Luke Tome didn’t think of himself as a noble.

He didn’t align with his vision of a noble. The Tome family had a history that rivaled the oldest families in the kingdom but that was the only thing they shared with their peers. They had a small territory, smaller coffers, and no influence. The Tomes were nobles in name only. Luke was not even allowed the luxury of pretending otherwise.

From the time he entered society, Gordon Grimoire and the rest of his wretched family had terrorized him. Their harassment ranged from childish pranks to criminal transgressions. As a boy, he’d been ostracized. No one would speak to him, children or adults. It didn’t matter if he stood in their faces or shouted in their ears. They would turn their faces until he understood he wasn’t wanted.

One time, he threw a tantrum and shoved another child that had ignored him for the umpteenth time. Even then, the other boy hadn’t spoken a word to him. He had stared at the young Luke with a sour expression that clearly expressed how troubled he was, but he was so concerned about offending the Grimoires, he’d endured three subsequent shoves without a word, unwilling to defend himself if it meant violating the unspoken order of the red-headed tyrants.

Eventually, a servant noticed the trouble Luke was causing and took him back to his father. After the party was over, Luke had asked not to attend the next banquet but that was impossible. A weaker family rejecting an invitation from their betters was considered disrespectful. Normally, it was a non-issue, as unimportant nobles didn’t receive said invitations, but the Grimoires had made tormenting the Tomes a family tradition and time had made them creative.

There were only a few ways to hurt people who had nothing. Making them attend banquets and stand on the outskirts with stiff faces, less significant than air, while others made merry was a special kind of torture.

By the time he was a young man, he had built a tolerance to the abuse. Swaddled his heart with his shattered dreams and his shredded ambitions. It didn’t make him immune to the pain or smother his murderous rage toward his enemies, but it meant he could get on with his life. Something his brother Jackal had never managed, constantly seeking the acclaim he felt was owed to him.

Luke had cast away his identity as a noble to focus on his identity as a summoner. No matter what the Grimoires did, they hadn’t been able to rewrite history. They couldn’t take away the accomplishments of his ancestors. Luke convinced himself that if he made similar contributions to the kingdom, they couldn’t be denied as well. And knowledge was the one thing that couldn’t be taken from him.

His time at the Grand Hall had been a revelation. It was the first place he’d found beyond the reach of any noble. Where a person’s worth was decided by their own efforts. His time as an acolyte hadn’t been easy by any means but it had rewarded him for every drop of sweat he shed.

At one time, he thought he would spend his whole life on the floating island. Buy a house on the edge of the Myriad Zone and find work in the city to pay for his studies. One day, when his work gained kingdom-wide recognition, he’d apply to live in one of the estates reserved for the members of staff and teach his own classes. Make his mark raising an entire generation of summoners.

Things hadn’t gone as he planned. He found what he thought at the time was love but later had the perspective to recognize as a desperate entanglement formed by two desperate people. Him, who had never had a relationship because no respectable family would engage their daughter to a Tome and his shattered self-esteem didn’t allow him to find a woman on his own. Her, a woman who only cared for things beyond their world.

He knew it would end badly. How could it not? Their first conversation was her asking a favor of him. Their first date was spent seated across from each other in the library within the Summoner Hall, him barely managing to speak a handful of words between her daydreaming about the elemental she wanted to contract.

Their first time together didn’t happen after a night of passion, but after a night of excessive drinking to celebrate the Hall publishing his Zero Affinity Theory. A long way from being recognized by the kingdom but something to be proud of. The first thing he’d ever been proud of.

Then the dream came crashing down. His lover didn’t come from a family with a tradition of summoning. She was drawn to the art because it gave power to the powerless. One contract could make a king of a beggar. That’s what she wanted and she was willing to do anything to get it.

She had an unhealthy obsession with the stronger elementals recorded in the Hall, one that didn’t abate no matter how many times he warned her. If he was capable of rationality then, he would have cut ties with her and never looked back. However, that would be the end of their relationship. That would have destroyed the old Luke. So, he supported her plan to contact dangerous creatures that turned the minds of men inside-out as a pastime.

The expected happened. They destroyed her but not in the way he expected. His lover conducted her summoning in secret, as no matter how desperate he was, Luke would have done his best to stop her if he knew. She disappeared, with no clues to her whereabouts besides a broken circle and what appeared to be all the blood in her bloody splattered across the floor.

Rumors abounded. Their relationship was no secret. He was the more experienced summoner. It was an unspoken expectation for him to protect her. He’d failed and it marred his reputation. It was nothing he couldn’t recover from but at the time, his peers didn’t look at him the same and the teachers looked down on him. He even lost his position as a research assistant, what had been paying his tuition.

Terrible circumstances but he might have still been able to scrape by if his lover hadn’t left him with a newborn daughter.

That was how she managed to secretly do her summoning. With the birth of their daughter, he thought she wouldn’t be so quick to risk her life and hadn’t kept as strict of an eye on her. A ridiculous notion. She hadn’t hesitated for a moment.

With no other choice, Luke left the Hall. He hadn’t achieved all he wanted but he had grown and he had left his name within the Hall for all future summoners. He also had a daughter, an heir. The next generation he’d wanted to teach.

Summoning played a pivotal role in his life. It was all he had. Everything he valued was connected to it. It had given meaning to his life. It was his legacy. It was the only connection with his daughter he hadn’t fouled through ignorance, indifference, or awkwardness. It was the most precious thing to him. He valued it over everything. As much pride as he had in his family, he would rather see the Tomes reduced to nameless peasants than have the art attacked.

That was why he couldn’t accept the bans on summoning issued by the king. The crown intended to use them as justification to eliminate a particular group, he knew that, but the reality of it was that the entire community had come under fire. The Grimoires had destroyed the reputation of all summoners and those inclined took the laws as the king’s approval to target them.

Summoners weren’t powerful people. They didn’t have gold or influence. Some of them had powerful elementals but they couldn’t fight every private army and knight order owned by their enemies. They were easy targets. If nothing was done, summoning could be eradicated from the Harvest kingdom.

Something had to be done and there weren’t many people capable of doing it.

So few people that an unimpressive man like Luke Tome had to be the one to lead the charge. A burden he wasn’t happy to carry but willingly shouldered. He would not allow the last kingdom of humanity to reject its summoners. For too long, they’d been the victims. Powerless. No more. They would be heard. They would be respected.

No matter what it took.