The Calling of the Knight

It begins with whispering; thin, rasping words just beneath recognition in the back of my head, scratching at my soul. It was always hers, my soul. My life-givers consecrated my egg in her name during fertilization; the one who guarded my egg's growth pledged both my body and soul to her at the time of my birth. At adolescence, when I joined my first hunt, my soul was dedicated to her again; it was the medium through which I gifted her the blood of my first kill.I have always belonged to the lich-queen. At this now, she uses me again. She pours dark urgings into my pool of thoughts and passions. My heart fills with joy. Whispers will become voice, and with voice will come commands. She will tell me to die, or to kill. One way or the other, I will be a sainted one. For a period, I will be a knight. Not many of us are so chosen. In any generation, less than a handful in any settlement ever feel the living touch of the Revered Queen's voice. Those that do are her hands where her bones do not reach. Her voice speaks to her children using our tongues and lips. We are life and death to the rest of the githyanki, and she is life and death to us. The next stage is the Retreat. Those sainted ones who survive the Calling leave their communities for a time, and go on pilgrimage to the heart of the silver void. Many raids may be staged, and many young warriors may join their kin for the first time before the initiate returns from the Retreat a full Knight. The knight is changed, become something vaster, as if a part of the Queen's spirit hangs about her in the nightmare winds.