Summoner's Call (The Summoner Trilogy Book 1)

by Sarah Anne Piddock

  ‘It would do,’ Amaran was looking away, as if he was embarrassed by her expression, ‘you were power running.’

  Seiya frowned at the term, Paudry had used it when he’d returned with Gorbacov. She hadn’t followed any of the following conversation though, still semi-comatose on Amaran’s shoulder. Gorbacov had left at some point, something about Youally following if he didn’t return to the school before his absence was noticed.

  ‘Which is why Paudry left to get Gorbacov?’ It still didn’t make sense to her. ‘Why would he leave all of you alone when I was about to summon a high ranking wild?’

  ‘You were power running,’ Amaran looked at her as if this was all the answer she needed. ‘There was no reason to suspect you would summon anything, much less drag across a wild.’

  ‘Why?’

  Amaran sighed, ‘power-running is when an emotionally unstable summoner,’ Seiya decided to ignore the jibe, ‘gets addicted to their own power. They pour out more and more until there’s nothing left to keep them alive.’ He paused as Seiya nodded slowly, she could easily imagine that happening if she had continued. ‘Master Paudry was shouting to try and get you to snap out of it but you couldn’t hear him; he thought you may listen to Gorbacov.’

  ‘Paudry was shouting at me?’ Seiya ignored Amaran’s emphasis on the Master’s title, ‘I never heard anything.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Amaran commented dryly. ‘Anyway we were watching you burning up when suddenly a demon appears and you’re screaming.’

  ‘The demon was trying to tear my mind apart,’ Seiya retorted defensively, subconsciously drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. ‘It was rather painful,’ she added sarcastically, laying her head sideways she kept looking at Amaran, ignoring the discomfort as her ear was squashed against her knee cap. He waved her interruption away impatiently.

  ‘The point is power-running summoners lose all sense of self, all they can do is increase their power; summoning, binding, all of that goes out the window.’

  ‘I wanted to burn it all away,’ Seiya admitted slowly, averting her gaze as she pretended to watch the others. ‘But I knew I had to summon a wild, some part of me held on to that and it just,’ gestured helplessly with her arms she shrugged, ‘reached out. There was so much of me in the gateway I sort of passed through and grabbed what I wanted.’ Amaran was still staring at her and Seiya sighed in frustration. ‘The bindings, the incantation; all of it felt so meaningless. All that mattered was the light, and the power.’ She hated hearing the bitterness in her tone at the last, everything felt cold and grey now the light was gone. She ached to let her power burn freely once again and get absorbed into it.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ Amaran warned her. Seiya jumped as he reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it hard between his own until she gasped with pain. ‘Focus on here and now,’ she nodded dumbly as she stared down at her trapped hand, so startled she was momentarily speechless.

  ‘Explain the difference,’ Amaran flicked her under the chin with one hand and her head shot up in response, her eyes meeting his. The other still crushed her in its grip, Seiya winced as he tightened it again and tried to pull away. Changing tactics he pinned her hand to the slab, pressing down hard on the bony knuckles so they were ground into the unyielding stone.

  Light would take the pain away. Just a little bit…

  ‘Stay with me,’ this time Amaran slapped her across the face with his free hand. Although her cheek stung from the impact her head didn’t snap round; even as tears sprung to her eyes she knew he had held back, almost been gentle. His eyes were staring into hers, searching for something. Seiya cringed away and tried to get up but he was far too strong, especially in her weakened state.

  ‘Let me go!’ tugging ineffectually against her pinned arm Seiya struggled to pull away.

  ‘No,’ his voice was flat, calm she would have said, if not for the worry in his eyes. ‘Talk to me, forget about how you felt. You mustn’t use your power right now.’ She didn’t know if he was pleading or commanding, the pressure on her arm dragged her back down as her energy drained away. Weak and lifeless Seiya sagged against him again, this time he didn’t flinch away but let her rest there as he eased the grip on her hand.

  ‘Tell me how what you did today is different from a request summoning,’ Amaran’s voice was soft but steady, whatever had been concerning him seemed to have passed. Really she’d quite like to sleep, her eyes were drooping closed when Amaran nudged her in the side.

  ‘Alright,’ Seiya barely managed to stifle a yawn as she levered herself up, her hand released hesitantly. ‘Imagine the demons world and ours are like two rooms with an adjoining door,’ she dug her finger into the wet mud and used it to draw on the empty stone behind them. ‘When you do a normal summon with an incantation it’s like throwing a lasso through the doorway from our side and dragging the demon across.’ She mimed the action as best she could with her finger puppet demon and summoner but Amaran didn’t seem particularly impressed.

  ‘When I do a request summon it’s like I’m just placing the lasso on the other side of the door, calling out and waiting for a demon to step inside it so I can pull it across.’ Seiya glanced up to check her audience was still following and saw Amaran nod cautiously in response.

  ‘And today?’

  ‘Today was very weird,’ Seiya frowned as she thought back, ‘it’s like I somehow split myself in two, one part stayed on our side of the door but the other went into the demon’s room. As if I just walked in and dragged the demon back with me.’

  ‘You crossed through the gateway?’ Amaran regarded her sceptically. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.’

  ‘I think it’s because so much of me was already in the gateway,’ Seiya gave up trying to explain and rubbed out the muddy lines. ‘I don’t really understand either but the main difference was today I went and grabbed the demon, with a request summoning they volunteer to come across.’

  ‘But for a wild you would normally use the same summoning as the rest of us? ‘

  ‘Of course,’ Seiya gestured to the wild demons fighting in the distance, ‘can you imagine any of them volunteering?’

  ‘What about the other session this morning?’ Amaran turned to face her as she fell silent. ‘You summoned using an incantation just like the rest of us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Seiya answered reluctantly, ignoring his implied question.

  ‘Fully bound?’

  ‘You heard the incantation.’

  Amaran snorted, ‘and we’ve been relaxing bindings since the start of level four.’ Seiya kept quiet, the distant duels suddenly needing her full attention.

  ‘Seiya-’

  ‘I think I’ll go watch the others closer up,’ Seiya spoke abruptly, pushing to her feet before Amaran could grab her again.

  ‘We can have this conversation anywhere you like,’ Amaran drawled. He didn’t even bother standing up, his eyes daring her to walk away. ‘The others might even find it interesting.’ The silence stretched but Seiya already knew she had lost, slumping back to the stone defeatedly. Amaran at least had the good grace not to smile at his victory, his expression carefully neutral.

  ‘Why haven’t you told anyone about me?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘It doesn’t help me in anyway,’ Amaran shrugged, ‘and I’ve no way to prove it, it would just be my word against yours.’

  ‘Youally would happily take it,’ Seiya bitterly pointed out, ‘and lock me up in that collar.’ Amaran’s eyes widened at the mention of the Kurlin-Ra but he shook his head.

  ‘You may be surprised,’ he commented mysteriously, waving aside her quizzical expression. ‘Even though I sit in on the Council it’s made as many enemies as allies. Now, about this morning,’ the determined return to the original subject allowed no room for further questions, no matter how much Seiya wanted to change the topic.

  ‘What about it?’ Seiya looked down at her feet, she was hardly in the mood to volunteer info
rmation. She heard Amaran sigh in exasperation, but it was exaggerated enough that she knew he was mocking her.

  ‘You’re really going to make me drag it out of you?’ Seiya assumed the question was rhetorical, plucking a blade of grass she shredded it with her nail, the strips getting ever smaller. ‘Did you relax the bindings on the demon you summoned this morning against Jamen. Yes or no?’

  The thin grass strings floated to the ground, two she kept and tried to tie together, her mind feverishly working on a way out.

  ‘I’m not going to tell anyone,’ Amaran prompted coaxingly, ‘why keep it a secret? Don’t you want to talk to someone about it?’

  I do, Seiya replied silently, several people, they’re just demons. He did have a point though, his annoyingly accurate suspicions were just as bad, possibly worse, than him actually knowing.

  ‘Yes,’ she threw the grass away in frustration, every knot she tied simply breaking as she pulled too hard.

  ‘So they talk to you?’

  ‘Yes, and move, and use magic,’ the slow drip feeding was getting on her nerves. ‘But I’m normally guiding them using very light bindings, so what they do is decided by me but I’m not forcing them.’

  ‘But this morning the shield was created by the demon, using its magic when it appeared?’ Seiya nodded reluctantly as Amaran allowed himself a small triumphant smile at his successful wheedling. ‘And the rest of the techniques?’

  ‘A combination of trying things out and the demon teaching me. After the shield the power was all my own,’ she added defensively, starting to feel that Amaran was accusing her of being useless. His previous comment about the demons doing all the hard work still rankled.

  ‘Why did you let the bindings go?’ Amaran was forced to talk quickly. The wild demons were being dismissed by rest, with the lesson over they would soon have company.

  Seiya shrugged, ‘I could see it in their eyes, they were intelligent and they certainly didn’t look evil or vicious.’

  ‘So you trusted them?’ Seiya hesitated before nodding slowly.

  ‘Not the wild demons though,’ she clarified immediately, ‘you wouldn’t believe the things they scream at you.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Seiya watched Amaran enviously as he effortlessly rose from the stone. He had looked as tired as her when they sat down but now seemed completely refreshed.

  ‘Want a hand?’ Seiya smiled gratefully as he helped pull her aching limbs into an upright position, holding on that little bit longer as she swayed to find her balance.

  ‘Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!’ Seiya exclaimed as she looked over Amaran’s shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ he craned his neck round to see and Seiya nearly slapped him when he broke into a grin.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he stepped away from her half-hearted swipe towards his head, ‘looks like Master Demar doesn’t trust you.’

  ‘I am not going with that man!’ Seiya declared dramatically, ‘if he tries to teach me any more one of us will end up dead.’

  Unfortunately, Seiya thought as she crawled into bed, between her and Demar it was likely to be her that would break first. Despite her determination she had ended up accompanying the Master and skipping dinner for one simple reason; Youally was with him.

  To refuse would have led to more threats of harsher punishment; to explain why she was so tired she could barely stand would only have created more trouble. Admitting to summoning an unbound rank thirteen wild demon, whatever the circumstances, would have gifted Youally the reason to drag her before the Council as a dangerous threat, out of control. Seiya was grateful Paudry and the others had kept quiet about it, though it was yet another reason she had been forced to leave, the longer they stood there the more likely Youally would overhear something incriminating.

  At least training with Demar had forced Seiya to get over her reluctance to summon. Amaran’s remarks along with her own fear she’d get caught up in her own power again had meant she was worried about forming a gateway. Not that she needed to be, there had been nothing to suggest she was getting drawn in again, though the gateways were far weaker. The lines of light were merely a tool, there was no longing to be engulfed in the brightness. All Seiya really wanted was to sleep, preferably for a couple of days solid. Tomorrow she decided, as her stomach gave a very vocal complaint, she would have to do something about meals, there was no way she could last the day on breakfast alone. Sinking onto the mattress it seemed impossible it had only been one day, the level four exam seemed a lifetime ago.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Despite the effort it took Seiya dragged herself downstairs early the next morning. The large dining hall was eerily quiet, the muffled noises from the kitchen echoing in the empty chamber. Long benches and tables stood deserted, waiting for the waves of students to start flooding in. Weaving through them she made her way to the back, leaning through the rectangular aperture that led to the kitchen proper Seiya could see it was alive with activity. The stone counter was nearly an arms-width wide; usually it was covered with steaming hot food, ready to be dished out to queuing students.

  Frustratingly, nobody was near enough for Seiya to grab their attention. Careful not to catch her head on the wall above she clambered onto the partition and swung her legs over the other side. Seiya sighed happily as warmth washed over her, the kitchen was the height of a normal room and all the fires towards the back kept it lovely and toasty; a stark contrast to the chilly hall where many students ate in their cloaks.

  ‘Seiya?’

  One of the kitchen workers was walking towards her, the voice strangely familiar.

  ‘Yes?’ she answered cautiously, her eyes widening in surprise as the girl came closer. ‘Kirinya?’ Seiya couldn’t hide her amazement. It was no wonder she hadn’t recognised her, the remarkable wavy black hair was hidden, tied back and tucked under a piece of cloth, her figure obscured by a bulky apron. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Kirinya shrugged, ‘my father wouldn’t cover the school’s fees when I got expelled so I’ve got to work it off. At least I’m still alive,’ Seiya felt she was looking at a completely different person as Kirinya’s eyes hardened. ‘If I’d had to pass through the lower levels properly maybe I would’ve become strong enough to hold my own.’

  ‘You knew?’ Seiya thought back to the level two exam as Kirinya nodded.

  ‘It was hardly subtle,’ Kirinya confirmed, ‘my father must have known what was coming yet he kept insisting they let me pass.’ Seiya didn’t know what to say as the girl fell silent, she was no longer the spoilt brat from a few days ago.

  ‘Anyway,’ Kirinya seemed to shake herself back to life with a sheepish smile, ‘what are you doing here?’

  Seiya grimaced, ‘I’m in a level six class but they’re making me have extra level five lessons during lunch and dinner.’

  ‘They’re trying to starve you?’ Kirinya said incredulously.

  ‘I’m sure they’d force me to skip breakfast as well if the instructor wasn’t up with me till the early hours of the morning.’ Seiya tried to speak jokingly but couldn’t hide the bitterness in her tone.

  Kirinya was nodding slowly, ‘they won’t like what you did so it’s not surprising they’re trying to drive you to breaking point.’ She started walking back towards the main kitchen area, beckoning for Seiya to follow. ‘I owe you my life,’ she explained as she started piling food into a spare piece of cloth, ‘I’m certain I can help you with this.’ Tying the ends into a knot she passed it over.

  ‘Won’t you get into trouble?’ Seiya asked dubiously as she accepted the offering, the other workers in the kitchen kept stealing glances their way.

  ‘No,’ Kirinya waved away her concern, ‘I’m just sorry I can’t offer you much variety, I’ll try to save some leftovers for tomorrow.’ She gave Seiya a conspiratorial wink, ‘it’s pretty hectic during service but I’ll leave it by the kitchen entrance,’ she pointed to the door behind her, ‘just collect it after you’ve finished eating.’

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nbsp; ‘Thank you,’ Seiya smiled at the girl’s resilience, was she finally seeing the real Kirinya? Or had the traumatic experience changed her personality?

  ‘How’s Freiden?’ she asked as Kirinya held the door open for her, ‘is he working too?’

  Kirinya shook her head as her expression hardened once more. ‘That pathetic whiner convinced the Council you were the cause of his expulsion,’ she explained sourly. ‘He’s gone home while he waits for the chance to slot in the next level four class.’ She smiled grimly as Seiya rolled her eyes in exasperation.

  ‘I know, he’ll get in the same trouble next time but you won’t be there to save him. Ungrateful little brat, at least he can’t follow me around anymore.’ Seiya struggled to suppress a smile as Kirinya turned towards her name being called, pushing Seiya out the door.

  ‘At least you know where this entrance is now, just follow this corridor round until you’re back at the hall.’ Seiya leapt back as Kirinya’s helpful pointing nearly jabbed her in the eye.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ a disembodied arm waved through the crack in the door then disappeared. Standing clutching the package of food the smell of freshly baked bread was torturous. Her stomach grumbling loudly Seiya immediately headed in direction Kirinya had indicated, hopefully they would just be starting breakfast by the time she got back. Glancing down she cursed her lack of armband, hopefully if she was one of the first there wouldn’t be too many problems.

  ‘Hey Havir,’ Seiya jogged to catch up, the boy’s long strides easily out-paced the others. Nobody had seemed particularly eager to talk to her at breakfast, but then in all fairness she’d been so busy wolfing down food she probably wouldn’t have noticed if they had. She had decided that Havir seemed the most sensible in the group, Tooks and Felix were friendly enough but they were often joking around and she wanted a serious answer.