The morning light filtered through stained glass windows, painting the quartz floor in fragments of red and yellow. Hyde stood at the church's entrance, his gray eyes taking in the scene before him with careful observation.
His initiation was the first time he'd ever stepped foot outside the castle, this far, he had only read about such things as this, living them was a completely different experience.
To his left, rows of wooden pews stretched toward the distant altar, each one filled with people he had known his entire life. His several uncles and aunts sat in the front row, their orange-red eyes, the characteristic glow of the K'onoma, fixed upon him. Behind them sat cousins, second cousins, and distant relatives whose names he knew but their faces had blurred together in his memory.
To his right, there was more of the same. The K'onoma lineage filled the church to near capacity, generations of his bloodline gathered to witness the tradition that had continued for thousands of years.
A'cci was sitting on the back row, along with everyone who didn't share a bloodline with Hyde, but was still present in his life somehow. Guards, slaves, apothecaries, scholars...
The floor beneath his bare feet was quartz, smooth and glossy with a slight grip to it. A central aisle of dark marble ran directly before him, cutting through the pews, leading toward the alter. Small grooves had been worn into its surface. Countless initiates had walked this same walk before him.
Above, the ceiling faded into darkness. The stained glass windows did not reach high enough to illuminate the rafters, leaving the church's upper reaches lost in shadow. Stone curved upward, meeting at points you could see.
Across the room, at the far end of that aisle, stood the altar. But before it, arranged in a loose semicircle, were figures Hyde had never seen before in his life.
Old men standing like statues draped in white. Their robes covered every single inch of their skin, from their shoulders to the floor, along with hoods pulled forward so that their faces remained in shadow. Only their eyes were visible, these burned red. Brighter than any K'onoma eyes Hyde had ever seen before.
They look an awful lot like cultists. Hyde thought. They looked exactly like the illustrations in novels about forbidden sects, the classic fiction of robed figures performing rituals in ancient temples.
Hyde himself stood at the threshold, dressed in garments that had been tailor-made specifically for this day. A black cloak draped over his frame, with a hole cut in the center for his head to pass through, this garment was one of tradition, passed down in generations to indicate status across the entire kingdom. It hung from his shoulders, covering his white fur. Near the edges, at the height of his elbows, colorful borders had been woven into the fabric, patterns in threads of pink, blue and purple, contrasting against the overwhelming black.
A phrase in Geortarian was woven on top of the colorful borders, it wrapped around the entirety of the cloak's circumference. Before wearing it, Hyde took a moment to read it.
Under the cloak of Kurviz, may we the people be safe.
Beneath the cloak, he wore a white button-up shirt, clean and spotless, the fabric smooth against his chest's fur. Light brown pants completed the ensemble. His paws, for he could not call them hands, with their pads, claws and fur, hung at his sides, the left one still bearing the thin line of a healing cut.
His pointy ears twitched slightly as they caught the whisper of movement from the ancient figures across the room. His tail, white as snow, remained still behind him.
One of the ancient old men detached itself from the semicircle and moved toward the altar. The others remained motionless, their red eyes fixed on Hyde.
Hyde's walked forward along the aisle. Each step gave a soft thump due to his paw pads, he kept his gaze fixed ahead.
"Do you know the purpose of your visit?" The old man asked, his red eyes fixed on Hyde's gray ones.
Hyde knew what this whole ritual was about, but it was against common practice to act like a know-it-all especially with such ancient men before you. "No, I don't." This couldn't be translated properly from his original Geortarian language. But Hyde used the lowest form honorific on himself, as a way to present himself as someone humble.
"Do you accept the future task of watching over the kingdom as the king?"
"Yes."
"Are you conscious of the desire of Kurviz for the kingdom of Geortaria."
"Yes."
"Will your soul take shape as the property of Kurviz?"
There was a small pause before Hyde gave a sigh and his final answer.
"Yes, it will."
The old man's voice was the deepest sound Hyde had ever heard, a vibration almost impossible from a human throat.
"Kneel."
Hyde knelt as the word rumbled through his chest. The floor was cold against Hyde's knees, the old man loomed above him, and began to chant.
The language was nothing Hyde had ever encountered. Not the ancient Kortarian tongues, of which there are countless records, including the liturgical spoken language, or the several indigenous languages of Galyscia that hold no prestige. This felt like something older, that predated writing itself.
It started behind his eyes, a sharp pressure, growing into something that felt like strong invisible fingers of an impossible strength, pressing against the outside of his skull. They pushed, trying to dig through the bone and tissue to the brain matter.
His vision blurred, the old man's eyes tripling and the chanting continued, fading off, sounding more and more muted.
Then the darkness came.
✝ ✝ ✝ ✝
Hyde woke up in his bed, the ceiling was the familiar gray stone. Sunlight filtered through his narrow window with afternoon light.
He lay still for a long moment, staring at a crack in his ceiling. His head ached with a dull, distant pain.
Taking a moment to stand up from bed, he headed towards his wooden drawer, it was quite new, lacking splinters unlike his desk, grabbing his hand mirror.
Blue.
His eyes weren't red like his family's, his right eye kept its gray color, but the left one was another story, it was a bright cyan blue.
The mirror slipped from Hyde's paw and clattered against the wooden drawer. Not the orange red of every K'onoma, not the gray he had worn for sixteen years, a bright blue.
This isn't possible.
He grabbed the mirror from where it had fallen, his paws trembling, he held it up again. His eye was unchanged, everything about him seemed normal, except for that one blue tint of his eye. His pupil had become a color of no records or stories.
Not a single mention of this in any book. In thousands of years of K'onoma history, this has never happened.
Hyde turned from the mirror and pressed his back against the wall, his breath agitated.
Did anyone notice? I'll be disowned. My father will be so disappointed I might be executed as if he never had a son to begin with, first single child in ten generations and I-
The thoughts made Hyde gag and cover his mouth with his paw, there was an unbearable pressure across his entire body that almost made him throw up.
He pushed off from the wall and crossed to his door in two strides, throwing it open. The hallway was completely empty.
Rushing through the corridor and up a narrow staircase, he was met with the castle's balcony. The one place in the castle where he wasn't surrounded by crammed walls.
The balcony was small, barely enough to fit three people, two if one of them was larger, its stone railing was smooth. Hyde gripped it with both paws and leaned forward.
Before him, the Geortarian kingdom sprawled, but beyond the city walls, the land changed. The green cultivation turned into a yellow endless expanse of sand and rock that stretched for miles.
Ah, so that's what the desert looks like. A wasteland of shifting dunes and freezing nights.
Hyde forced himself to focus on the desert, to breathe the crisp outside air, he had never stepped foot into the balcony, this is all an unknown area.
His pulse began to slow and his vision focused, the tightness in his chest loosened up. He kept his gaze fixed on the distant line where sand met the sky.
I wonder what blue means.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision. Hyde's head snapped to its direction.
"AGHHH-!!!"
There was another person just like him next to him.
"AHH-!!"
He screamed back. Hyde clung onto the balcony's railing like his life depended on it, his quick breaths came back.
"WHO ARE YOU!?"
The other man laughed and leaned onto the balcony's railing, staring off into the distance.
"There was no need to scream, and how come you don't know me? We were centimeters apart when we last met in the church."
When we last met in the church? Was he one of those old men... No, his body looks young, I don't see any wrinkles or weird details, he's also way taller than those old men.
"That doesn't answer anything..."
The other man looked Hyde's way, he was another wolf hir-soger, but a gray wolf. His fur was well kept with almost a smooth finish to it. Wearing a black button-up with pants of the same color.
Both of his eyes were a dull purple.
"God of death, protector of the Geortarians, Kurviz."
Kurviz stretched out his hand, offering it to Hyde.
"K-Kurv..." Hyde felt another headache, he leaned harder onto the railing, throwing his head back, staring into the afternoon sun.
Nauseous...
"Ah, I'll let you have a moment to process it, it takes people a while to get used to having a god in front of them."
"So you're... THE Kurviz...?"
"In the flesh! ... Sort of. This is the body of the first K'onoma, y'know? It's been my sort of, physical manifestation, hah, if you saw my true form, you'd rip your eyes out and go crazy."
Hyde tried to go back to his normal stance, shaking off the nausea, which only made him even more dizzy, with a gulp, he tried his best to stay calm.
"So, what are you doing here, Kurviz, my highness...?"
Is that the right honorific?
"Don't use such language with me, I'm a god not an egocentric prick. Just call me Kurviz, perhaps, in the future I'll let you calm me a nickname."
"The future...?"
"Right, that's what I came here for."
Kurviz focused his purple eyes on Hyde's mismatched gray and blue ones.
"I wish to strike a deal with you, Shob K'onoma."
"A-A deal? May I ask why? Why me?"
"We'll get to that later, first, here's the deal.
"I will live in that blue eye of yours, and I'll manifest through your hands. They'll become your weapon. And in exchange..."
Kurviz pulled Hyde closer, whispering into his ear.
"I want you to destroy it all. You will be the last K'onoma."