I can hear some murmuring starting from the crowd, but I do not care anymore. I spent most of my life caring and dreading this moment. It seemed as if I was at the center of a great storm all day, the quiet eye of it. I know that my circumstances are terrible and that my emotions and stomach should feel as though they were being tossed.

However, the butterflies and nausea never came, it never hit me as I took the few strides I needed to reach the summoning circle. I had finally come to accept everything and in doing so, I somehow felt immune to what had been plaguing me for the majority of my life.

Mid stride over the boundary of the stone ring, just as I was shifting my weight to fully enter the circle I’m hit with a wave of force, something that makes me feel very heavy and slow.

‘Fucking great, even the summoning circle does not want me’.

It’s an odd sensation; I feel as though I am suddenly surrounded by water, no sand, buried neck-deep. I cannot move as I want. I can breathe just fine, though I’m stuck just one step inside the circle.

The fraction of a second that I am stuck and railing against the pressure, the sensation changes. I feel the sand moving, carrying me, and forcing my body to comply. I try to move back, to the side, shift my weight, anything… but nothing I can only go where the invisible sand shifts me.

I move to the middle of the circle as my mind is still reeling at what the sensation is. It is not painful, more whimsical or perhaps the sensation was more dreamlike when you are slightly lucid but have to go with the flow of events. I feel more like a spectator to what is happening to my own body. I feel so heavy as if being crushed by all sides, an all-encompassing hug. Okay, a ghost is hugging me and puppeteering my body, time to start panicking.

The sand that I feel trapped in begins to move again and I am just watching as my hand reaches out casually in front of me, palm and wrist facing towards the devourer in the sky. Oh by the devourer, please do not make me strike a pose.

Shifting my eyes but not my head towards the group of people in front of me, I cannot make out any faces, as the sun is setting, giving a brilliant pink and orange tableau in the sky and making everyone look like shadowed figures.

It seems as if they are also moving in slow motion. Their whispers and jeers are slowed, garbled, sounding deep, dark… nefarious.

Focusing back on my hand that is extended in front of me, I can see that I am bleeding.

Nothing makes sense anymore. I do not remember being cut or how my wrist had been injured. There’s a lot of blood... However, it is falling sideways. It’s not dripping to the ground but looks as if it were running off my wrist, hand and small droplets are floating away from my fingers to the left and right.

This is perplexing and again it simply feels as though I am only spectating in my own body. The blood begins to form a circle around me partially leaving my line of sight.

I am surrounded by a ring of my own blood, with no clue as to what is happening and cannot do anything as I am trapped by the invisible sand ghost entity.

From the corner of my eye, I can see the ring of blood split and form a second ring around me, slightly offset and crossing each other in each corner of my vision. Panic, squeamishness, and worry are constantly fighting to the top. There is no pain despite the amount of blood that looks to be outside my body.

The sand starts to move again and I could feel my hand being pushed back and falling to my side. The shadows of the adults were moving, ever so slowly, I cannot see what was going on. Maybe they were going to rescue me, maybe they are laughing and still mocking me.

There are two perfect rings of blood around me, though as some of the shadowy figures start to draw closer, I can hear their muffled demonic voices, they do not make any sense. That and they are fighting with the ringing that was left from that previous boy…

Am I going to end up like that boy? A couple of shadows have covered a quarter of the distance between us and I can feel a shiver run down my spine. The hairs at the back of my neck stand on end as the shiver started at the base of my skull and slowly made its way lower and lower. By the time it is near my navel, I feel something from deep within. Like a strong roiling wind from within my stomach condense and then burst from me as a visible sphere ripples outwards into the area around me.

My vision dims, as darkness creeps in on me from all around me as if the devourer himself is trying to take me.

I feel drained from whatever it was that rippled outwards, but I try to focus and push back on the darkness that is trying to consume me.

What is going on? What was happening to me? Why me?

I see the rolling sphere ripple out and connect with the shadows. As if in slow motion, I see them being picked up and knocked off their feet and deposited onto the ground a dozen feet away from where they managed to get to.

The entire group of people before me were systematically picked up and pushed out and away. Their demonic voices come to a dead silence as the ripple has probably knocked the wind out of all of them.

Focusing away from the shadows, I can see rings around me had changed after the ripple had passed through them. Clumping. Transforming. I feel sick and perplexed. I hope Jessica was not injured just now.

I see the two rings of blood had formed a multitude of small runes in mid-air. A few of the runes are similar but wrong compared to those on the few stones in my view.

The blood runes are slowly circling me in opposite directions. The rings were slowly oscillating. One moving lower, the other higher and reversing in mid-air. Is this how that person died nine winters ago? Am I going to die?

A pang of pain resonates from within my heart and I feel some words drift into my mind. I feel compelled to say them, as if, that would make it all go away. Stop. Surrender.

I cannot resist.

I’ve been powerless to whatever has been going on so far. This is not what I had signed up for this morning.

I am watching through my own eyes, as I feel my own lips part, my tongue slowly wetting them, and am unable to stop, I am simply compelled to say…

“I… Cara Tess Foregess… do summon… and bind thee… to my side… the embodiment of strength… Wisdom… Longevity… And… Loyalty… capable of the impossible… until death parts us...”

I cannot believe what just came out of my mouth. I wanted to cringe away and hide from the celestial bodies above. I do not want to be hit by lightning-like that boy or killed. I was forced... somehow... I do not want to die... I did not want to be greedy… I just wanted to maybe break the mold and be a better… me.

While cringing on the inside for whatever divine punishment was about to take place. Fear of being torn asunder by some rampaging magical forces from above. I am shaking on the inside, fearful, for what seems like an eternity, but nothing is happening.

I catch it in my peripheral vision, a distortion at my feet a huge lump in space seems to radiate heat and distorts the very earth below me.

This cannot be happening... Not to me... Was this really happening? It looked as if my most wild dreams just might be coming true.

It begins to take a more defined shape and if I was not paralyzed and could have had my breath taken away, it would have been. The distortion is becoming more defined and it appears to be a person on one knee.

This is impossible, a joke or maybe someone was controlling me with some form of magic.

I cannot think of how any of the magic affinities could be used to make this happen. This was not possible. Not an artifact, nor a familiar. But a person? I want to reel backwards. I want to scream. I want to run away. Before me, it came into existence, a man, kneeling with his head down. Grievously injured…

There he is, in front of me, with black demonic thin chains piercing his body. They almost look like black acrid smoke. Twenty-some odd of them are piercing and binding him. Held taut and just coming out of thin air, as if bound to some evil puppet master. There are no wounds where they connect with him, they just simply seem to pass right through and into his very being.

He is wearing dark black leather armor. It is very snug and well fitted. There is some dark purple trim here and there on his armor making it look more like something a noble might wear. Looking closer at it, I can see a black relief on the armor. Runes in black on black armor that is almost impossible to see unless the light catches it just right.

I cannot see his face, as he is still facing the ground while taking a knee in front of me. All I can really see is that he has a spiked messy set of deep blue hair.

While looking at the enigma that is before me, I did not notice until the last second that the rings of blood runes had begun to change again. One ring was unwinding and stretching out towards the puzzle that kneeled before me.

The runes wind around his chains and arm that was in a fist against the ground while he knelt and watched it slowly encircle its way up his arm like a venomous snake going for his throat. It loops around and crawls across the back of his neck. He slowly looks up at me and I can finally see his face and impossibly blue eyes, as it continues to slither its way across his face, across the bridge of his nose.

I freak out on the inside, as something blurry snakes across the bridge of my own nose. It is out of focus, but I realize then that the other ring of runes is also gone and probably it had done the same to myself.

IT BURNS!!!

Like ropes tightening all across my body, everywhere, I feel the runes touch my skin and watch as they likewise merge under his skin like ghostly smoke tattoos. The sting abruptly ends and a lingering warmth is left all across my face and body.

I watch as the smoke like tattoos fade and disperse to nothing as if they are traveling deeper, embedding themselves deeper and deeper into him.

He’s looking up at me, his face showing emotions of worry and confusion.

Again, words started to form in my head and I could hear and feel myself saying them without having actually chosen to do so.

“I enter us into this contract and bind you to assist me in reaching my maximum potential.” My maximum potential? That had always been a dream of mine that I had yearned so long for. To be able to break my family’s curse and to show those who had looked down on me that I was no different than them. I want to be accepted, and I always felt that my cursed bloodline would always stop me from ever knowing what I was truly capable of.

Almost as if those words had plucked some deep chord within me, giving me a flicker of hope and joy at how that was my deepest yearning. I watched as the demonic chains started to fade from existence from the periphery then inwards, still taut, as though the puppet master does not want anyone to see the strings to their favorite puppet.

The warmth that I felt in my body starts to intensify. I can feel it spreading throughout me and I am fast becoming light-headed and feverish.

I finally feel the pressure of the sand that has been entrapping me ease up and let go. The ground is fast approaching and I remember to catch myself as I fell to my knees, exhausted and unable to maintain my own weight. Looking up into his eyes, as we are both kneeling now, more in a clumsy mess.

How is this possible? Can this be true? Has this all been dreamvine hallucination? Did my dad accidentally put me in a coma and this is just a lucid dream? Does this mean that I am now a mage? Do I dare hope to believe?

He starts to move and suddenly darkness starts to set in and narrow my field of vision in earnest again, as I start to collapse to my side. I see him move to catch me and ease my body and head down as the blackness continues to creep across my eyes as I blink slowly into his blue eyes that are now shining with their own light.

Things are going blurry and the heat coursing through my body is intensifying. I grit my teeth hard. I can feel it. I can feel boiling water that is coursing through my own veins.

Darkness fully consumes my vision and I close my eyes, as the last thing I see is him watching and slowly guiding my descent to the ground.

It is odd, while the heat coursing through my body was intensifying, I cannot help but feel that the storm of emotions that I’ve been dealing with this entire time was just disappearing. I was successful, I beat my family’s curse and am maybe a real mage. I do not know who it was that I summoned, though I did summon him. I think I did…

I was at the center of the storm that had been intensifying my entire life until this day, and it felt as though that weight, that the storm was simply dissipating as I lay here on the ground. I was in pain from the heat, though the relief and calmness from that which has plagued me my entire life, made the pain seem like nothing and easily bearable.

The last thing I remember is seeing his face and the relief that I felt before the pain continued to intensify and I lost consciousness.

What a terrible headache today has turned out to be. We almost lost a boy during his ritual and that Foregess child’s antics at the end of the day. I knew that it was peculiar that we had so many familiars to be successfully summoned. An ill omen indeed! And then no sooner did everything get turned upside down.

I closed my third giant tome on runes that I had leafed through and was still at a loss for many of the runes that the Foregess child had used.

A quick rap on the door to my office resounded, and I beckoned the person in.

Looking up from my red wood desk. My office was extremely messy. This always happens when a guild event takes up so much time. These requests pile up and an entire day of meeting prospects disappears.

Looking past the several stacks of books piled on the ground and the one of a kind tapestries depicting the history of the preceding guild masters that covered most of the walls of the large round office. I watch as with a bit of a grunt and heave, Jeremiah Flow, pushes his way backwards into my office, with yet another stack of books piled in his arms up to his chin. I give a slight sigh as I get up to help him set them down on the floor in the nearest open space.

Jeremiah was advancing in age and it did not help that he strained himself as constantly does. He is huffing and wheezing a bit, as he remains bent over, with his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

“You should have made at least two trips there Jeremiah, you’re not as young as you once were,” I say, watching him catch his breath.

“Yes... Yes... I know, though I... had wanted to only make... one trip as we need to discuss what just transpired earlier...” Slowly catching his breath, though still wheezing as he stands up.

“Any luck guild master in regards to the runes that were used?” I give a sigh as I let my shoulders drop in resignation.

“I just don’t understand, it is extremely dangerous magic to use blood for the runes. Terrible consequences are always going to arise. Though I don’t know what is more disconcerting. The fact that I cannot find some of the runes used in any of the three tomes that I just checked, the fact that they were in blood, or how she managed to even form and suspend them in the air? Much less how an untrained mage would even know about them and their dangers...” I pinched the bridge of my nose while going over so many discrepancies that made no sense on just the alterations to the ritual alone.

“I take it you had no luck on your end then Jeremiah?”

It was chaos after that girl finished. The stupid bronze oaf, Zelatud, thought it would be a good idea to try and rush the familiar. As if identifying a threat, the familiar just disappeared and the next thing we saw was Zelatud with a boot in his gut flying backward and a pair of swords having appeared in the familiar’s hands out of nowhere going for a decapitation. Zelatud’s saving grace was that the familiar froze as the girl just started to convulse like nothing I’d ever seen before, while Zelatud flew out of reach of the swords. The familiar then disappeared again and was next to the convulsing girl without his swords. I had to stop any other foolish bronzers from trying anything similar. After finally getting everyone to disperse so that we could try to get Larse to help the girl without threatening the familiar.

Jeremiah let out a sigh.

“It's just unheard of and there is no precedence of it anywhere. I’ve checked the past few hundred winters worth of documented history from several of the guilds that lie to the west. None of them have ever had another human being summoned as a familiar. Closest I found was a water sprite that could mimic human form, though it still would have been tiny.” he explained.

“Also, only royalty has access to dimensional keepsake artifacts, which will cause nothing but problems in the future.”

This was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted and needed something to go on, as Melanie Larse was at a loss as a healer for identifying what the girl had succumbed to. I looked down at the books that he had just struggled to bring in. With a bit of confusion, I turned to ask him.

“Jeremiah, if you were unsuccessful at finding any historical precedence for that kind of familiar, then why did you bring these books up?”

The spines of the books that were visible were so well worn that I could not even make out what they were about.

“I’m sorry guild Master, though I too saw those runes and I was fairly positive that I recognized the odd rune here or there. I cannot recall how most of them looked. I know that I’ve never seen most of them before. Thus, I brought these tomes up from the library. They are mostly on illnesses, poisons, and some of the more exotic runes that could help identify what’s wrong with the girl.”

I was a little disconcerted that he thought I just wasted my time looking through the past three tomes.

There was a knock at the door that stopped him from continuing his explanation for the tomes. We turned to the door and I saw the young mage Patrick sticking his head in. I recalled asking him to help guide the candidates this morning at the entrance gate of the guild.

“Um... excuse me guild master, mage Flow, I thought it prudent to inform you that everyone has finally returned home and the father of Cara, the blacksmith is here.”

“Who’s Cara?” Jeremiah asked. I started to move to the pile of books that Jeremiah had brought up and after quickly shuffling through the first four, I grabbed two of them, handing one to Jeremiah.

“Cara is the Foregess girl, daughter of the blacksmith. He’ll be heading to the healer’s hall. I believe we’d be best to find and ask him about his involvement in what transpired with his daughter today.”

With that, I motioned Jeremiah to go on ahead of me as we exited my office and started our way down towards the healer’s hall. Bidding Patrick a good night, so that he could return home. We made our way down from the top floor of the guild, down to the northern section of the first floor, towards the healer’s hall where the girl, Cara, laid unconscious and in a coma.