This monster growled and snapped its mouth towards Solene. Serrated teeth as sharp as any butcher’s knife flashed before her. Its stem-like hands created small cracks on the floor as it crouched down and readied itself for an attack.
Solene was stunned on the spot. She pressed herself against the hardwood door and fought the urge to scream. This was Lady Ursula’s chamber but why was there a monster inside? Where was she?
Her thoughts entertained many questions, all of which only the old woman could answer, unfortunately.
Another growl reached her ears and with this, she tightly shut her eyes. Her thoughts lingered on Henri and that maybe he’d save her again, but no… No! She immediately shook her head. She wasn’t going to be some useless damsel-in-distress. She was going to be her own knight!
Then, something sparked within her.
“Amas antik enura,” she suddenly voiced out just as she stared back at the monster with her heterochromatic eyes aglow.
As if controlled by some force, she lifted her hand in the air and bluish energy seeped out. The monster then writhed in pain and retreated to a submissive stance. It whimpered like a puppy, its menacing aura gone.
“Stop,” Lady Ursula stated, walking out from another room. She approached Solene and tapped her shoulder to get her attention.
“Solene, stop,” she said again.
Solene, as if she just woke up from sleep, blinked many times and stared at the old woman in confusion.
“What… what just happened?”
Lady Ursula flashed a grin and cocked her head to the area where the monster still whimpered.
“That’s what happened,” she said.
Solene’s brows knotted at first and then her eyes widened.
“Conjurers called that entity – Gulaad. Don’t worry, Solene. It is one of the good creatures around us. It is basically my familiar. I instructed it to scare you as my way of a test. You survived and you were able to use your powers—at least a very small quantity of it—so you pass.”
“You certainly have one twisted way of testing me, Lady Ursula,” Solene bit out. “But wait, Henri said my abilities as a conjurer are still locked until my birthday. How can I be able to use some of it now? Why wasn’t I able to drive that demon away last night with it?”
The old woman waved her hand twice and the familiar disappeared from their midst. She then mouthed something of which Solene was unable to pick up and the normal-looking room around them changed to a marbled hall with arched roofs and glass windows.
“That is because once you stepped foot inside my chamber, you are in my made-up realm,” Lady Ursula then pointed out. “I placed an incantation in this place for you to be able to unlock your powers even for just a slice of it.”
“Wow,” Solene breathed out as she circled the place, trying to admire the stunning quality of it. She knew it was just an illusion but her mind sure was fooled into thinking they were truly in another place. “That’s great to here, Lady Ursula. It isn’t the usual training I was thinking about, but this sure is better. I can’t wait to do this kind of thing too.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Solene,” Lady Ursula admonished. “Despite the fact that your powers and knowledge will come naturally once you turn twenty-one, you still have lots of things to learn.”
Solene met her gaze and cocked a brow. “Like what?” she said.
“You’re a newbie,” Lady Ursula answered. “Obviously, you need to control it, master it, make sure you know how to conceal it from the humans who are blissfully unaware of the truth, and of course, conceal it from the demons that plague you—at least for the lesser and middle-class demons.”
“I see…” Solene voiced out. She bit her lower lip and carefully dissected the information and evaluated herself at the same time.
“Lastly, you need to learn how to control your emotion,” Lady Ursula added before Solene could even declare her confidence on the tasks at hand. “All conjurers should have a stable head and a stable heart. Both cannot exist alone. One is useless without the other. If your emotions are labile, your incantations will not work properly and it will backfire on you.”
The old woman’s eyes were sharp, looking at Solene as if she knew how much troubled she was with her father’s death. This must be the one hurdle she needed to pass above anything else. She knew her heart wasn’t stable.
“Its mastery over your creations, Solene. This, your natural gifts will not be of help,” Lady Ursula added. She turned around, canceled the illusion, and returned her room back to its normal look, and strode towards a connecting door.
“I am ready Lady Ursula. I yearn to learn,” Solene quickly answered, now determined more than ever. Her heart wasn’t stable, yes, but she knew she’d find a way out of it soon.
“Good,” Lady Ursula replied and turned to face the younger woman again. “Now let’s start by invoking your familiar,” she added whilst stopping on the threshold.
“I have a familiar?” Solene cocked a questioning brow. The word wasn’t foreign to her. If anything, television shows introduced its definition to her, but all these years, she thought familiars were just creations of the human mind.
Lady Ursula grinned slightly and nodded.
“Yes, you have, and yes, they exist, Solene. You can choose not to have one. It’s a matter of preference. Your father had a familiar, a mage lord, yet he had to sacrifice being a master over it in return for your mother’s good health.”
“Hold up,” Solene stated abruptly, fluttering her eyes at the same time. “Let’s just take a step back a little. Are you referring to my mother’s near-death when she bore me?”
“Yes, I am,” the old woman verified. “The doctors made your father choose between you and your mother. He chose you, but as a conjurer, he had another way of saving your mother and that’s by using his familiar.”
“We can actually do that?” she asked, genuinely curious. Nevermind the fact that Lady Ursula knew so much about her family history—her father and her must have been close friends aside from sharing the same type of job. What really caught her attention was the information about sacrificing a familiar in exchange for a life. It was something out-of-this-world for her.
“Yes, we can,” Lady Ursula nodded, “and I’ll teach you how when the time is right. For now, you need to learn about familiars: where they came from, what purpose they have as your familiar, and what they can do for you.”
She moved forward to the next room and Solene followed her. In this room, there were stacks of books on tables and shelves. It was more like a mini library as opposed to a study room. Lady Ursula picked a leather-bound thick book and gently cleaned it of dust.
“You can establish a strictly conjurer-familiar relationship or you can bond with them deeper: make them your friend or more,” she continued whilst wiping the book’s front cover with a table napkin.
Solene was quick to understand her mentor’s words.
“I reckon my father chose the former?”
“Yes, like me,” Lady Ursula answered. “We prefer no deeper connections with our familiars. That way, it won’t be painful when they leave our side.”
Once the book was clean, she gave the pages a quick flip until it rested onto a certain page.
“But don’t misunderstand me, Solene,” she stated after returning her gaze on the younger woman. “Familiars are a living body too: whether a person, an animal, a demon even or like mine, an elemental, they have their own way of thinking. You need to gain their trust. You need to show you are worthy of their services. It’s not a hey-you-become-my-familiar instantly. They would challenge you, test you, or even kill you.”
“Wha… t?” Solene’s lips quivered, suddenly feeling anxious.
“Be calm, Solene,” Lady Ursula’s soft chuckle filled the room briefly. “It is my job to keep you alive during your invoking. Now, shall we try?”
She slowly neared her with the open book on hand.
“If this will protect me, my family and everyone around me, then yes, let’s try,” Solene stated as she watched Lady Ursula spread the book in front of her.
“Excellent motivation, Rantzen Mistress,” Lady Ursula replied. She released her hold of the book and lowered her hands down. The said book didn’t fall down. In fact, it stayed in Solene’s front just floating.
“Now, focus and read.”
Solene did as told and tuned all of her attention to the italicized words within her line of sight. The words were written in a language she didn’t understand, but as she continued to stare, it changed into the familiar alphabet.
“Saksni ent lahum niwa sugune hena atom, tahum malak aizn… Secu kast zhun saute… Aska pusani atonika…” she started, the unknown words becoming more and more understandable for her.
“Repeat!” Lady Ursula urged.
“You who exist between time and space, I summon thee! I am your master! Show yourself to me!” Solene cried out in a higher voice.
“Repeat!” Lady Ursula shouted.
Solene did so and with an even higher voice.
“You who exist between time and space, I summon thee!! I am your master!! Show yourself to me!!”
A strong wind appeared out of the blue, blowing her hair upwards and over her head. Light also materialized from the book and this light eventually turned to a large circle with different shapes and symbols.
As if it wasn’t enough, a pillar of light shot up from the ceiling and it rested in between them. This light tripled, then multiplied times ten. Smoke appeared thereafter, surrounding the cage-like light pillars like a tornado, and then it scattered, covering the whole room in just two seconds.
Once the smoke and light pillars vanished, Solene and Lady Ursula watched with bated breath as the creature so huge, so menacing growled before them.
“You really are the Queen of the Underworld,” Lady Ursula voiced out with a slight bow of her head.
Solene fell confused after hearing this, but she couldn’t really ruminate about it for her familiar’s enormous four heads snapped to her direction.