The Rite of Valaria

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

I was 16 when it all started. The war that broke out between the planets. It was a day like every other. Unremarkable. I’d gotten up, went to school, went to training, and then come home. We sat down to dinner like we did every night and discussed how each of our days had been. Dad mentioned something about work and Mom continued a previous conversation about giving me a brother. We’d finished eating, gotten ready for bed, and it was lights out. Then everything changed. I awoke to the sound of explosions and the unending screams of fear and pain from outside my window. Before I could even get out of bed my father burst through the door shouting. “MAYA, GET UP! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!”

I shoved my feet into my favorite pair of black boots by my bedroom door, not stopping to lace them up, and grabbed the leather jacket I had tossed over my chair earlier that day. We bolted down the stairs to the foyer where my mother was waiting anxiously, a bag slung over her shoulder, and I grabbed her hand as we all turned towards the door. That’s when the next bomb hit.

I bolted awake, heart pounding, immediately glancing around my room, checking for any sign of something out of place. But, of course, there was nothing. Everything was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was fine I repeated to myself mentally as I let out a sigh and took the three practiced long breaths that had become muscle memory at this point. It wasn’t the first time that the nightmare had yanked me from sleep and it wouldn’t be the last. It was a memory really. The last night I saw my parents faces. The fear in their eyes as they looked at me in that last moment, right before the bomb hit. My mothers face crumpling in pain as our hands were torn apart, both of us being thrown across the room by the force of the blast. My father screaming my name as he hit the floor. Then the crunch of bone sounding in my ears and in my head just before the room started to fade away. I’d woken up in a hospital bed a day later with my head pounding and every muscle in my body sore, protesting with even the slightest movement. It was far from my first time being in a hospital but I’d never been this bad. I healed faster than a regular human because of my mixed blood, but not nearly as fast as a full-blooded faerie. Because of my rigorous training I was what you might consider a usual at the hospital. But not this one. Nothing around me looked familiar. I later found out that I’d been taken to a hospital in Tarvian, the capital city of Ganymede, which was a day away from my town of Cerras if you walked it. But luckily for me, the Tarvian medical ship that flew out to look for any survivors made the trip in just under an hour. My parents hadn’t been as lucky. Their injuries were worse than mine I’d been told when I asked to see them. Their bodies had been left there in the ruins of our family home, the ship not having enough space to take the bodies of the dead. There were far too many. Most of the town had been leveled. How I’d survived, I had no idea. There were only about 100 of us that did, and of that even less had made it out of the hospital.

I didn’t want to keep thinking about that night. It had been almost a year since then and the loss of my parents, my home, my life…the pain in my chest when I thought about them… I just couldn’t deal with it right now. I was already wide awake so I might as well get up. I grabbed my phone and looked at the time. 0313. Damn it was early. In all reality, I usually got up around 0500 anyway so I wasn’t missing out on that much sleep. I just hated missing any sleep because I knew myself. I knew exactly how much sleep I needed to not be a cranky bitch all day and that was exactly how much time I allotted myself. Anything less and it would be a rough day.

I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. The cut on my right cheek was almost gone. I’d gotten it from a particularly good fight during training yesterday afternoon when my sparring partner, an elf named Lyera, got in a lucky kick. At least the black eye had faded within the hour following the fight. I stared at myself for a minute, at my dads emerald green eyes and my mothers loose espresso brown curls, before turning away and heading for the kitchen. It was going to be a long day and if I was going to make it I needed to get some coffee in me. I was almost to the kitchen when the ding of my holo sounded from the short glass coffee table in the center of the living room and I stopped short. An assignment coming in at this time of night? That made no sense. All assignments were issued at 0800. No exceptions. Unless…I’d heard rumors that something was coming. That someone was coming. But I didn’t think anything of it. The archangel Gabriel, High Imperator of the Jovian planets for the last 200 years, never came to Ganymede or any of the other moons. He ruled from his golden palace on Saturn, passing down his orders through his commanders and the four angels that sat as the governing lords for each of the planets under his rule. If he was coming to visit something big was about to happen. The war was still raging between the Jovian planets and the Solar dominion but the majority of the fighting was in the asteroid belt just beyond Jupiter. The attack on Cerras a year ago was one of the few that had made it this far out and even that was only because there were Solar sympathizers on the moon that had been able to lead the attack without any outside help or ships trying to get past the legion guarding Ganymede.

I picked up the small coin-sized gadget and held it out in front of me before commanding it to play the message. A small holograph appeared in my hand. It was Gryff; my best friend since I’d woken up in the hospital that day. He’d been one of the few others that survived the attack on Cerras and the only one I’d spoken to. He was two years older than me and fae. Which meant he technically had the superior genes, since humans were seen as less than and I was half human. The fae were stronger than humans, faster, more beautiful, and had magic. The Gods had made humans first and when they grew bored with their imperfections and weaknesses they decided to improve upon their original creation. Thats how the fae had come to exist. The perfect creation of the Gods. At least that’s what the legends said. A bunch of faerie bullshit if you ask me. The fae were a bunch of narcissistic assholes that thought they were better than everyone else. The humans and lesser faeries were low on the totem pole and the elves and witches were right in the middle. The only ones above fae were the angels. The gods incarnate. But Gryff wasn’t like most of the fae. He was one of the good ones.

“Hey Maya. I can’t say much but I just got word that the Rite has been moved up a week. There’s something going on with the legions. I’m going to try to find out more but I wanted you to hear it from me. I’ll be rooting for you.”

No, no, no, no. The Rite can’t be moved up a week. That puts it at just two days from now! I slumped to the floor, landing on my knees, and stared vacantly at the wall ahead. What was I going to do? I wasn’t ready for this. They weren’t allowed to tell us much about the Rite of Valaria, but we knew the general basis of it. It was a test of everything you were. You went into the Rite and how you came out determined the rest of your life. If you came out at all. I knew the numbers. Knew that only about half made it out alive and only a handful of those would be chosen to be part of the Elite. The rest would be given other fae positions based on how they performed in the Rite. The well respected House Lords and Commanders at the top of the list and lesser fae positions, like bakers and architects, at the bottom of the list. Becoming a warrior and being assigned to one of the legions was towards the middle of that list. It was a respected position but it meant you just weren’t good enough to be chosen. Like coming in third in a race. You got a trophy but no one really remembered your name. There were a select few warriors that made names for themselves and moved up to become commanders or lords but with the war raging on it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do. I was a good fighter but could I kill? I blanched at the thought. But if I couldn’t do it I might not survive the rite. I thought I’d had more time to mentally prepare myself but I guess the Gods had a different plan. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?