The scenery was beautiful, the day was peaceful, and I’d just been told I was going to die. Two out of three ain’t bad. I held back my panic. Nothing would be helped by getting emotional. I had questions.

“Ascension, more?” I spoke. “Marked ones?”

“Why are you talking like that?” Gerial frowned.

“Can’t. Talk.” I motioned at my throat.

Gerial looked at me. Then he burst out laughing.

“You weren’t kidding when you said you were a baby.” A childish grin replaced his frown. “I remember that part of my life. You want to know how I got past it?”

“Yes.”

Please.

I wanted to be able to use words that would actually express how I was feeling. I watched curiously as he lifted a hand towards my throat. I felt something, a slight tingle in the air, like it was pulled towards me, and then stopped.

“There.” Gerial nodded. “Welcome to the land of the speaking.”

“I- I can talk?” My throat felt unchanged.

Every sound I made came out clearer, and more distinct. It was a proper voice. No stuttering, and no need to repeat sentences several times.

“A spell.” Gerial lowered his hand. “So that we can speak properly. Not being able to say things sucks.”

“Heck yes it does.” This is amazing. “How does it work?”

“Air magic. I can keep it going for as long as I have mana. I developed a spell when I was a baby, so it hardly uses any. Not when my mana pool is so big.”

I rubbed my throat with my hands. The words hadn’t hurt to say.

“You have no idea what I did, do you?” Gerial’s eyes glimmered. “Don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

“I will.” Especially if my survival depended on it.

I took a closer look at Gerial. He was an ordinary kid from every angle. Except for his eyes. He fidgeted from side to side, nervous. Not because of me.

“May you tell me more about this ascension we’re going to be facing. And any other issues or benefits Mark wielders need to know about?”

‘May’? I’m so formal. I’m really not used to talking.

“That's going to take a while.” Gerial said.

“We have time.” I could see the others chattering away, absorbed with their own conversation. “And if this matter concerns my survi-” I stopped mid-sentence and coughed. “I mean, my future, then I’d like to know as much as I can find out.”

“You really have used the Mark a lot.” Gerial stared at me. “I don’t think I was this smart as a baby.” His posture dropped. “And yes, it does have to do with your survival.”

Ah. He’d heard that.

“Ascension is just a fancy word they use for death.” Gerial’s body shook. “I’ve known about it for years. My dad isn’t as good at keeping secrets as he thinks he is. When I’m twenty-five years old I’m going to die.”

I looked at him, and then down at my lap. There’s never a good time to teach a seven-year-old about death. I’m not even sure I could.

“I’m sorry.” Gerial’s voice was wobbly. “I shouldn’t have said that. What if you didn’t know?”

This little boy was going to die. Not now, and possibly not for many years, but it was still on his mind. Not knowing when you’re going to die is easy.

Having a timer placed onto you?

It can’t be easy for him to count every day of his life. And here he was, caring about me. His eyes were watery, and he was worried. He was just a kid.

“I did know.” I reassured him. “But I’d like to know more.”

Gerial perked up.

“I’ll try my best. My dad is trying to keep some things from me. But I figured it out on my own. Let’s see, I guess we’ll start with the other Marked ones.” Gerial nodded, his gaze turning serious.

“There are more of us?” I wondered if they had all seen through the trial that we’d had on the first night.

“Not alive. Not for Crijik.” Gerial shook his head. “There is always a Marked one for each divine, but there are never two.” He looked at me. “Until now. But that shouldn’t be possible. Do you know about the divine?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t that I’d kept myself away from religion, it just never got mentioned. I hadn’t seen my parents leave the house for any sort of mass and there were no religious symbols at the house.

“The Crijik is divine. A single divine, out of many, if you want to get more specific. They’ve helped us. So much. They’ve come to us in dreams and given us magic and knowledge that has shaped our history. Everyone loves them.” Gerial frowned. “But they can’t enter our reality. They’re too… powerful? Different? I'm not sure. That’s where we come in.”

Divine? That didn’t fit the description in my mind. I hadn’t forgotten the first night, it was too terrifying. Something had wrapped itself around the sun and opened it like a tin can. It had destroyed the world around me, and then-

An eye stared at me.

Gerial was talking. I leaned forward. This was important.

“Marked ones.” Gerial pointed to me and then himself. “There is one for every divine. People don’t know what we are. We aren’t prophets, and we don’t receive messages from the divine. But our eyes change colour when we receive the Mark, and our bodies change to fit more mana. It hurts. Our intelligence also grows, and our minds retain more knowledge.”

“Because of those things. There are people that believe the Crijik is trying to make a physical body that it can use to enter our world. That’s also supported by the fact that there has only ever been one Marked person for each divine.”

That didn’t sound good. In fact, that sounded terrible. I don’t want to be taken over by something else. I definitely didn’t want to explode from the inside because of it.

“If it’s true? What would the Crijik do then?” A giant creature rampaging across the city entered my mind.

“Then the divine will do what they’ve always done. Help us.” Gerial sighed. “Everyone wants it to happen. They expect me to activate the Mark, and then to do it again. And again. As many times as possible. Only my father keeps them back, and that’s because he can’t stand seeing me in pain.”

“You shouldn’t have to go through that.” I reached out to him and patted his arm. “I know how much it hurts. Nobody should force that on you. It’s not their right.”

Gerial looked at me and I saw pity in his eyes. And pain. A seven-year-old shouldn't be able to give that look.

“Never tell people you have the Mark. Everyone will want something. No matter what you do.” Gerial said. “People will call you selfish and tell you that there’s only one reason for your existence. They don’t care how much it hurts, because it’s not them doing that hurting.”

He brought his hands up to cover his face, his eyes. I kept my hand on his arm, trying to reassure him. He brushed it off.

“I lied when I told you that you’d discharge any unabsorbed mana… When I first saw you, I felt the Mark, and I was so happy. Not because someone was sharing my burden. It was because now someone else could take it off me.”

“For a second, I let myself think that if I didn’t warn you, and I just let you go on with your life, then maybe I wouldn’t have to die. I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. Maybe you could instead.” He closed his eyes. “That’s horrible, isn’t it? I didn’t know how intelligent you were then. You were just a baby.”

I stared at him. That was a heavy confession. Not just the stuff he’d just said, but the implications behind it. This was a kid. He was also a person with heavy expectations on his back, through no fault of his own.

He was smart, but a child is a child. I was an adult, and it was time I helped him learn that bending isn’t the same as breaking.

“You’re just a kid. Seven years old.” His eyes were still closed, so I grabbed his arm and lowered it. “If I was in your position, I don’t think I’d have the courage to say the words you just did. You had the thought, but you didn’t act on it. What you did… you came up to me and tried to save me.”

A thought occurred to me. “Is this why you were invisible? To avoid my dad, and everyone else?”

Gerial nodded.

He had avoided everyone around him because there was nobody he could talk to. Nobody that didn’t want something from him.

“You’ve been surrounded by selfish people, but you grew into someone that didn’t want to force anything on me. Even when I can take in the pain you’re feeling, you chose not to give it to me. You’re more than just a boy Gerial, you’re a good person.” I sat back and let him have his space. “But now I want to know something about ascension we haven’t talked about. How do we prevent it?”

The boy didn’t respond. We sat there for several seconds, until he shuffled and lowered his arms.

Gerial looked up. “That depends on who you ask. The adults around me say it can’t be stopped. It’s been tried over and over again by the previous Marked ones. They all failed. But my dad says it can be prevented. It just hasn’t been so far. He’s convinced he can figure out a method to save me.”

He hesitated, and a pained expression crossed his face.

“He hasn’t figured one out yet.” Gerial’s voice lowered. “He thinks that if I keep growing my mana pool then I can survive for longer when the time comes. That I’ll be able to fight off the transition. He’s hoping that from now until then he’ll figure something out. But other Marked ones have tried. Lots of mana or no mana, it still happened.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I have nothing.”

“You have my help.” My tone was firm. “You said other Marked ones have tried, but there’s never been two at the same time. We’re still young. We have time to think. To plan.”

My mind raced.

There had to be a solution. “Tell me more about the benefits we get. Is there anything that can help us?”

“The best one is the increase to mana.” Gerial said. “But the second best is our higher intelligence.”

I held up a hand. “Increased intelligence? Just in general? Or do you mean a stat increase as well.”

He frowned. “Yes. To both. You know that. Look at how intelligent you are.”

I stared at him. He didn’t know I was reincarnated. He’d assumed that all of my intelligence was because I was activating the Mark. It wasn’t.

I had been activating the Mark, so where was my intelligence increase?

Gerial closed his eyes as he thought. “When you activate the Mark there is the initial change.”

“The gold wave of mana.” I said.

“Exactly.” He nodded. “Then there is the second wave. That second wave gives you your intelligence.”

Oh. I knew what he was talking about. I’d seen that second wave appear a couple of times, but each time had been right before I went to sleep. I never actually saw what happened with that wave. I’d just assumed that it also increased my maximum mana pool.

“I try to activate the Mark right before I sleep.” I admitted. “I’ve seen that wave a couple of times. I didn’t know it wasn’t a maximum mana increase.”

“Gerial!” A voice resounded through our ears. “We’re going to be late for school.”

Gerial’s father waved at us, a smile on his face. Gerial looked at the adults and then back at me.

“Those are the two benefits. Your mana will allow you to level quickly. Your intelligence will allow you to learn skills quickly. Maybe you’ll get further than me and find a solution so that you don’t have to die.”

“We’ll find a solution so that we won’t die.” I was resolute. “Gerial, may I ask a favour?”

“Of course.” Gerial nodded

“Can you keep this talking magic active? Just for a bit.”

Gerial nodded. “Two months. That’s when I’ll be forced to empty my mana pool again. Until then I can keep the spell activated.”

He stood up to leave, and my father came to pick me up. “My dad runs Koshima Academy. You will be able to get in once your measurement is done. I'll see you there…”

He paused and I could see the awkwardness in his expression. I realised what he was worrying about and chuckled.

“Andross.” I smiled at him. “My name is Andross.”

We waved goodbye and I watched him and the headmaster heading towards another entrance, and I saw his father give him a comforting smile. A man that knew what his son was going through and was trying his best to save him without hurting him.

I don’t want to die.

I looked up at my father, my dad, and remembered what he had done for me. He wasn’t my old family, but he was my family. I’d died once and lost everything. I wouldn’t do it again. Not without living my life to the fullest.

I needed to know how it all worked. The magic. The system. The divine. Twenty-five years was a short time to live, but it was a long time to plan. I’m going to learn, and I’m going to fight. There are no more restrictions.

I’m going to ask so many questions.