"The Drai is yours, but not yours alone. The process will grant both souls access to their mana. Inside the one body, there will be two Drai."
"Aries and Cancer."
Lord Aries, Ruler of Mars, bellowed his rage.
It was a barely contained thing to begin with, pushing at the seams of his arrogant facade. Now, when told he couldn't get his way, possibly for the first time, it all came pouring out.
He jumped to his feet, muscles rippling. The air shimmered around him. The heat of his power was causing the air to waver. It looked like a mirage in the desert, but no calm, no oasis, was found here.
Aries was big. His throne was made to suit him. So when he threw it across the grand hall of the Keeper's mansion - the Palace of the Gods - it shook the very foundations of the place.
"Keeper!" he screamed, "You will rue the day you crossed the great Aries!"
The newly anointed Drai cringed from the strength of his voice as it reverberated in their minds. Amos was still whimpering on the floor.
The Keeper looked at the fuming God calmly. "Do you want half a Drai or none?"
"I will not share with Cancer! I paid in full!"
"There is no option, Aries. You will make do with the Drai you are given. Remember this: Given. You earned nothing. Do not forget where your privilege comes from."
Aries stood trembling with a violence that could not be held inside him. Veins burned beneath his skin like rivers of magma, pulsing and bulging in bursts. For a moment, a silent, deadly moment, it seemed like he might lunge at the Keeper.
"The boy will break," Aries said, quelling himself.
Anger pushed down will bubble to the surface, eventually. But the Lord of Mars has no choice. The Keeper nodded, accepting the Ruler's surrender. She turned to Amos.
Amos tried curling into a tighter ball, trying to hide from the pain in his head. He felt something shift inside of him. The pain was gone.
He looked up with the remnants of tears wetting his eyes and streaking his cheeks. The Keeper stood over him with her hand outstretched, as if granting a blessing.
Amos gasped, gulping greedily as if the air might escape him again. He could breathe. The air was sweet as it filled his lungs, inflating his spirit.
"Congratulations," the Keeper flashed her smile again, "to all newly anointed Drai! Unfortunately, we don't have a full crop tonight, only nine out of a potential fifteen Aries-born were able to witness this Total Solar Eclipse."
So there's a maximum of fifteen new Drai every Eclipse...
"You will feel the spiritual pathways in your body opening to accept the mana around you. You cannot use the mana in the Palace, but once you return to Holvarth your powers will become available to you. You may increase your power through loyalty to your Ruler, Lord Aries. At Rank One, there is much you cannot do. As you progress, your Ruler will be able to guide you more... physically."
This must be why Drai are thought to be insane - the Gods can control them at higher levels of power!
The Keeper stepped back up to the stage, moving through space like there was an extra dimension only she could access. One second she was in front of Amos, opening his mana flow, the next she was on stage, addressing the unsuccessful supplicants.
"Deepest apologies to the unfortunate ones, but we cannot have you repeating what you saw here. There is only one way out for you."
A moan sounded from the crowd. Shouts and pleas bounced off the walls and the Keeper's ears alike.
She spread her hands with her palms upturned. Bright lights shot upwards, emanating from her skin. They looked like fireworks - a single bright point with a trail of dazzling light. They floated for a moment, the light trails fading.
Then they buzzed into action.
"Mana," called the Keeper, "has infinite applications for those who can understand its nature. For the Drai, and the mortals that harness their own in the name of 'science', the essence of life cannot be so easily manipulated. Rules exist to make it all easier. That is to say, do not expect to be able to do this."
The floating lights had been whirring around the air, moving lazily and drawing intricate patterns of coloured light. Aries watched with glee in his eyes as the movement turned from lazy to angry. The lights began to dart, to snap, to jerk. The buzzing intensified, getting louder.
Then the mana-guided lights dropped down. Amos thought of birds dive-bombing into bodies of water, looking to spear a meal. The lights didn't spear any fish, but pierced through the skulls of all supplicants that were not born under Aries.
Amos watched in horror. Shock was written all over his face as bone cracked and blood spurted and gore squelched. People screamed and ran, but there was no escape. Even if the doors to the great hall were not so far away, even if they were not barred, the lights were too fast.
They all died, except for nine.
When it was done, the room fell silent. The lights returned to her and were absorbed into her palms. The senseless death seemed to have calmed Lord Aries, the air around him no longer shimmering angrily.
There were blood spatters on the new Drai's clothes, flecks dotting exposed skin. Corpses lay around them, mouths agape and staring with lifeless eyes.
The Keeper suddenly appeared in front of the line of First Rank Drai. She paid the dead no heed, and began working like nothing had happened. She started at the opposite end of the line to Amos.
Her freakishly long hand rested on the Drai's shoulder. The poor thing's eyes were wide with shock - she must not have understood the danger she was in. The Keeper soothed her and announced her as the Drai of Castford. When she did so, the Drai disappeared.
Next was Harbham. Then Dumanch. Bosuria. Yeolesia. Portsbury. Calworth. Welasonia.
Amos held onto each of the region's names the Keeper doled out. He always needed more information about the world. There were more, she had said, that weren't present. That didn't observe the Eclipse. This was more than Amos had received in a long time, though, and he relished it.
Finally, under the silent gaze of Lord Aries, the Keeper reached Amos Aquila.
Up close, he could see her fingers were just under twice the length of a normal person's. There was an extra knuckle on each. She laid the hand on his shoulder and announced him to no one except the three of them remaining in the room.
"Amos Aquila," she said. He felt that probing sensation - the physical ghostly touch that defied the laws of physics (like that mattered anymore) - and knew the Keeper had found his true name.
"Bailey Kaison."
I'm not alone. I feel strange.
What's happening?
"Amos Aquila and Bailey Kaison."
She didn't say it out loud, but the terrifying smile carried the telepathic message to him.
"You are the Drai of Mauria."
And then Amos was gone.