Armored inFear
"The first thing Haymitch saw was the smoke, billowing up from the remains of the once great city of Accilaide."
A novel by Y.J. Sargis · First Draft · In Progress
Miraclite
The divine mineral at the heart of the empire. Opalescent, shimmering, alive with color—Miraclite is not mined or manufactured. It is willed into existence.
Every construct costs a Maker lifespan. They can craft any physical construct instantaneously, but are aged rapidly by the process. Miraclite is everywhere.
The Citadel's towers, its walls, its weapons, its armor—all of it built on the years given up by those who made it.
The People
Gifted with the ability to craft constructs from miraclite—they build structures and objects of breathtaking beauty. Every piece of miraclite around today, cost a Maker a portion of their lifespan.
Though they cannot craft miraclite, they can see it. An important distinction.
Their children can often be born Makers and they are the most populated group in all of Vitnima.
Not only can they not craft constructs, they cannot even see miraclite. Born blind to the magical mineral—the Citadel's towering opalescent spires are empty air. Treated as second-class, assigned to labor and service. Yet the empire cannot exist without them. Some among them carry the rarest gift: Kynesthesia.
The rarest of the Mind Blinds—those born able to sense and weave emotional constructs. Where Makers shape the physical world, Kynesthetics shape the felt one. Every emotion has a color. Every color can be crafted into reality. The empire suppresses this knowledge.
Beauty and Terror
The foundation of the empire. An opalescent mineral that shimmers with every color imaginable—visible only to Makers and Mundanes.
To those who can see it, it is the most beautiful thing in the world.
- Forged from the very lifespan of Makers
- Invisible to Mind Blinds—they see through it entirely
- The basis of all physical magic in the empire
"Colors swirled against one another like the waves of a creamy ocean."
Miraclite armor imbued with emotional constructs—the secret art of hexes. To all who look upon a wearer, the armor transforms: skin becomes cragged bone, eyes glow fire, the figure becomes a demon among men. Haymitch's army wears it to conquer by terror alone.
- Forces any who see it to confront fear itself
- Crafted by Kynesthetics sacrificing their own lifespan
- The hex magic was a lost art—rediscovered by Haymitch
"The armor itself became black and surrounded in smog and the soldier beneath became a cragged mix of skin and bone."
Kynesthetics
Some Mind Blinds are born with the ability to sense and craft emotional constructs—to feel what others feel, weave emotions into reality, and alter the inner world of those around them.
Makers pay with their own lifepsan, Kynesthetics pay with another's.
"So then I what, weave an emotional construct to make her feel something else? How much will I age from that?"
"You won't age at all. She will."
Three Perspectives,
One Collision
A Mind Blind apprentice on the outskirts of the Citadel who discovers she can feel what others feel. Newly recruited into the order's Kynesthetic program, she is learning to wield the empire's most dangerous and most suppressed magic—while the war outside creeps closer.
"Anyone but a Mind Blind would have spotted that dagger a mile away."
A Mind Blind soldier in Haymitch's rebel army—a Kynesthetic who can see the emotional silhouettes of everyone around him. He can sense every shade of fear his army's hex armor produces. Chosen for a mission that could end the war in a single stroke, he carries the weight of what Haymitch has asked him to become.
"All around him, their silhouettes were filled to the brim with orange. Fear."
A member of the order deployed in the wider world on order business. He is out there when the storm begins to move—and finds himself inexorably pulled into the collision between Haymitch's army and the empire he serves, whether he chooses it or not.
"The enemy was coming, and soon."
"On paper, the citadel of the empire was beautiful. Every building and tower had been crafted entirely from Miraclite. They seemed to shine and glow. The entire city beamed with magic. On paper. But to Cerilia's eyes, she only saw the practical elements made from mundane material, sectioned and floating throughout an otherwise empty space. To Cerilia, the city was a floating mess of randomly placed chunks of wood and splotches of brick and stone."— Armored in Fear, Chapter One · Cerilia
Origins
The empire was built
on what you can see.
But the most dangerous magic is what can only be felt.