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" before their clan’s elders. They wear clothes too formal for them: layered robes of muted color for the boys, intricate shadesilk wraps for the girls. Parents line the walls nearby, anxious to hear the nature of their children laid bare. One by one, the children step before their clan’s First Elder. He holds a shallow bowl, twice as wide as a dinner plate, that holds nothing more than still water. But it is not water, the parents know. It is madra, raw power of spirit, purified and distilled. The material from which souls are made. "
― Will Wight , Unsouled (Cradle, #1)