Page 16 of Lucent Academy: Trinity Awakens
The principal's expression was unreadable, but when he spoke his voice was gentle in a way I hadn't heard before. "And knowing the prophecy, perhaps it's better this way. The Trinity would carry a burden beyond imagining. There is no shame in being merely the most powerful Manaborn in five hundred years."
Cleopatra said nothing. She allowed herself to be escorted toward the other onlookers, her archangel falling into step beside her like a guardian shadow, and I watched her go with a strange tightness in my chest. She had wanted to save the world. She had been willing to sacrifice everything for that goal. And in the end, she had received a mate of incredible power but had failed to achieve the impossibility she had set her sights on.
"Now," the principal said, turning to face me, "come here, Leah Wood. You're the last one."
I stood alone before the circle with what felt like a thousand eyes watching from the galleries above. The principal was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read, and Crystalline was bouncing on her heels again, her earlier seriousness replaced by evident excitement.
"I saved you for last," she said cheerfully. "I wanted to see what would happen. You're interesting, Leah Wood. I could feel it the moment you called me cute."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. I walked toward the circle on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else, stepped over the carved symbols that still pulsed faintly with residual power, and approached the altar at the center. The ceremonial dagger lay there waiting for me, its blade dark with the blood of the students who had come before, and I picked it up with hands that trembled only slightly.
The cut was supposed to be small, controlled, just enough to draw blood without causing real harm. But my hands were shaking, and the blade was sharper than I expected, and as I drew it across my palm I felt it bite deep, much deeper than intended. I gasped and nearly dropped the dagger, watching in dismay as blood welled up and spilled over my hand, far more than any other student had shed, falling onto the stone in a crimson flood. I held back tears at the pain, pressing my lips together to keep from crying out.
The symbols blazed to life, brighter than they had for anyone else, brighter even than they had for Cleopatra. I felt the power of the circle surge up around me, felt it reaching into me and through me, connecting me to something vast and unknowable beyond the veil of reality. This was it. This was the moment. I had to speak, had to say something, had to make my plea to the beings of the Pacted Realms.
But what could I possibly say? I wasn't noble like Seraphina or ambitious like Cleopatra or even practical like Amber. I didn't want power or glory or the strength to save the world. I was just a gardener's daughter who had stumbled into something far beyond her understanding, who still dreamed of nothing morethan a quiet life with a kind husband and many children. What being of the Pacted Realms would answer a call like that? What ancient and powerful creature would find anything of value in my simple, ordinary desires?
But I had promised myself I would be honest. I had promised myself I would speak my truth, whatever came of it. So I opened my mouth, and I let the words pour out.
"I—I'm just a simple gardener's daughter, so it's such an honor to be here!" The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other in their haste to escape. "Whoever you are, I'll be honored if you answer my call. I-I don't care how tall or handsome you are or how powerful, but I want someone kind and gentle! I'll be a good wife! I'll cook and tidy our house." I was babbling now, completely out of control, saying things I had never planned to say. "Also... ALSO! I want many children! Let's have a lot of kids together, okay? If you want five, we'll have five. But I think ten is even better! Maybe twelve..."
I heard whispers from the other students, shocked and amused and pitying in equal measure. Someone muttered "what is she doing?" and someone else responded with a snort of derision. But I couldn't stop now, couldn't take back the words that were already hanging in the air.
"A-also, I'm not sure what this means but Mom says I have breedable hips and that men love those!"
The courtyard went absolutely silent.
I stood there, face burning, hand dripping blood onto the stone, waiting for the ground to open up and swallow me or for the circle to fizzle out in disappointment at the most pathetic summoning speech in Academy history. This was it. This washow I would be remembered. The girl who asked ancient beings of power to admire her hips.
The summoning circle didn't respond.
For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened. The symbols pulsed with light, but no figure emerged, no voice answered my call. I could feel the eyes of everyone in the courtyard on me, could imagine their thoughts: could it be her summoning speech was so lame that no one answered? That was going to be a first. The silence stretched on, and I felt tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, shame and disappointment and a strange, hollow grief mixing together into something I couldn't name.
Then the circle trembled.
Not the small, barely perceptible tremor that had preceded Cleopatra's archangel, but a violent shaking that made the stone crack beneath my feet. The symbols blazed brighter still, so bright that I had to close my eyes against the glare, and I felt the power building and building until it seemed like the whole courtyard might explode from the pressure.
"Aha-ha, breedable hips? That's a selling point if I ever heard one."
The voice was deep and rumbling, like rocks grinding together in the depths of the earth, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Before I could react, another voice joined it—different, colder, dripping with arrogance and ancient authority.
"What are you doing, lizard? Get the hell out, this is my summon!"
And then a third, rich and smooth as velvet, carrying an undertone of absolute certainty.
"You two imbeciles should know better than to try to steal my Queen. We're born for each other."
My eyes snapped open. The circle was still blazing, brighter than ever, and above the altar the air had begun to tear itself apart in three different places. Three portals, three rifts in reality, three beings trying to force their way through at the same time. I saw scales and darkness, saw the flash of fangs and the gleam of predatory eyes, saw shapes that didn't make sense struggling to enter a world that wasn't built to contain them.
The whispers from above had become shouts of alarm. I heard the principal's voice raised in command, heard Crystalline laughing with what sounded like genuine delight, heard someone screaming about impossibility.
But the three beings weren't paying attention to any of that. They were focused on me, on the circle, on the blood I had spilled onto the stone, and they were arguing with each other like children fighting over a toy.
"I saw her first!" the deep voice rumbled. "My hoard has been waiting for her for centuries!"
"Your hoard?" The cold voice dripped with contempt. "She belongs to my court, you overgrown salamander. I will give her immortality and eternal devotion. What can you offer besides a pile of shiny rocks?"
"She won't need immortality in my forest," the smooth voice interjected. "She won't ever age as long as she's in my realm. And unlike your filthy castle, bloodsucker, my domain actually has sunlight."
