Sky partly opened one eye and watched the retreating backs of a griffon named Char and the vampire called Vael, the last two classmates, leave the room. She had tucked herself into a corner and been pretending to sleep for the past several hours. On Nephil, the fourth day of the week, she'd discovered that appearing to pay attention during class was dangerous as she'd been savagely beaten for it by a female classmate of hers named Alyssa. As a result of the beating, she'd fallen asleep in her rooms for the rest of the day. Today, Vegen, the fifth day of the week, she'd pretended to sleep for the entire class and had been unmolested—mostly.
Now that she was alone, Sky stood and stretched as her stiff muscles protested fiercely. Finally, she was able to look around the room. She was not in the regular classroom. Her class had left the school's main building as soon as Instructor Drakkon, her escort and teacher, finished calling attendance. Sky traipsed behind everyone, following what appeared a path that appeared to be as twisting and overgrown as a deer trail into the forest. They eventually wound up in Regis's summoning room.
The summoning room was a spacious, dark cavern complete with echoing sounds of water dripping from distant stalactites. Sky inhaled deeply through her nose the cool air laden with the scent of damp Gothe as her eyes took in the poured gold, six-pointed star set in the floor. The two points of the star that were directly opposite each other were longer than the other four. Tall black metal candlesticks like tridents were placed on the points of the star and a raised circular gold dais with a black metal brazier stood at its middle. The brazier and the candles were all burning with purple flames.
One by one, the students of her class had all stepped onto this dais and thrown their personal sigils on the flames. They had spent all week developing these during class. If a student had created his or her sigil correctly, when the flame consumed it, the student's familiar would be summoned and bound to them. If they had not made their sigil right, then nothing would happen.
Even though Sky still didn't have books and was still being mostly ignored, she'd manage to make a sigil. She'd stayed behind during lunch on Ruken, the third day of the week, to create it in the absence of everyone else. She'd paid for it in blood and pain. Since she didn't know what else to do, she decided to borrow some supplies from the next creature who left the room for a bit. When the creature whose supplies she'd borrowed returned to the classroom, he'd beaten her unconscious. To Sky, it was worth it. Although the sigil wasn't pretty and she didn't feel very attached to it, she had made it. Now, she would get the chance to summon her familiar, too. She'd had to wait for the rest of her class to leave. If anyone had seen her try to do this, they would have attacked her savagely. However, now here she was alone at last and able to try summoning her familiar.
Paying attention to the ceremony at hand, Sky concentrated on the purple candles; they guttered. She had to hurry, or the candles would go out. It had taken all morning for the entirety of her class to summon their familiars. The candles were barely more than nubs at this point. Sky eagerly raced into the circle. Pulling her very crinkled sigil from her pocket, she hastily threw it in the brazier and waited.
It took several seconds, but at last, the thick, black smoke from the brazier began to gather above the flame. Sky stared at it with shining eyes. A bright smile donned her countenance as she excitedly thought about what sort of creature her familiar would be. A glimmer of hope cautiously ebbed in her heart. She fell to thinking of her classmates' familiars.
The blond vampire Vael, with his stunning violet eyes, had summoned a winged creature no bigger than her palm that glowed so brightly the entire cavern was illuminated. She'd heard someone call it a fire sprite. The brown-skinned male who'd spoken to her on the first day, a dryad named Uriel, had summoned a macraw. This was a creature that looked like a mix between an eagle and a frog except the entire thing appeared to be made of mud, even its wings. Although the macraw had mud wings, it could still fly, which it demonstrated this several times. Alyssa, who happened to be the most sensuous female Sky had ever seen, naturally as she was a succubus, had summoned a grenloche.
Grenloches were beautiful creatures that granted wishes in exchange for souls. It hadn't seemed like a particularly useful familiar, but when it came over to her, Sky looked into its cherubic, doll-like face. She'd considered accepting the deal it had offered her. The innocent impression she'd gotten of the creature quickly evaporated when she'd refused, and it became angry. Three rows of fangs lined its mouth. Sky could then see how it might be useful.
Coughing hard, Sky blinked her stinging eyes and realized she must have been out of it for a while. The smoke appeared to be gathering around her and she could barely breathe. She coughed again, trying to rid her lungs of burning smoke. It was everywhere, stinging her eyes and filling her nose and mouth with its acrid scent. She backed up, still coughing, then backed up again. The inky black cloud remained around her.
Stepping backward, Sky eventually fell off the dais. Looking up at it from the ground, she could see a thin, translucent gold sheet of some sort containing a wall of smoke. The smoke looked like it was boiling inside the sheet. Sky saw more smoke streaming into the pillar from every candle within her sight. Also, she could dimly see the purple glow of the brazier on the dais, meaning that it, too, was adding to the column when already it was roiling against the gold barrier.
As Sky stared in mute horror (none of her classmates' summonings had gone like this), she felt a pop and a spider's web of cracks appeared on the gold surface, and more smoke poured into the cylinder continuously. With more popping, the cracks expanded. Something bad was about to happen. She knew it. Scrambling to her feet, she hastened from the room.