Ria closed her eyes and reached out with her consciousness, feeling for the link that connected her to the creature she'd accidentally bonded. It was there in her mind like a thin thread of connection, fragile and strange. She grasped that thread with her will and pulled.
The air in front of her shimmered, and dimensional energy began to coalesce. Around her, she could hear the impressed murmurs as other students successfully summoned their creatures—the wet slithering of Marcus's slug, the crystalline chiming of Elena's spider, the radiance emanating from Prince Aurelius's Seraph.
Then her summon completed, and Lex crashed to the ground with a sickening thud.
The reaction was immediate and devastating. Several students gasped in horror, while others took involuntary steps backward. Even Master Thane, who had seen countless dimensional creatures in his long career, paused mid-stride, his expression shifting from professional interest to barely concealed disgust.
Lex lay curled in a fetal position on the stone floor, his body wracked with violent tremors. The day since his last summoning had not been kind to him. Dark circles ringed his sunken eyes, and his shirt was filthy, stained with blood and showing deep bruising across his ribs. But it was the smell that truly horrified the assembled students. The stench of the End Dimension clung to him like a living thing—a mixture of decay, alien chemicals, and something indefinably wrong that made several nearby initiates gag and cover their faces.
"Water..." Lex's voice was barely a whisper, cracked and desperate. "Please... water..."
He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but his arms shook with the effort and he collapsed back to the stone. His breathing was labored and shallow, and when he opened his eyes, they were unfocused and glassy with fever.
The silence stretched on for long, uncomfortable seconds. Finally, Master Thane approached, his bonded creature of light flickering nervously beside him as if even it could sense something fundamentally wrong about Lex's presence.
"This..." Master Thane's voice carried a note of disbelief. "This is your bonded creature, Initiate Celith?"
Ria's face burned with humiliation, but she forced herself to stand straight. "Yes, Master."
"It appears to be dying."
The blunt assessment hit like a physical blow. Around the amphitheater, she could hear whispered conversations starting up—her fellow students discussing her failure in voices they didn't bother to keep quiet.
"Look at the state of it," someone muttered. "How is that supposed to channel dimensional energy?"
"She really did just grab someone's lunch," another voice added with cruel amusement.
Lex's trembling intensified as consciousness gradually returned to him. His eyes darted frantically around the amphitheater, taking in the circle of disgusted faces staring down at him. When his gaze found Ria, his expression crumpled with a mixture of hope and terror.
"Please," he whispered, his voice so weak it barely carried. "Don't... don't send me back. I can't... I tried to eat... there's nothing..." His words dissolved into incoherent mumbling as fever took hold again.
Master Thane circled around Lex like a scholar examining a particularly puzzling specimen. His creature of light pulsed with visible agitation, its luminous form flickering between states as if it were disturbed by whatever it sensed from the human.
"Initiate Celith," Master Thane said, his voice carrying the weight of harsh reality. "You must understand something fundamental about the nature of bonding. A Keeper's creature is not merely a tool—it is the anchor that allows you to channel dimensional energy. Without a functioning bond, you cannot access the powers that define our order."
He gestured toward Lex's trembling form. "If your creature dies, you will be unable to participate in any meaningful way in your training. The assessments at the end of the term will not be easy under the best of circumstances. If you cannot somehow manage to make this creature work..." He let the implication hang in the air.
The whispers from the other students grew louder, and Ria caught fragments of their conversations:
"She's finished before she even started..."
"How can you channel power through something that pathetic?"
"At least our creatures can survive in their dimensions..."
Master Thane raised his hand for silence, his expression grave. "There is another matter you must consider, Initiate. Keepers are only permitted to attempt a second bonding once they reach their second year of training. Until then, this creature is your only connection to the dimensional planes."
The words hit Ria like a physical blow. She would be stuck with Lex for an entire year, watching him slowly die while her classmates advanced with their functional bonds. The thought of spending months trying to work with a creature that couldn't even survive being summoned was almost too much to bear.
But then Master Thane's expression softened slightly, and he stepped closer to Lex's prone form. "However, I will assist you this once. Consider it an investment in your potential future with the Keepers."
He turned to his creature of light, which had been maintaining a careful distance from Lex. "Solaris, attend to the creature's injuries. Heal what can be healed."
The being of pure radiance pulsed with what might have been reluctance, but it obeyed its master's command. Slowly, gracefully, it floated toward Lex's broken form, its luminous presence casting warm shadows across the stone floor.
As Solaris approached, Lex's eyes widened with a mixture of wonder and terror. The creature's light was unlike anything he'd ever seen—not harsh or blinding, but warm and soothing, like sunlight filtered through stained glass. For a moment, his pain-addled mind thought he might be hallucinating.
The creature extended what might have been a hand, its form shifting between abstract patterns and angelic features. When it touched Lex's chest, he gasped as healing energy flowed through him like liquid warmth.
The broken ribs that had been grinding against each other with every breath suddenly aligned and began to knit together. The sharp, constant pain that had been his companion for days faded to a dull ache, then disappeared entirely. His fevered skin cooled, and the trembling that had wracked his body began to subside.
"Oh god," Lex whispered, tears streaming down his face as he experienced the absence of pain for the first time since his summoning. "Oh god, thank you..."
The healing was swift but thorough. Within moments, Lex was able to push himself up to a sitting position, his breathing no longer labored, his eyes clear and focused. The physical damage was gone, though he still bore the filth and stench of the End Dimension.
Solaris retreated to Master Thane's side, its form flickering with what seemed like distaste at having to touch something from the deepest dimensions.
"There," Master Thane said, his tone businesslike. "Your creature is functional, at least for now. But understand this, Initiate Celith—I will not intervene again. From this moment forward, keeping this creature alive and finding a way to make it useful is entirely your responsibility."
He looked down at Lex, who was staring up at him with an expression of desperate gratitude. "As for you, creature—you are bound to Initiate Celith's will. Your survival depends entirely on your ability to serve her needs. I suggest you adapt quickly to your new circumstances."
Lex stared up at the circle of faces surrounding him, his mind struggling to process what was happening. The language they spoke was completely foreign to him—harsh consonants and flowing vowels that meant nothing to his human ears. But their expressions were universal: disgust, amusement, pity, and in some cases, outright revulsion.
He tried to focus on individual words, hoping to catch something familiar, but it was like trying to understand music by analyzing individual notes. The sounds washed over him in an incomprehensible tide, leaving him feeling more isolated than ever.
His eyes found Ria, standing directly in front of him, and what he saw there made his stomach clench with despair. Her face was a mask of disgust and hopelessness, as if she were looking at a piece of rotting meat that had somehow learned to breathe.
When she looked at him, he could see his own reflection in her eyes: filthy, broken, utterly pathetic. The healing light had mended his ribs and cleared his fever, but it couldn't wash away the stench of the End Dimension or the hollowness in his gaze.
Master Thane continued his circuit around the amphitheater, pausing to offer guidance to each student. When he stopped beside Marcus and his acidic slug, Lex caught fragments of their conversation—the rhythm and cadence of instruction, even if the words themselves were meaningless.
"...can probably feel the strain of keeping the creature in this dimension," Master Thane was saying as he gestured toward various students. "The longer it remains here, the harder the strain becomes. Those who have bonded with creatures from much higher or deeper dimensions can only maintain their presence for short periods until they grow stronger in this link and learn to channel the energies of the dimension from which it came."
Lex didn't understand the words, but he could feel something—a constant, subtle pressure that seemed to be pulling at him from the edges of reality.
"Today, I want you to see how long you can keep your creature in this realm," Master Thane continued, his voice carrying clearly across the amphitheater. "Tomorrow, I will teach you how to start channeling its dimensional energies through your bond."
As the lesson continued, Lex began to notice something alarming. The pressure he'd been feeling was growing stronger, more insistent. But more concerning was what he could see in Ria's face—the gradual tightening around her eyes, the way her jaw clenched with increasing effort, the subtle tremor in her hands.
She was struggling. Even after less than an hour, maintaining his presence in this dimension was clearly taking a toll on her. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her breathing had become slightly labored, as if she were lifting a weight that grew heavier with each passing moment.
Around them, other students seemed to be having an easier time. Prince Aurelius stood relaxed and confident, his Seraph floating serenely beside him with no visible strain. Elena's crystal spider skittered contentedly around her feet, while Marcus's slug left its acidic trail without any apparent difficulty for its summoner.
But Ria... Ria looked like she was slowly being crushed by an invisible force.
Lex tried to catch her eye, to somehow communicate his concern, but she refused to look at him directly. Her gaze remained fixed on some point in the distance, her face set in lines of grim determination as she fought to maintain the bond between them.
As the minutes ticked by, he could see other students beginning to glance in their direction, noting Ria's obvious distress. Some looked concerned, others merely curious about how long she could maintain her grip on her pathetic creature.
The strain became unbearable. Ria felt as if her very mind was being stretched across dimensional space, pulled taut like a wire about to snap. The bond that connected her to Lex wasn't just draining her energy—it was actively fighting against the natural order of reality, trying to force something from the deepest hell to exist in normal space.
Her vision began to blur at the edges. Around her, she was dimly aware of other students still maintaining their creatures with ease, their bonds stable and natural. Prince Aurelius's Seraph continued to radiate serene light, while Elena's crystal spider chimed softly as it moved.
But her bond felt like trying to hold water in her bare hands—constantly slipping away, requiring ever more effort to maintain even the most basic connection.
"Enough," she gasped, her voice barely audible.
With a gesture born of desperation and exhaustion, she released her hold on the dimensional anchor. "Return!"
Lex's form began to shimmer and fade, his eyes widening in terror as he realized what was happening. His mouth opened as if to speak, but the words were lost as dimensional energy claimed him, pulling him back across the layers of reality to the End Dimension where she'd found him.
The moment the bond snapped, Ria collapsed to her knees on the stone floor, her body wracked with violent shivers as the strain finally released its grip on her. She panted heavily, her hands shaking as she pressed them against the cold ground for support.
Master Thane approached, his expression unreadable. "Forty-three minutes," he observed clinically. "For a creature from the End Dimension, that is... not entirely without merit."
Ria looked up at him through sweat-dampened hair, confused by what sounded almost like approval in his voice.
"You must understand," Master Thane continued, his tone taking on the cadence of instruction, "the depth of the dimensional plane from which a creature is summoned directly correlates to both its potential power and the difficulty of maintaining its presence. A creature from the third or fourth dimensions can be sustained indefinitely with minimal effort. But something from the End Dimension..."
He paused, his gaze thoughtful. "If you had successfully bonded with the titan itself, the small amount of time you could maintain its presence would be an acceptable trade-off for the immense power it could provide. Even a few minutes with such a creature would be enough to reshape battlefields, tear apart enemy formations, or channel energies that could level cities."
The implications of his words slowly sank in. Around the amphitheater, other students had begun to pay attention, their conversations dying away as they realized what Master Thane was suggesting.
"The problem," he continued, his voice carrying a note of frustration, "is that you didn't bond with the titan. You bonded with its meal—a creature with no inherent dimensional power, no connection to the End Dimension's energies beyond its physical presence there. You are expending tremendous effort to maintain something that provides no benefit whatsoever."
Ria's humiliation deepened as she realized the full scope of her failure. Not only had she missed her intended target, but she'd managed to grab the one thing in the entire End Dimension that was completely useless to a Keeper. She was burning through her energy reserves to sustain a creature that couldn't even survive in its own dimension, let alone channel power from it.
"However," Master Thane said, his tone shifting slightly, "the fact that you can maintain any creature from the End Dimension for nearly an hour demonstrates considerable potential. Your will is strong, your dimensional reach is unprecedented among students, and your raw power is formidable. These are not small achievements."
He looked down at her with something that might have been pity. "The question now is whether you can find a way to make this... arrangement... functional. Because as it stands, you are straining yourself to maintain a creature that offers nothing in return."
Ria remained on her knees, her body still trembling from the exhaustion of maintaining the bond. The truth of his words cut deep—she was trapped in a cosmic joke.
As the other students resumed their training, their creatures continuing to demonstrate their various abilities, Ria slowly pushed herself back to her feet. Her legs felt unsteady, and she could already feel the dull ache in her mind that would haunt her for hours after such intense dimensional strain.
Lex appeared again in the flesh-stone cave with a wet thud, his body slamming against the pulsing walls as dimensional energy released its grip on him. The familiar agony of broken ribs was gone, replaced by the angel's healing, but the despair that crashed over him was infinitely worse than any physical pain.