03-03-1950
Dawn had barely kissed the horizon when the crowd began to gather.
They pressed against the iron gates of the Grand Summoning Basilica, a structure that had witnessed three centuries of magical manifestations. Its white marble columns caught the first rays of morning light, each one carved with the images of legendary summons from ages past, dragons coiled around stone, phoenixes mid-flight, and armored titans frozen in eternal vigilance.
Peasants and ordinary humans squeezed together for a glimpse. The festival proper wouldn't begin until noon, but already the air thrummed with anticipation. This was the day Valthoria's future would be written in magic and contract. The day when thirty younglings would manifest their seals and call forth their first companions.
Altair Elfender stood before his mirror, fingers trembling as he fastened the last button of his ceremonial coat.
Eighteen years old.
The thought was sour to his mind.
"You should eat something," his mother's voice drifted through the door. Lady Helena had been hovering outside his chambers since sunrise, it was clear she was worried.
"I'm not hungry."
A lie. His stomach had been empty since yesterday, twisted into knots too tight for food. But he was too anxious to eat anything.
He wrapped a dark scarf around the lower half of his face, hiding everything but his eyes. Cowardice, perhaps. But he'd take cowardice over recognition.
10:30.
The walk to the Basilica should have taken fifteen minutes. Altair made it in ten, his legs carrying him with the desperate urgency of a man approaching either salvation or execution. The waiting crowd had multiplied to hundreds now, their faces bright with excitement he couldn't share.
He climbed the marble steps, each one feeling like a small mountain.
"Is that him?"
"It can't be, he's too old."
"No, look at the coat. Those are Elfender colors."
The whispers followed him like hungry ghosts. He kept his eyes forward, fixed on the great bronze doors that stood open before him.
Inside, the Basilica lived up to its name.
The circular dome soared overhead, its ceiling painted with constellations that marked the dates of every great summoning in Valthoria's history. Descending rows of seats surrounded a central stage, wide enough to accommodate even a mid-sized dragon. The platform at its center gleamed with freshly polished brass, etched with amplification runes that would broadcast each summoning to every corner of the hall.
Altair took a seat at the highest point, farthest from the entrance. From here, he was just another face in what would soon be an audience of nobility.
He waited.
An hour crawled by.
Then began the arrival.
First in handfuls, then in crowds. Families entered with their banners held high, the Silvercrests with their owl sigil, the Drakenhearts with their wyrm, the Moons with their spectral wolf. Each house announced itself with trumpets and ceremony, their younglings walking with the confidence of those who knew exactly what power ran through their veins.
The Elfenders entered last.
No banners, no trumpets. Just Lord Godric Elfender, his wife Helena, and their two younger children Michael and Zara walking in silence. They took their seats in the noble section, and Altair watched his father.
Lord Godric refused to look up, or acknowledge that somewhere in these seats, his eldest son waited with a seal that looked so wrong.
The ceremony began with speeches Altair could barely hear. His thoughts were loud, drowning out everything else. He watched the Basilica fill to capacity, as excitement ripple through the crowd .
Then the summoning began.
"Edwin Silvercrest!"
A silver-haired boy, no more than ten years old, descended to the stage with the confidence of someone who'd practiced this moment a thousand times. He stretched his left forearm over the platform, where his seal glowed.
The air shimmered.
A silver-winged owl materialized above the platform, its wingspan twice the boy's height. It landed weightless
on his shoulder with a cry that echoed through the dome, and the crowd erupted in applause.
"Excellent! A silver familiar of the Ethereal Court!" The instructor, a grizzled summoner named Master Oz nodded with approval. "Grade B manifestation. Well done, young Silvercrest."
Edwin bowed and returned to his seat, triumph written in every line of his posture.
"Ryka Drakenheart!"
A dark-haired girl with her family's characteristic amber eyes approached. Her seal burned red-gold. When she summoned, heat washed over the entire Basilica as a juvenile wyvern appeared in a gout of flame, its scales the color of molten copper, and with a stretch of her hand, the wyvern exercised immediate restraint.
"A wyvern!" Master Oz's eyebrows rose. "Grade A manifestation! Remarkable for a first summoning."
Two more younglings followed. A familiar spirit reaper, translucent and vaguely humanoid. A storm crow that crackled with lightning. Each summoning brought fresh waves of applause, each manifestation another confirmation of power, of worthiness, of futures written in glory.
Altair's name fell like a hammer.
"Altair Elfender."
The hall didn't go silent, that would have been mercy. Instead, whispers erupted like disturbed hornets, buzzing increasingly .
"Isn't he too old?"
"Eight years late. That's almost unheard of."
"I heard he's the failed spawn of Godric."
"Some say he's a halfblood."
"Wouldn't be hard to believe, would it? His younger siblings both manifested normally."
Altair stood. His legs felt disconnected from his body, operating on some instinct deeper than conscious thought. He descended the steps, one after another, while hundreds of eyes tracked his movement.
He glanced once at his father.
Lord Godric's face had gone pale, his expression showing disgust and yet, fear.
Not fear for Altair, fear of what Altair represented. Public embarrassment. The end of the Elfender reputation that had stood for centuries.
If Lord Godric had known sooner, Altair wouldn't have been permitted to register. But the festival laws were clear: any manifested seal must be given its chance. Now there was nothing to do but watch and pray the rumors remained just rumors.
Altair reached the platform.
Master Oz studied him, then his gaze dropped to Altair's right hand. The instructor focused, catching sight of the seal through, a mark that looked incomplete, its edges blurred and uncertain, lacking the crisp definition that marked proper summoner bloodlines.
"Your seal looks... unusual," Master Thorne said quietly. He wasn't mocking. It was just a professional concerned observation .
Altair said nothing.
"Very well. Place your hand over the platform and channel your mana. Focus on the connection between your seal and the realm beyond and call forth what answers."
Altair placed his right hand over the brass platform.
His seal activated. He channeled everything he had, every drop of mana he'd painstakingly accumulated in the few days since his seal had finally manifested. Faith and fear wrestled in his mind, in an endless struggle.
"Please," he thought. "Please be worth something."
A pillar of light erupted from the platform, encasing his hand in brilliance that forced the front rows to shield their eyes. The amplification runes rang with power, broadcasting his summoning across the entire Basilica.
And when the light died.
Something fell into his grasp.
Altair looked down.
A book.
Not a spell tome crackling with arcane energy. Not a grimoire bound in dragon leather with runes that radiated power. Just... a book, a dusty one. Its leather cover cracked with age.
The silence lasted exactly three seconds.
Then someone laughed.
"A book?"
"He summoned a dusty old book!"
The laughter spread like disease, infecting row after row until the entire Basilica rang with it. Not polite chuckles or nervous titters, but full-throated mockery that crashed against the dome and returned doubled.
Altair's gaze found his father.
Lord Godric had turned away, his shoulders rigid with shame and hate. Beside him, Lady Helena pressed a hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. Michael, golden Michael, who'd summoned a perfect Sentinel at age ten wore a slight smirk, his eyes saying everything his mouth didn't need to: Yeah, serves you right doofus
Only Zara looked at him with a bit of sympathy. But even she couldn't meet his eyes for long.
"You may leave," Master Oz said quietly. There was no cruelty in his voice, just exhaustion. He'd seen failures before, but nothing quite like this. "Next candidate: Lydia Moon!"
Altair barely heard the name. It sounded like someone speaking underwater, muffled and distant. Everything did, the continued laughter, the new summoning beginning behind him, the world itself.
He walked like a corpse given temporary animation, the book clutched in hands gone numb. His eyes stared forward, unblinking, seeing nothing. The climb up the aisle felt endless. Every face he passed wore either pity, disgust, or mockery.
He stumbled out into the daylight.
The walk home felt like infinity untill he arrived at the estate gates. His mind had retreated somewhere deep and dark, leaving only enough consciousness to move his legs toward the Elfender Manor.
The Manor doors burst open.
Lord Godric's large figure stood in the entrance hall, his face purple with rage. Behind him, servants scattered like startled birds.
"You." His father's voice shook the chandelier crystals. "You dare show your face here?"
Altair stopped. The book hung heavy in his hands.
"Eight years!" Spittle flew from Lord Godric's mouth. "Eight years we waited! Eight years of humiliation, of whispers, of watching other families surpass us! And for what? For THIS?"
He grabbed the book from Altair's hands and hurled it across the hall. It hit the wall and fell with a sad thump.
"Husband, please..." Lady Helena rushed forward, her face streaked with tears. "He's still your son..."
The slap caught her across the cheek, spinning her into the wall.
Lord Godric's hand shot out, grabbing Altair by the throat. "No son of mine summons trash. No son of mine brings shame to the Elfender name!" His fist crashed into Altair's face. Once and Again.
Blood filled Altair's mouth.
"You're no summoner!" Another blow, this one to the ribs. Altair felt something crack. "You're nothing! A mistake! A blight on three hundred years of honor!"
Altair didn't fight back. What would be the point? His father was right.
When Lord Godric finally released him, Altair crumpled to the marble floor. Through swelling eyes, he caught a glimpse of Michael watching from the second-floor balcony. His brother's slight smirk had grown into a satisfied smile.
Zara stood beside him, her hand over her mouth, crying.
Altair crawled. His legs wouldn't support him, so he crawled, leaving a trail of blood on pristine marble. He grabbed the book, his useless, worthless book and dragged himself toward the east wing, toward his quarters, toward the only place left that might offer sanctuary.
He locked the door behind him.
The room was exactly as he'd left it this morning. Bed made with military precision. Books arranged by height on their shelf. The antique table his mother had gifted him on his fourteenth birthday, its surface polished to a mirror shine.
He placed the book on that table.
For a long moment, he just stared at it. Then, with trembling hands, he opened the cover.
Empty.
Page after page of nothing. Blank parchment reflecting his own emptiness back at him. Not a single word. Not a single rune. Just void.
Altair's laugh came out broken. Of course. Of course the book was empty. Why would it be anything else? This was his life now—a blank page pretending to be something more.
He closed the book.
His gaze drifted to the drawer beside his bed. Inside, wrapped in silk, lay the royal dagger his mother had given him on his fifteenth birthday. "To protect yourself in a world of summoners," she'd said, pressing it into his hands with desperate hope in her eyes.
How naive.
Altair unwrapped the dagger. Its blade caught the afternoon light streaming through his window, beautiful and sharp and offering a solution to a problem that could no longer be solved any other way.
His hands had stopped shaking. Strange. He felt calm for the first time in years. This, at least, was something he could control. This, at least, was a choice that belonged only to him.
He pressed the blade to his left wrist.
And in one quick motion, he cut clean.
Blood flowed immediately, spilling over his skin in a warm rush. It dripped onto the table, onto the book, spreading across those blank pages like ink desperately seeking words to form.
Altair rested his head on the table, his cheek pressed against leather and blood.
The room grew dimmer. Or maybe that was just his vision failing.
He thought of his mother's tears, Zara's helpless sympathy, Michael's smirk, his father's disgust.
His eyes closed.
The blood continued to drip, filling page after page with spreading crimson.
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