Eighteen

She is eighteen, and that is not to diminish what went before. But the eighteen years just covered are minutes in the hour of the glass. We do not know how many minutes, though it is certain that the first eighteen years are almost all the shaping that this tempered and imperious metal will receive. For after the eighteenth bell, the eighteenth chapter and the eighteenth candle, there is little that can change the indwelling spirit – unless it be the indwelling Spirit.

She is eighteen, and greatness lies before her. Does it describe, does it destine, does it deceive or distract? We do not know; and neither does she. But eighteen is when, to our everlasting regret, one's powers are at the greatest gathering, the greatest possible density of confluence. The powers can yet increase, but they will never feel as intense, so close that the heat bleeds from nerve to nerve and it sometimes feels all too much. In time, the powers will fade a little and then a lot, but the learned control will make up for some of that.

But she is eighteen, and if she does not realise that she is a pawn become a queen (or at least a princess of the blood), she will not seize this moment at the full before it ebbs. And so this fleeting laser flash of words, this drop of painfully distilled blood, it is for you, and you, and you, and you, and on this day, particularly you. Where will and power are one, so let it be. Ask now no more.