Ashes and Ink

Protagonists Background Story - First Competition for NaNoWriMo Prep 2025

Notes ▼

Write a story about your protagonist that takes place outside of your novel. Make your readers relate to him or her in such a way that we would be devastated if he or she were to experience conflict (which, ultimately, sometime in November, he/she will.) The object of the contest is to make your judges root for your protagonist!

Simply put: the character we like best wins. If your protagonist is an assassin or someone similarly "unlikeable," never fear! I love Vlad Taltos, the professional assassin . You can make us love your character, too. Add the background story to your character database (if applicable.)

Dawn is just breaking when I start to stir. The first hints of sunlight break through the gaps in the thin, linen curtains that do little to keep out the draft that is sneaking through the cracks in the timber framed dormer window jutting out from the coach house’s gabled roof. The renovations have made the building feel less like a stable and more like a habitable dwelling, but it wasn’t the Great House. It wasn’t where my grandmother lived, nor my aunt, or the rest of my coven.

Were they even my coven anymore?

My eyelids are heavy and thick with the sticky remnants of sleep. A dreamless, restless sleep that did nothing to sooth my mind or my fatigued muscles. At thirteen, I am too young to feel this dejected. Yet, I guess that is exactly what I am; a reject and a failure. Not just in the eyes of the Confluence… the coven, but by our, I mean their goddess.

I open my eyes and take in the small bedroom. It is exactly how I left it before my doomed blood rite yesterday evening. It’s clean, but simple.

The single cot that I’m lying on is hard and uncomfortable. The wooden slats press through the thin mattress and into my back as I stare up at the limewashed ceiling and track the wooden beams, lacquered black to protect the building’s framework from moisture, which protrude through it.

I feel like I am drowning. In air. Is that even possible?

The blanket someone had thrown over me last night was new, but it would be of no use this winter. I’m still wearing the ceremonial dress from last night. It’s not white anymore. The hem is ragged, with dirt ground in so much that it will never be the same again. A perfect synergy for how I feel.

My grandmother, the Confluence’s High Priestess, Cassandra Hawthorne, had said the rite had failed.

For days the coven had been a buzz of excitement. Another initiate to join their ranks and strengthen the coven by binding their magic with them. As the granddaughter of the high priestess, expectation of my awakening were high.

Like all of our rituals, the blood rite to awaken my magical connection had been held in the sacred circle at the edge of the Heartring; the central node located deep within the Forest of Anam.

The coven gathered in silence, their thick woollen robes whispering against the grass as they hummed and chanted. I had stood in the center of the circle, barefoot, a shallow copper bowl that contained my blood offering to the ley lines. The crimson liquid had darkened as it had hit the altar. The wind had stilled, and the silence had stretched for too long.

I remember the cold and shiver.

It hadn’t been the type of cold from the night’s chill. It was the type that buries itself deep within your marrow when nothing happens.

There had been no thunder. No flame. No rainstorm from the heavens. And no whisper from the ley lines. Just a heavy stillness as my blood soaked into the stone like it meant nothing.

The ley lines had rejected me. I had felt it. Just as acutely as my grandmother. Not as absence, but as refusal. Like a door closing. Like being uninvited from something ancient and sacred.

The coven branded me before the moon had set. Hot metal on soft flesh. The weeping mess of burned skin on my wrist would serve as a permanent reminder of my failure and mark my station within the Confluence. I am empty, magicless, and therefore unworthy – a void.

Except, the silence hadn’t been empty. There were voices. Only for a moment, but I’d heard them. Not the covens, or my grandmother’s, or even mine. Voices as faint as breath against glass. Whispers that called me threadless.

I could sense the threads rippling within the Node. They were there. They were tangible and real — but they weren’t ones I wanted to weave. I wanted to reach for the voices instead.

As I lie in my bed, I hear them again. Faint whispers that are oddly familiar and a balm my soul.

I try to tell myself that I’m imagining them. That it is the grief at losing my place amongst the only family I’ve ever known. For proving my Aunt Mira right – that I’m cursed. At losing a future I’d taken for granted. For the uncertainty that now lay before me. It’s just my mind playing tricks with me. It has to be. But the whispers persist.

“You are not empty,” they call.

I press my fingers to my ears and will the voices away. Not here. Not now.

The coven believes I’m magicless. They have to continue to believe that, because if they knew what I heard in the silence, what I still hear, they wouldn’t have just branded me. They would burn me.

There is a knock at the door.

“Everleigh, Cassandra wants to see you,” my grandfather’s voice calls softly, “I’ll meet you in the courtyard in ten minutes and walk you across. Best not make her wait this morning.”

Cassandra. Not the high priestess. Not my grandmother. Just Cassandra.

I drag myself out of bed and across to the narrow wooden desk in the corner of the room. Someone filled my water jug during the night. I pour the cool liquid into the stone bowl and splash it onto my face.

Puffy, bloodshot eyes peer back at me in the mirror that’s balanced at the back of the desk, against the wall. I hardly recognise my own face. My hair is a tangled, copper mess. It reminds me of the nest the woodlarks build in the spring.

My braids are twisted and frayed. I don’t have time to fix them. I gather my untamed tresses and tie them together haphazardly on the crown of my head.

I pull on a pair of loose fitting, dark emerald green, corduroy harem pants that I had cuffed at the ankles during the summer, so they didn’t get wet when I danced across the river stones at Cauldron Fall as I foraged for ingredients. I slip on my heavy-duty ankle boots over some socks that had seen better days, and a textured, burnt red, woollen sweater to keep out the morning chill. It’s comfortable and durable enough to travel in, when I’m asked to leave.

My grandmother meets me at the backsteps of the Great House. Her hands are clasped together as she looks down on me.

“Follow me, Everleigh,” she says as she turns on her heels and walks through the open doorway.

I follow her through the empty halls. My head bowed to the floor in respect. As a void I am not permitted to be here. This space is reserved only for those that have followed in the footsteps of the goddess; not for those who’ve had the door slammed in their face.

We reach the heavy wooden doors of the library. Her hands pause on the ornate door handle, and she turns to face me.

“You understand that my hands are tied, Everleigh,’ she pauses, “I cannot bend the creed for you, as much as I may want to. You failed… Your journey within the coven ends here… But… as my granddaughter, I can offer you this small mercy… I won’t see you exiled. I will offer you a home, a life. Such that it can be, here within the estate walls. You will earn your keep here, under Sister Thorne, as an apprentice Incantation Curator. Your studies will not go to waste. You may still be of use to the Confluence.”

I nod my head in silence. The tension in my shoulders relaxes as my brain replays those five words over and over – ‘I won’t see you exiled’.

Incantation Curator isn’t a role reserved for those without elemental gifts. As far as I’m aware a void had never held any title of any worth, and certainly not one associated with the protection and maintenance of magical abilities.

My grandmother is right it is a mercy. But it’s also a sentence. To be surrounded by memories of what might have been, of stolen potential, and the constant ridicule of those I grew up with and used to call friends. I’m under no illusion; those relationships are dead and there isn’t a power in this land strong enough to resurrect them.

We step in to the dimly lit room. Rows of shelves line each wall that stretch towards the high ceiling, each one stuffed with leather bound books, tightly wrapped scrolls, and dusty ancestral tomes.

Elowen Thorne turns to face us as we enter and slowly weaves her way through the study desks that line the centre of the room. The swaths of soft grey and blue scholar robes she wears, embroidered with glyphs of wind and silence of her creed, rustles with each step.

She looks every bit the Senior Incantation Curator and glyph scholar that she is. Tall and graceful, with silver hair tied into a low neat bun, she is the mirror of me.

“Sister Thorne,” my grandmother begins, “this is my granddaughter, Everleigh. The one I mentioned earlier this morning.”

“Ah yes, the Void.” Elowen voice is calm and melodic as she replies with a taught nod and casts her grey quizzical eyes over me.

“Yes, indeed,” my grandmother continues, “I have assigned her to you as an apprentice. Use her as you will. She is bright. Knows her way around basic incantations… In theory at least. And, she has excellent penmanship. She will make an… adequate curator.”

Elowen simply bows her head in agreement.

My grandmother turns to face me. “This is your only chance, Everleigh. Do not let me down.”

I reply with a rasp, “No, grandmother. I won’t.”

“Excellent,” my grandmother replies, before briskly turning on her heels once more and walking back through door. “I will leave you to it then.”

Elowen gestures to the carved wooden doors and stained-glass windows depicting elemental symbols.

“The library was founded by the first Curators of the Confluence, and its role is to preserve the coven’s legacy.” She explains, “This is not a place for ambition, Miss Hawthorne. It is a place for stewardship.”

She leads me through the library, points to various books and cases. At the far end of the room she stops in front of a set of glass doors, with the words ‘Scroll Vault’ etched into its panes.

“This room holds our most ancient and valuable incantations. It’s temperature-controlled to protect the parchment. The scrolls must never leave this room. Do you understand?”

I nod in response.

“You will work at that desk.” She points to the smooth marble surface in the centre of the glass cell. “The restoration process is simple, but delicate. Light hands are needed here Miss Hawthorne. I will bring you some gloves. They will help. You will be expected to clean the parchment with powdered memory root, you can find it in the cabinet over there, along with the required brushes.” She directs me to the heavy wooden hutch buried in one of the library’s nooks and then continues, “Whisper oil is used to stabilise the ink for longevity and to negate the effects of the lights,” she pauses again and points to the halogen bulbs in the ceiling. “Once that has been done you will be expected to copy the glyphs using ritual-safe ink.”

I nod my head again.

“You will not interpret. You will not cast. You will preserve. That is your charge.”

“Yes, Sister Thorne.”

“That.” She points towards a slanted stone desk on the opposite wall, “Is the glyph translation table, where ancestral scripts are compared across dialects.”

The table is carved with intricate symbols which I recognise as elemental glyphs, but there are a few I don’t know.

As if noticing my unasked question, Elowen adds, “Some symbols are best left untranslated. If you encounter one you do not recognize, you will report it. You will not engage.”

She shows me to a small alcove to the side of the glass room, tucked behind a heavy curtain. A modest desk and chair sit within it with a lamp, ink set, and a stack of scrolls on its surface.

“This will be your personal space and desk, keep it tidy and free from clutter. There is no food or liquid permitted inside the library at any time.”

“Yes, Sister Thorne.”

She hands me a tightly wrapped band of paper, “Begin with this. The scroll is brittle. The ink is fading. What you preserve today may be all that remains tomorrow.” She then heads back into the heart of the library, leaving me to my solace.

It’s late afternoon when Elowen brings me another set of scrolls, apparently happy with my performance so far. The library is quiet, only the distant rustle of parchment and the faint scent of whisper oil fills the air.

The scroll on my desk is older than the others; its edges brittle, its ink faded to a reddish-brown. I unroll it carefully and brush my fingers across its surface. The glyphs are unfamiliar; sharper, more angular than the elemental scripts I’ve been trained to copy. They seem to shimmer faintly, though the light in the library hasn’t changed.

As I begin to trace the first symbol, a low hum vibrates beneath my fingertips, like pressure or a breath against my skin. My heart stutters.

Then I hear it. A voice. So soft it’s barely audible.

“You are not empty, Everleigh.”

I jerk my hand back. The glyph pulses once, then fades. The scroll lies still, but the air around me feels charged, like the moment before a storm.

I glance around, but no one has noticed. The apprentices are cuddled together whispering near the elemental shelves. Elowen is cataloguing a tome at her desk at the far end of the room, her back turned.

I swallow hard, my hands tremble as I quickly roll the scroll back up and wrap it in a scrap of cloth, before I wedge it beneath my under side of desk.

I don’t know what the glyphs mean. I don’t know who the voice belongs to. But I know one thing with absolute certainty: The rite didn’t fail. It opened something and now it’s whispering to me.

[2408 - wordcount]