Everything seemed to be happening twice, at the same time, these days, and it all boiled down to his name.
He was Jonathan Merlin Gibson. He was named Jonathan because his mother and father had always liked that name, Merlin because that was his mother's maiden name and his Dad couldn't consume enough fiction to sate his appetite for tales of the Round Table, and Gibson because that was his father's name and his mom was adamant about what happened to a maiden name on marriage.
He knew this from nearly sixteen years of life.
But he also knew he was Kamiéra dal'Falein. Kamiéra because that was the name of the Prophetess who had first brought the worship of the Mother, Praise Her, to the Empire, may it last forever, and only once a generation was a girl allowed to take the Fiery Brand's name by the Matriarchs of the Temples. Falein because this was his (other) father's House, and when his (other) mother left House Amdresa, she proudly took on the status of a daughter of Falein by marriage, a dil'Falein; and so the sons she bore her husband bore the name da'Falein, the daughters dal'Falein.
He knew this because his (other) mother had visited on Autumn Dawning, when he'd learned who she was and that she was (also) his mother, and though he learned these things for the first time when he met her in the Receiving Hall, his love for her and certainty that she was his mother was no less true than every true thing he learned from her on that day for the very first time.
So he was Jon. He was Kamiéra. His mother was Jane Gibson, née Merlin. His mother was Alleisa sa'Amdresa dil'Falein. He was a vaguely Christian kid who almost never went to church because his dad liked football and his mom only occasionally got guilty over it. He was a devout believer in the Mother and sincerely sang praises to her every morning with his sisters. He maybe wanted to be an architect when he grew up. He wanted nothing more from life than to be a Witchspear. He figured he'd probably maybe get married to someone, maybe Karyn, and have a few kids. He would almost certainly either enter a Battle Cloister or marry a Blademage and bear many children.
He didn't so much have a headache over all this as experience irregular bouts of what happens when vertigo and double vision have a kid.
Nevertheless, class was starting and he had to excel and learn everything here perfectly, so he put his half-formed thoughts to the side. He'd hated anatomy before, but knowing how the human body works is vital for war and healing, for medicine and childbirth, for violence and intimacy, and a Witchspear must know all of these things and so he would.
"Attend, class," began the Schola Magistra, who was filling in for Magistra Elain as the latter recovered from a particularly grueling childbirth. "Today, we will be focusing on the flow of blood and energy in the body. We will gather our Wills -- calm down," she said in response to cheering from the assembled girls. "This is a rare exception, but it is necessary to learn the lesson properly. There is no way to present a living image otherwise."
Jon almost formed a thought about televisions and MRIs and computers and cell phones and then stopped, because obviously there was no other way to show a living image than to use the Will. He wondered what he had been about to think, and experienced that vertiginous double vision again.
Amaso piped up. "Magistra," she said, ignoring or not seeing the scowl from the older woman. "I have a question. It's sort of about blood, I think." Seeing the Magistra mollified, she continued. "Around the same time our moonblood stopped flowing, it seems to me and some of us," she waved vaguely around her but everyone knew this meant Llaha, "our minds seemed to change as well. As if our lessons are clear, and our present is clear, but our pasts seem to be through a scrying stone. Why is that?"
The Schola Magistra's eyes lit up. "I am impressed, Novice," she said, clearly relishing this chance to discuss something that interested her. "And it is distantly related to your moonblood.
"The Academy was crafted with Will focuses," she began as if this was not information they'd all learned growing up, which for Jon at least was true. "But few outside these walls know that those same Will stones are embedded in the walls all around us. In fact, there are," a pause, "Eleven of those in this very classroom."
She smiled at the collective gasp. "No need to worry," she said. "These stones are hundreds of generations old, placed before the Empire even reached these mountains. Their Will was shaped deliberately and in passing before the Faith of the Father and Mother even came to be. There is no danger that anyone can loose Wild Will from them.
"The Foundresses of our Order knew that most of our novices would have a duty to bear children some time after they left these walls, and so your moonblood pauses until you leave." Nods. They all knew that. "But your past lives do not matter." One of a dozen pairs of eyes went blank as she said this, but she was in her element and barely paying attention to the girls before her. "Who you are here and now, and who you will be when you leave here, matters far more than your past before you came here.
"That is part of becoming a Witchspear, and so the Will in those stones helps guide you as much as we do -- in their own way." She smiled at the rapt eyes before her. "Now, let us speak of blood, beginning with your own. Embrace the Wind."
Kamiéra dal'Falein embraced the Wind with his Will.
