High in the halls of the kings who are gone,
Jenny would dance with her ghosts,
The ones she had lost and the ones she had found,
And the ones who had loved her the most.
The ones who'd been gone for so very long
She couldn't remember their names
They spun her around on the damp old stone
Spun away all her sorrow and pain
And she never wanted to leave,
Never wanted to leave,
Never wanted to leave,
Never wanted to leave.

Levi had never before stepped into the Ziggurat of the Sempiternal, though its enormous tower dominating much of the Angeles' skyline to the east was perhaps one of his earliest and most concrete memories, one of the only unchanging landmarks of home; modelled like a Babylonian temple of old, with a sprawling stone complex spilling out around it in all directions, known as the Forbidden Wen. Its high walls were impenetrable, its enormous iron gates perpetually bolted and locked, and though the red and black robes of its acolytes were a common sight to the people of Illeá, it was a distant and detached sort of familiarity, as one might say they are familiar with the colour of the sunset or with the descent of crows at dusk - seen, but hardly interrogated. For the crown prince of Illea, if he could call himself that, it was no different.

There came a first time for everything, and on a clear, crisp day at the end of April, Levi found himself standing outside the gate of the Ziggurat with a bijou retinue at his back. It was not the main entrance to the Ziggurat, that iconic high red gate, decorated with a nine-by-nine array of golden door nails intended to represent what the acolytes of the Sempiternal believed to be the ultimate number of incarnations in a single unbroken chain of existence. Instead, Levi and his companions, the impassive Reeve of the Garrison and the chary Landgrave of Counsel, waited at one of the back gates, a squat black iron door decorated with eighty one tiny red metal carnations intricately carved into its sleek surface, positively dwarfed by the forty foot city wall into which it was set. Even some years separated from his childhood tuition in history and culture, Levi could still recall precisely those numbers and dimensions that he had learned by heart: the walls were more than ten metres wide at their base, tapering to seven at the top, a density which had been subjected to cannons and mortars in their own time and proven sturdy. Even here, Levi could spot a few scars in the bricks that indicated where the Ziggurat had suffered the indignity of siege and slaughter and survived, for the most part impassive.

"My Lord." It was Herry Rearden who spoke first, stepping forward and turning to Levi with a somewhat contemptuous expression. The Reeve of the Garrison was a tall man, his back somewhat twisted by scoliosis after years labouring under the unwieldy hulking weight of iron armour, his hands worn with callouses and strong despite age, his long green cloak pinned to his broad shoulders with tripartite epaulettes that marked him as a trusted commander under the helm of the emancipator king, Aloysius. Levi could not say that he and the Reeve had ever gotten along; one was a prince borne low by circumstance, his only weapons his tongue and his wit, while the other was a lowborn arriviste who had cut and clawed his way through blood and bone to status and standing. But the two were, Levi sensed, somewhat united in their mutual quest, and Herry was enough an honourable man to set aside any perceived differences in the interest of their nation. "It is now quarter past. The hour is departed. They do you an insult in making you wait so, and it would be a mistake to endure such disrespect."

Trapped between two men clad in the garb of soldiers and killers, it would have been easy for Levi to feel rather uncomfortable and out of place, dressed as he was in a casual disguise of shirt and suspenders which permitted him to move unnoticed through the capital city, more a flaneur than an optimate. However, his voice was relaxed and his posture entirely free of tension as he tucked his hands into his pockets and replied, quite casually, "I have no other plans for the day. I can afford to wait. If you have better things to be doing, my Lord, please, by all means, make your excuses."

The Landgrave of Counsel, Drahomir Thomond, could not entirely suffocate the laugh which rose in his throat at his prince's words, a dry sound that suggested he had spent too much of his life smoking cigars; Levi did not have to look behind him to know that his old friend's shoulders would be shaking, like amusement was a physical force reverberating through his entire skeleton. Herry's eyebrows furrowed with displeasure at Levi's words, but the older man said nothing, and fell back a single step to level once more with Drahomir, his displeasure palpable in the very current of frisson that pulsated through the air.

"I doubt they mean any insult by it, Levi," Drahomir added, his voice low and urgent. "Time means so very little to the people of the Wen. I doubt they have even realised that they are late."

"They may not believe that they belong to this world," Levi replied softly. "They are wrong."

Drahomir was silenced. There were times that Levi could not help but forget that his brother in all but blood had himself spent six months within the stone grasp of the Forbidden Wen, an acolyte garbed in robes the colour of blood and smoke, living the hermetical life of a zealot. Six months he had lasted in the shadow of the Ziggurat, Levi thought, six months and then that was that. His reason for burning his robes and throwing his carnation into the ocean had never been disclosed to Levi, even despite their close friendship, but he had heard whispers that Drahomir had gained his first glimpse of the life he had lived before this one, and he had not liked what he had seen.

Levi was not often content in ignorance, but this was one occasion on which he was happy to remain sightless and stupid. Truth be told, he had never fully understood the ambitions of the Ziggurat acolytes, their burning desire to uncover their past lives, even when that pursuit meant that they often entirely wasted the one that they had right now.

He had only ever gained a single glimpse at the life that had preceded this one, when one of the acolytes had visited the palace to try and glean some vision of the king's reincarnation by passing their hand over the throne and the crown and the pillow upon which the dead man had breathed his last. Levi had been sixteen, and rebellious in his adolescence, such that when the black-robed old man offered to show him a memory in a little pool of water, he had thought nothing of accepting. But it had not been, as he thought it might be, a mere glance into a mirror at another time, a third-person's view of the person he had once been.

Instead... it had been a single moment's immersion in another person's skin, their hopes and dreams and fears writhing within his flesh like insects clawing their way towards fresh air, a sudden swell of love in his heart too mature for an adolescent to understand its depth or the agony it evoked, the burden of years and loss and grief weighing heavily on his shoulders, strings and hooks and relationships wrapped tightly around every sinew of his being, an immense sense of duty towards people that Levi had never known and yet for whom in that single instant he would have given up this and every other life...

No, Levi thought, the here and now was all that concerned him.

In front of him, the little black door swung open and a tall, slender man stepped out, his red and black robes dusty at the hem with a smatter of light yellow sand. His dark hair was slicked back, exposing a few slivers of silver shot through at his temples, and he wore a neat goatee, almost as dark as his assessing, intelligent eyes. His hands were hidden beneath the enormous folds of his robes, but he bent at the waist to accord Levi a shallow bow. "Your Grace. A pleasure."As he straightened, Levi caught a glimpse at the necklace of coins he wore around his neck, each one imprinted with the clear carved shape of a carnation. Each carnation symbolised a past life recalled, Drahomir had told him, and this man was practically strangled by them, so many and so heavy the coins. "My name is Estavan Kirk. I am the current steward of the Ziggurat."

Drahomir spoke before Levi did. "What happened to Theun?"

"Theun is but a memory."Estavan's voice was firm, and brokered no argument. "Please, gentlemen, won't you follow me?"

Levi could tell that Herry bristled a little at their group - the head of the city guard, the advisor to the throne, and the prince regent himself - being referred to as a mere group of gentlemen by what amounted to an overzealous doorman, but a single look from Levi quashed any protest that might have otherwise risen in the older man's throat. They followed Estavan through the door, and through the narrow tunnel behind it, which wound serpentine through dark underground for some hundred metres, Estavan taking this turn and that corner, seemingly at random, until it eventually opened up into a wider space, the sun almost offensively bright after the scarce few minutes of darkness that had preceded it.

The courtyard before them was broad and bright, and full of red robes as acolytes went through their noontime rituals, their movements fluid and sure. Levi could not say that he was entirely certain that this was not some kind of exhibition for his benefit, as the students before him moved in perfect unison as though tied together by sinew and heartstring, turning this way and that way so that even their hair and their robes flared and spun at precisely the same time. At times, their exertion seemed almost violent, but their faces were without expression, their skin utterly unflushed, their breath smooth and unharried.

Estavan stood in front of the group, and silently raised his arm. The acolytes stilled instantly, as though they were puppets whose strings had been cut, their robes stilling, their hair settling on their shoulders. An acolyte shaved their head when they entered the Forbidden Wen, Levi knew, but all of the devotees before him now had at least a skull of growth to their hair, indicating that there had been no new recruits for at least the past two years or so. In the modern era, a time of new automobiles and telephones and jazz records and zeppelins, the focus was on the frenzy of the here and the now, the joy of having a body with which to wind and dance through the single life you had been accorded, and the attraction of solitude and study in search of someone you had once been had lost any lingering attraction it had once possessed.

Though they had stopped, Levi noted that the acolytes kept their eyes on Estavan, rather than the man who sat on the throne of their nation. They truly did think themselves an existence apart, he mused.

"Arantza," Estavan said, his voice ringing through the courtyard, as clear as a pealing bell. "You have a visitor."

The red-robed girl who detached herself from the rest was slender and serious, with a long braid of inky black hair woven through with red poppies and a chain of carnations hanging around her throat burdened almost as heavily as Estavan's was, though it still shone with a certain newness that suggested she had not dedicated herself to this life for as long as the steward had. Indeed, Levi thought, she was probably close in age to himself or Drahomir, or even younger, perhaps, her cheekbones hollow but a softness to the curve of her mouth that suggested adolescence still had something of a grip on her. She walked without haste to join Estavan beside Levi and the others; the ranks of the acolytes shut behind her, like a tide swelling to fill a beach, and they resumed their exercises without a single instant of hesitation.

Estavan put a hand on the girl's narrow shoulder, his tone solemn. "Arantza, this is His Highness, Prince Alevinder, third of his name, Regent to the Throne of Roses. Your Grace, this is..."

"Arantza," the girl interrupted her mentor, her pale eyes narrow, like that of a fox, and shrewd, meeting Levi's gaze and refusing to waver, as though she could peer into the very recesses of his soul. "Arantza, who was Estelle, who was Itumeleng, who was Robert, who was Batbayar..."

"Arantza the Argute, we call her." Estavan could not hide the grudging admiration in his voice. "Arri has accessed a prodigious number of lives in her short time as an acolyte here. More than thirty, all tallied, with a remarkable clarity in her recollection." Arantza inclined her head respectfully, clearly unwilling to look too proud of this achievement. "In her twelfth carnation, she was an adviser and confidant to your father."

"Tömörbaatar," Arantza said softly. "The Reeve of the Garrison."

"Just so," Estavan agreed solemnly. Herry shook his head, an expression that blended respect and suspicion flitting across his face as he realised he was standing in front of a teenage girl who nonetheless possessed the memory of one of his predecessors, a man who had lived in a time when the Reeve's sword was more than ceremonial, and they wore scars rather than medallions. "I believe, Your Grace, that it is this bond that has graced Arantza with the vision she reported to me two days ago - for it was in that life that she saved your father's life and in doing so stuck her needle into the tapestry of his existence."

Drahomir shook his head. "I was ill-suited to this kind of theatricality when I was an acolyte. Plainly?"

"Plainly," Estavan conceded. "Tömörbaatar saved your father's life when all omens pointed to death. What destiny has ordained, no man ought to turn aside. In delaying his reincarnation, I believe Tömörbaatar in some way tied his cycle to that of the king."

"And this vision." Levi spoke directly to Arantza. "What did you see?"

Her eyes were cold, almost the same colour as ice. "Your father was born again on the tenth day of the tenth month of the year that he died, under a falling star."

"The Schreave Meteor Shower," Herry murmured. "Took place just before midnight... Helps narrow things down."

"Is that all?" Levi focused on Arantza, and could not avoid noticing how her eyelashes flickered, as though she were hesitating, and considering a lie.

"I saw no more that would help identify your father, Your Grace."

"But you saw more."

Arantza glanced at Estavan, who nodded simply. "You need tell him nothing."The affection between mentor and student was apparent in the way that he spoke softly, almost protectively. "I will not allow him to compel anything you wish not to say."

"He is the regent," Drahomir snapped.

"We have all been regents," Estavan replied calmly. "And beggars, and madmen too. You, of all people, should appreciate that, Drahomir, who was Yehuda."

Drahomir bristled, but Levi only held up his hand and silenced his friend with a single gesture. "Estavan is completely correct. If you are not comfortable, Arantza, say no more."

Arantza cast Levi a sceptical look, clearly seeing through any shallow attempt at manipulation, but after a moment she nodded and took a breath, her pale eyes flitting about somewhat nervously. "I saw what has been," she said softly. "And what will be. Your father's crown will be gold and threaded with roses, but of the other six - black their pyres, blue their lips, red their path from the palace. You will call one love, one comrade, one Judas. Hanged man, empress, fool. Each a constellation."

"But the king will be among them?"

The robed girl's lips twitched. "Oh, yes. But not your father as you remember him."

Levi smiled. "I can live with that."

In Illea, reincarnation has been a simple fact of life for as long as anyone cares to remember. The throne is not an inherited position, but one handed down to each reincarnation of the original king as he is reborn throughout each cycle, his children from the past incarnation holding the throne in his stead until his new identity has been found. I say his, but the king may be reborn in any form, as any gender, any ethnicity. His new incarnation is born nearly immediately after the death of his last one, so the search for his successor begins almost immediately. However, it usually takes a few years to locate the new identity.

The last king of Illea died eighteen years ago. His son, Levi, has led the search for his new incarnation, with some whispers suggesting that he was deliberately delaying the search to hold onto power for a little longer - although, given that he was only six years old when his father died, that theory may not entirely hold water.

The information known about the current incarnation: born on 10th October just before midnight, eighteen years ago. Other than that, everything is up to you: age, personality, appearance, backstory. Past lives will play a role in the story, so if you want to include any interesting details about previous incarnations of your character, feel free.

This means there are also soulmates in the story, so if you have any preferences regarding your character's soulmate, please let me know!

Form and full set of rules will be on my bio! I hope you submit.