Constance, daughter of the Empress

So. Who are you?

This is the question that has plagued you since even before your father and mother died.

On one hand, you are a person, Constance, with feelings and a body. On the other hand, you are a part of a mythic destiny. The line of Amber is metaphysically important, and you are just one bit on its narrative. One damsel in its story.

Who are you? An independent entity, or a series of events in a grander pattern.

Are you a wave or a particle? Can a girl be dead and alive at the same time?

You don't just find this depressing, but also fascinating. Few of your siblings really study the elements of your primordial magic. Corruption appreciates it from an artistic, abstract point of view, and Dworkin created it, but that's about it. Neither understands it. Neither would ever conduct experiments or use it to better the world.

The fact is, you don't work like most people. Most people are results of their culture and genetics, and can have short, forgettable, (happy) lives where they and their decisions are the masters of their destiny. But could you do that?

The entire cosmos supposedly depends on your family and your duties. If you tried to escape, would it snap you back? Or would it cruelly reveal you to be not a real person, and instead one strand of one thread of an inhuman loom?

Questions, questions. And you've made great strides in studying them. Since the war, Bastion has mostly ignored you, and you've mostly ignored him and Serenity. That leaves Amber pretty empty of equals to interact with. Corruption sometimes talks to you, and Sette needs to be taken care of, but that still leaves a lot of time for pouring through the library or running experiments in the dungeons. You aim to find the particle mass of the soul and the wavelength of destiny. Such empiricism requires dedication, and costs.

It is not without its rewards. With knowledge comes power, and you are already a very clever sorceress. Who knows what you will be after your trial. And your family, though they fail to understand what you are doing, rather admire you for it. They know devotion and greatness when they see it. Your "science" will make you a legend, and they're proud of you for it.

You will have a great deal of political sway when you come of age. You disdain politics of course, but better to end these fights than become stuck in them and dominated by them.

Which brings you to the Pattern and your oncoming ceremony. You're rather looking forward to it. You've only ever studied the Pattern through story and recollection of others, but now you will get to investigate it very intimately. You'll spend an hour and a half running your fingers through the densest fabric of reality. You should learn much.

But you're even more interested in what you'll learn about yourself. This walk is a way to study and explore ideas about your soul and identity. Your great uncle Corwin even recovered his memory from the experience, and well, he wasn't half as observant as you are. You'll see all the potential future-Constances, and could triangulate what core you share in common. The possibilities are endless, and yet you will measure every one of them. After all, half of your dual existence is that in some way, the line of Amber *is* the Pattern. You will be exploring the maze of yourself.

Can you get lost? You detachedly wonder whether you will break. That would be fascinating indeed. It somewhat annoys you that your family intends to meddle and stack the deck in your favor. But they are part of Amber too, and their participation must be part of the experiment, if it is to have any validity at all.

Besides, plenty of time to run the experiment in a vacuum, without them present, later on. Once you are full in your power, there is plenty of time to do many, many interesting things.

All from a question. Who are you?