marks, that you might walk with them, and yet still return to us."
The brush was cold as it swirled over Aiden's skin. First his chest, then his back, and his arms, and finally his face, ancient symbols blooming over his skin, inviting the spirits of his predecessors, and the people whose blood he shared, to come to him. Symbols which freed his spirit of his body, no longer caged, but tethered so that he could wander far, without becoming lost.
Eventually, all seven of them were seated in a loose ring, a fully realised witcher between each of them, and a small campfire in the centre. A pipe was passed around the circle, the smoke curling lazily upward as Aiden breathed out. It mingled with the mist, adding to the haze.
Aiden felt his nerves loosen, relaxing into the quiet camaraderie. The pipe came around again, and he drew a long pull from it, letting go of his earlier worries over Kiyan's words.
After the pipe had been passed around the circle for a third time, Kiyan handed him a vial, filled with a sickly-sweet smelling potion. There was a strangely bitter aftertaste when Aiden swallowed the potion, but Cedric had warned him of the taste before they'd all left the caravan.
Aiden leaned back on his hands, listening as Guxart began speaking. He was telling stories they’d all heard half a hundred times before, so Aiden found himself quickly distracted by the sight of Joël tracing patterns in the quickly growing haze around them. Mist and smoke danced around his fingers, and Aiden watched as it slowly began to coalesce into a vague shape.
Around them all, the ruins began to fade into darkness, then solidify again, the walls stretching upward. Aiden was struck with the thought that it was rather like watching a tree grow, if trees grew in a matter of moments, rather than over many years.
He turned to comment on the absurdity of it to Kiyan, only to find a new figure at his side, nearly hiding Kiyan from view behind her riot of curly hair that seemed to be caught up in a strong breeze that Aiden couldn't feel. She was beautiful, and vaguely familiar, though Aiden was quite sure he would never be able to describe her later.
She turned a gentle smile in his direction, and held out a slender hand to him.
"Would you take a stroll with me?" she asked, her voice lilting and musical as the Elder dripped from her tongue like the sweetest honey.
Aiden took her hand wordlessly, finding himself quite incapable of responding intelligently.
"How wonderful," she beamed.
Her hand was no heavier than spidersilk in his, and Aiden knew that she must be one of the ghosts that had been invited to join them at their Savoine fire. He wondered if her blood ran in his veins, or if her appearance was a mere coincidence.
She led him away from the fire, and into the halls of a great castle, bright stars visible through the windows they passed.
"The world is so strange now," the woman said, her hand tucked delicately into Aiden’s elbow. "Our people are so few. So hurt. So… diminished."
She gave him a sad look, eyes trailing over the tips of his ears, no doubt judging the barely-there point to them. He remembered the days he spent as a child pinching at the tips to try to force them into a shape that closer matched Kiyan's, whose ear tips still did not yet match those of true elves.
"Those who remain have grown to be little different from those they fight," the woman continued, shaking her head. Aiden could just barely feel her hair tickle at his shoulder.
"The world rewards gentleness with pain," Aiden said, repeating that which Kiyan had told him since he was a small child.
The woman pulled away from him, her eyes hard.
"Those are the words of a warrior," she sneered. "Kindness at times leads to sadness, and so you should not bother yourself to be kind."
She stormed away from him, and Aiden felt as though he had failed at something important.
He tried to follow after her, but she'd been swallowed by the mist.
A mewling, pathetic cry reached his ear from around the next corner, and Aiden followed it, giving up on finding the woman.
Huddled by the wall was a tiny kitten, eyes not yet open. It cried so pitifully, and Aiden cast his eyes around for where its mother might have gone.
"Don't bother," a voice told him from the mist. "It's alone. Nobody is coming for it."
Aiden felt his heart clench at the knowledge that this creature had been abandoned.
The speaker stepped into Aiden’s vision, revealing himself to be Grandmaster Gezras. Aiden had to wonder if it was just another vision. He’d only seen the Grandmaster a handful of times over the sixteen years he'd been with the Dyn Marv, and it seemed strange that he would involve himself in the Trial of the Veil when he had shown no interest in any of the other Trials that Aiden could recall.
"What are you going to do about it?" Grandmaster Gezras demanded, sharp eyes fixed on the tiny kitten.
"I…" Aiden wasn’t sure. "Kiyan would tell me to leave it. It's almost certain to die, whether I interfere or not. Trying to help it would be a waste of time and resources."
Grandmaster Gezras snorted. "Did I fucking ask what Kiyan would tell you to do?"
Aiden flushed. He knew better than to dance around an answer when asked a direct question.
"I'd like to take it back to the caravan," he confessed quietly. "Look after it, at least until we get to the next town."
Grandmaster Gezras nodded. "Could still die," he noted.
Aiden sighed. "At least I'd have tried," he said, scooping the kitten up.
The creature turned to smoke in his hands, and Grandmaster Gezras smiled strangely, his face becoming unfamiliar.
"You understand, then," the stranger said, fading into the mist once more.
Aiden wasn't sure that he understood at all.
Puzzling over the strange interaction, he turned to find his way back to the fire, only to realise that the walls had fallen away once more, leaving him in a darkened clearing. The full moon above provided ample light to the clearing, but the trees beyond seemed impenetrable in their darkness.
A shadow shifted, and began to prowl forward. Eyes appeared within it, glowing gold. Then a second pair, then a third, until Aiden was surrounded not by trees, but a wall of shadows, staring at him from every direction. These were his brethren, he knew, other witchers, with their golden cat eyes. He should have felt safe.
He felt hunted.
There was nowhere to run. Nowhere he could turn that would not have a witcher in his path.
"Oh, Aiden, my sweet kitten," a voice crooned, sickly-sweet. It was poisoned sugar, nightshade mixed into honey.
"I want to go back to my brothers," Aiden cried out to the moon above.
"You howl like a mutt, kitten," the voice laughed. "Will you howl for me?"
The shadows were closing in. Aiden was shaking.
"I am still bound to the plane of the living," Aiden said, his voice quivering as he remembered tales of those who wandered too far during their Trial and were lost. "Take me back to my brothers!"
The shadows laughed.
"Your brothers are here," the voice said, pitched low and soothing. The words left Aiden with the feeling of ants crawling all over his skin.
A true howl rang out through the night, and a wolf with pitch black fur dashed through the shadows, swiping and snapping at the smoke curls left behind.
Aiden took advantage of the broken circle and ran, uncaring which direction he went. His only thought was to escape the shadows.
Above him, the moon swelled in size, like an overfull waterskin.
Still, Aiden kept running. The ruins were within his sight, the light of the campfire softly glowing on the broken walls.
The wolf howled again, and Aiden pushed himself harder, a quick burst of speed enough to get him past the first wall.
The moon swelled further, bloated and straining.
Aiden rounded the second wall, spotting the circle of witchers around the fire. The mist swirled around them, and he could see the slumped forms of his cohort, all of them travelling beyond the Veil.
Guxart was still telling stories.
Aiden tripped his way around the fire to where Kiyan sat, Aiden’s body flat on its back by his side.
He reached out, and just as his fingers brushed his own arm, the moon above burst.
Aiden shot up with a gasp, eyes wild.
Above him, the moon hung placidly in the sky, shining silver light down on them all.
"Welcome," Kiyan said quietly, beaming. "You're a true witcher now. I told you that Death would return you to us."
Aiden nodded numbly, his heart still racing.
The pipe was passed to him again, and he took a long drag, desperate for the calm it would bring.
He did not understand the warning he had been given, but he knew it for the warning it was. All that he could do was hope that he would have enough time to decipher it.