Chapter 5: Chapter Five

It was now or never.

Before classes started tomorrow, before the day started, now was the time.

Standing on his knees, Micah stared down at his work.

Between his fingers, he held a piece of charcoal aloft, momentarily distracted by the dark smears across his gloveless hands. He was sure black marks also claimed his face from subconsciously scratching it. He’d been so focused on his work, small things as charcoal residue remained in the back of his mind.

Rising from the floor, Micah obsessively traced each line with his eyes.

He looked for any incomplete shapes, reminded vividly of Keegan’s limp fingers hovering just over a broken rune.  

Forcing his mind to focus, he stalked the perimeter of the pentagram with intentional slowness.

One of the things he did not particularly like about demonology were the materials it required for several banishment spells and conjuring rituals. It wasn’t as if the military academy had a stockroom full of witchcraft ingredients.

This particular ritual had required elder, hawthorn, and bloodroot. Instead, he’d find swords, shoe polish, laces, and towels.

When he had realized he would not be able to procure the necessary items, he nearly quit.

Fortunately, he stumbled upon alternatives in one of his books. Yesterday, before dinner with the Abitals, he had spent the day reading and identifying substitutes for conjuring a daemon. He was envious of Josiah’s ability to execute magic without chants, without fancy drawings.

When it came to demonology, however, it was all about the runes and the ingredients.

Everything needed to be perfect.

Flawless.

Now he understood Josiah’s willingness to allow him to practice demonology.

Noir Magic required surrendering a piece of yourself to sorcery. It consumed the user, became their essence, a constant dark companion whispering temptations of power just so long one surrenders to its aberrant and demanding whims.

Demonology was an entirely different branch of magic. A different realm. Micah was a mere servant to the daemon world. He had to abide by the rules and draw every line to perfection. It was textbook. Black and white. Stringent.

He also had a strong suspicion that Josiah knew he couldn’t procreate ingredients for the more dangerous rituals, which was probably another reason why he allowed Micah’s studies.

Nonetheless, he’d make things work.

He would become an expert in this art and know things Josiah did not. That thought alone drove him to conduct the ritual this morning. His teammates were still asleep and he had enough time to complete this before they woke.

He needed to see.

He needed evidence that daemons actually existed before investing any more time into this mess.  

His pulse raced with anticipation as he placed the tin bowl in the center of the pentagram. The bowl was empty, of course, though he’d found a suitable replacement to hawthorn and elder that would still call upon a daemon.

Assuming they were real.

Extracting a knife, he slid it across his scarred palm without hesitation. The thick, crimson liquid dripped readily into the bowl. Curling his fingers into a fist, he squeezed out a bit more until it completely covered the bottom.

Wrapping his hand in cloth, and making certain no blood dripped on the rune, Micah withdrew a match from his pocket. With a baited breath, Micah struck the match and threw the flame inside the bowl.

Quickly, he exited the rune, standing at the perimeter.

Nothing happened.

That was okay. That was fine.

He crouched down low, acknowledging that it may take some time. However, as soon as the match dropped into the blood, the flame unimpressively extinguished.

Disappointment bled his soul black. What had he expected? A roaring fire? The ritual specified ingredients he did not possess. He’d improvised by using the blood of the conjurer and a rune drawn from pure charcoal. 

It did not surprise him that it did not work.

He crouched further down, staring at the bowl and the runes.

A part of him had expected to feel at least a rush of magic. That night at the warehouse, when the Magi had recited the ritual, Micah had experienced the swell of something intangibly supernatural. Yet nothing even shifted in the unused classroom. Not even the sconce on the wall flickered. 

“Impressive,” he drawled derisively, suddenly upset.

This was ridiculous. Why had he even bothered?

“Impressive indeed.”

His spine stiffened and the hairs on his arms stood at end. He stood up suddenly. The voice sounded distorted, raspy, with a strange echo. He examined the rune once again, but the charcoal lines remained unimpressively inactive and dull. The match still floated hopelessly in a bowl of his blood.

Nothing—no daemon—no entity stood in the middle of the rune.

But he hadn’t imagined the voice.

“You don’t mind if I stand outside the rune, do you?” a voice inquired behind him.

Micah whirled around, staring at the figure with horror.

As he faced the entity in the corner of the room, Micah’s emotions spiraled out of his control. Though he wanted to remain stubbornly unaffected, the fear slipped silkily through the cracks of his resolve and took suffocating prevalence. The entity was a smoky, humanoid figure, nothing but a dark, moving mist.

As the entity moved its head, Micah discerned a pale flash. A skull. The entity seemed to move in slow, fragmented time, for as the skull moved, it left behind previous images—mirages—of where it was once positioned.

It appeared like a disjointed, time reel.

Micah looked over his shoulder at the rune, trying to find his error.

“It’s drawn impeccably,” the figure rasped, clearly reading Micah’s misperception. “I’m just not the creature you intended to summon.”  

He looked back at the entity, trying to find his tongue.

While the flickering and disjointed figure was unsettling to look at, it wasn’t so much the entity’s appearance that frightened Micah. It was unexplainable. He remembered feeling something similar as he caught a glimpse of Josiah’s reflection in the Unda vault. There wasn’t a way to describe it.

It was if the entity was pure evil.

Micah’s subconscious was trying to tell him to run.

“Then what are you?” Micah managed. “If not a daemon?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” The entity faded until it completely disappeared. Its voice lingered behind like a whisper. “If not a mortal?”

Turning, he spied the wispy shape of darkness now hovering in the center of the pentagram. “But I am a mortal,” Micah said, forcing his voice lower to hide the tremor.

“Then I am a daemon.”

Soft, mocking laughter resonated across the room.

Micah deliberated the shadow and the shadow deliberated him. A part of him wondered if Josiah was playing some elaborate trick on him. The entity reminded Micah of the Igni king, as both were haughty and elusive. An evil unmasked. This was what the Noir Users described the night Josiah destroyed their people.

Through his fear, Micah felt a flicker of…

What was it?

Triumph? Awe?

Daemons were real and the Magi truly alleged in their mission to destroy the entity that shattered their entire culture. While Keegan’s death remained a burning affliction, at least it hadn’t resulted from a group of foolish men and women who believed in a delusion. Said delusion stood in front of him now.

In the flesh.

It was real.

Micah felt his lips curl with satisfaction as he walked alongside the edge of the rune. He felt something within him transform and preen with contentment. “You won’t answer my questions, will you?”

“You have no coercion.” The shadow moved again, appearing just a short distance away from Micah. “Nothing to hold me. Nothing to offer.”

“No,” Micah agreed readily, “I don’t even hold the slightest delusion that I do.” He paused. “But I suppose, if you weren’t at all curious, you would have attacked me by now.”

“This is the first time in a long time that someone has had the power to summon me.”

“Improperly summoned you,” Micah corrected. “To summon, I would have been able to tie you to the rune and banish you upon will. Something tells me you are not bound to the rune and will run amok as soon as you grow bored.” 

The entity flickered, almost as if it were not strong enough to hold on to a physical form in this realm. Micah wondered if it truly came all the way through, or if it was simply embodying a fraction of itself into this world.

“You’re correct.”

He really did try to care that he set this entity loose, but he failed. It was all too intriguing.

“Though I wouldn’t run far,” the entity echoed. “You are fascinating.”

“I hadn’t believed your kind was real,” Micah admitted, ignoring the beginnings of unease upon the entity’s admission. “That's why I summoned you.”

“You attempted to summon a daemon.”

“A daemon,” Micah corrected agreeably.

“Are you satisfied with the results?” it asked. “Or are you frightened by the implications of an entirely different realm of existence? Mortals are rather simple-minded creatures. They worship gods but cannot truly fathom a plane of existence outside their own. Though they wish for it. Hope for it. They recoil at the mere idea when faced with it themselves.”

“I never put much weight in the existence of gods before, but I am able to quickly process and accept the results of today’s outcome. I am hardly simple. ”

The entity was silent for a moment. “A human that does not put their faith in their god of choice?” The entity laughed quietly. “It is unheard of, though perhaps times have changed.” 

Micah did not comment on the subject.

There was no need.

“You said there was a realm. Your realm,” Micah said. “Is that where you were before I did my summoning ritual? Or were you in our world when you felt the pull?”

While he wasn’t too concerned with the fact this entity was unchained, he knew this would most likely come back to haunt him. However, if the creature was already in their realm before the summoning, Micah could play ignorant.

“I was sleeping,” it replied softly. “For over a century, perhaps more.”

Fear prickled down his neck like a persistent and malicious insect.

Micah exhaled levelly. “And I was enough to awaken you?” he inquired, frustrated at the answer. “I find that highly unlikely.” He took a step closer to the entity, too unnerved to take another. “You seem powerful. Too powerful to succumb to a mere mortal’s summoning ritual.”

Not just any mortal’s summoning ritual, but an amateur’s first attempt.

“I was not forced awake,” it said. “I simply sensed a familiar imprint and chose to heed its call out of mere curiosity.”

The entity was hardly making any sense to Micah. “What will you do after this?” He asked tightly. “Do you consume souls like other daemons? Do you possess mortals with the intention of corrupting mankind?”

“Is that what daemons do?”

Micah flushed with embarrassment at the condescending tone. “It’s what mortals are forced to believe with what little documentation there is on daemons.” He narrowed his eyes on the figure. “And considering you’re not bothering to correct me, I have to make an assumption.”

The entity remained silent as it continued to flicker in and out of existence.

Frustrated, Micah pinched his lips together. “There is a very powerful entity I believe that possesses a family member of mine,” he started calmly. “Will you confirm or deny the fact that possession of a mortal is possible by one of your kind?”

“It’s possible, yes.” 

“Are there others like you?”

The entity made a noise that sounded as if bone grinded against bone. “Oh yes.”

“Of your power caliber?” Micah inquired, hoping the entity continued answering his questions. “You hold a higher status as a daemon, yet you are cut from the same mold, yes?”

The pale face swooped down to study the rune on the floor. “It was your blood and the summoning. Not the rune.”

Micah took a step back, knowing a retreat was meaningless, but wanting nothing more than to escape the situation. The entity appeared fascinated with the rune, or more particularly, the bowl holding his blood.

“Your blood.” The entity chortled again.

Suddenly, the bowl rocked unevenly back and forth before clattering upside down. The blood slowly seeped from underneath the lip of the bowl and sluggishly shadowed the unnatural flow of the rune lines.

An eerie, rattling inhalation resonated across the room. Micah watched, in alarm, as the blood—his blood—slowly disappeared from the floor as if someone greedily savored drop after drop.

His attention then landed on the entity, watching as the flickering stopped and the mist solidified.

Rather unexpectedly, a peculiar sense of dizziness washed over Micah. His hand groped the wall, hoping to latch on to something before he fell. He thought he’d grabbed the bookcase in time, though as he fell, his fingers grabbed nothing but air.

Micah braced himself on his hands and knees, his head far too heavy to hold upright.

“I know what you are now,” the entity claimed delightedly. It sounded less like an it and more of a he. “A mere fledgling now, but…” he trailed off. “It is incredible to see your existence. Who created you? Did she ?” 

Something—someone—dropped in front of him. Micah strained his eyes up, staring into nearly colorless, dead eyes. The face was sunken, cracked, appearing like shattered granite. He didn’t know what he preferred. The flickering skull or the colorless and cracked features. Something was obvious, however.

The weaker Micah grew, the stronger the entity became.

“Such a long way to go,” the man murmured forlornly as he gazed down at Micah. “First, you must begin to see. ”

Lukewarm hands grabbed his face and the entity pressed his forehead against the crown of Micah’s head. Pale eyes levelled with his own and Micah stiffened and stopped breathing against the sheer terror.

Gradually, the entity pressed its face firmly against Micah’s, as if wanting to absorb himself into him. As if wanting to consume him whole.

And he did.

Micah screamed at the top of his lungs as the entity gradually sunk into his body at their conjoined foreheads. The pain was agonizing; the sheer horror of it all was implausible. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t see anything but the white flash of agony.

“Josiah!” Micah screamed ear splittingly, sobbing unconditionally. “ Agni , please make it stop!”

Make it stop.

Please make it stop!

His eyes rolled into the back of his skull and he ravenously fell into the arms of bleak unconsciousness. It was a restless slumber, for an echo of pain followed him into the blackness and his body turned stiff and unmoving with cold.

He wasn’t aware of anything else, though eventually, a warmness flickered.

It ignited and banished away the shadows.

His body slowly reacted to the warmth and the pain seemed to subside as he struggled his way to consciousness. A male and female were arguing with each other in low, hushed tones, their anger only evident from the inimical tenors.

“You will tell me,” the man demanded. “What have you done?”

“I have given him a purpose. A destiny.” Her voice was so soft, so familiar. “How else could you expect me to satisfy your demands with one so young?”

“Is his purpose truly what I think it is?”

The response did not come. Micah yearned to hear her again. Her voice was a pang, a bittersweet torment that inflamed remembrance and comfort from a time long ago. The memory was something unattainable and filled with nothing but dark sorrow and lost—broken— affections.

The sensation was unknown and unexplainable.

Micah knew he’d dreamt of her and her voice. He did not know a woman like that.

Fingers trailed across his cheek, drying a fresh tear that had fallen.

“Child.” A pause. “Ezra.”   

Micah grabbed the hand on his face, slowly opening his eyes to the soft, subtle flames encompassing their conjoined fingers. The warmth he’d felt in his cold unconsciousness was Josiah’s Elemental powers. Or perhaps it was Noir Magic. Flames that did not burn, but simply soothe.

Gentle.

Extremely unlike Josiah.

For a moment, he marveled at the sheer power he held over the Igni man. He remembered calling out to Josiah, hoping the man somehow knew he’d be in trouble. And here he was, cradling him on the ground and luring Micah from the depths of cold oblivion with the aid of a calm serenade of smoldering flames. Yet while Micah appreciated the hold he had over Josiah, he knew it was a double-edged blade.

Josiah held just as much sway over him.

He dropped Josiah’s fingers and looked up at the man, taken aback.

The man glowed.

A bright, nearly blinding light engulfed the man’s figure. It pulsated, like a heartbeat. Micah could feel each beat in his head, directly behind his eyes. Underneath the brightness, he detected the same, sinister-like aura the entity had possessed.

Dread curled in his stomach and Micah scrambled up, away from Josiah.

No. No . 

He pressed his palms into his eyes, hoping to erase the feeling, the brightness.

“What do you see?” Josiah’s voice inquired distantly.

“The entity.” Micah paused. “It’s inside me.”

Slowly, he dropped his hands and chanced another look at Josiah. He squinted, prepared for the illumination, but nothing greeted him except a mildly glowing Josiah. The man’s features radiated a subtle glow, as if the setting sun encased him like a second skin.

“You are you. Nothing is inside you,” Josiah informed calmly.

The Igni king stood from the ground and stepped into the rune. He watched Micah steadily, as if trying to determine whether to escort him to bed or push him back to the throng of reality with a callous shove.

“You summoned a daemon,” the man continued distantly. “It attacked you.”

“I didn’t summon a daemon,” Micah argued fiercely. “It was similar, but more than that. It was more powerful.” He looked around the room, trying to remember, but failing miserably to recall the conversation that woke him. “Where is the woman?”

“Woman?”

“The woman you were talking to,” Micah specified.

“There was no woman.”

“You’re lying,” he accused.

His anger grew hot, relentless.

“You’re keeping me in the dark again and treating me like a child!” With an accusing finger, Micah pointed at the rune. “I summoned something that felt just like you, ” Micah prattled. “It was some kind of embodiment of darkness. I know you’re not my uncle. I know my blood is somehow special to the entity that I had summoned. I figure that’s why you’re staying close to me. It’s why you’ve made me your Chosen when I was just a child!”

It made sense.

Another puzzle piece presented itself to Micah today.

If Josiah would not confirm or deny his allegations, Micah would make his assumptions. The Noir Users were right. Something had possessed Josiah that night he performed a ritual. Later, the entity had destroyed their people.

When Josiah returned to the capital, he’d seen the child Ezra and proclaimed him his Chosen in order to stake a claim far more intimate than any typical uncle.

Like the entity today, Micah’s blood, his presence, most likely strengthened the creature possessing Josiah’s body. The ritual the Magi conducted hadn’t only failed because of Keegan’s tampering with the rune, but also because Josiah was not a daemon.

He was something far worse.

Josiah simply walked towards the door and grabbed all three of Micah’s demonology textbooks off the table.

“You will no longer require these, child. ”

The hot rage within Micah suddenly plummeted in temperature.

His hands trembled. His whole body trembled with unrestrained fury. The freezing temperature, aimed at Josiah, caused the man to stumble and grasp his throat with disbelief. Accusingly, he turned to Micah and threw out his arm, sending a wall of fire in his direction. Standing his ground, Micah stared at the flames, willing them to die.

They extinguished rather suddenly and pieces of solid ice rained to the ground.

Through the prevalent anger in Josiah’s eyes, an odd, peculiar expression took precedence. Something just at the edge of amusement and hunger. Something sinisterly satisfying.

The door slammed closed behind Josiah and Micah released a scream of rage.

He hated him!

* * * *

“Where have you been, Egan?”

Shaking off his temper took longer than Micah had anticipated. He hadn’t been so angry since Keegan’s death. For several hours after Josiah’s exit, Micah had dwelled inside the unused classroom, scrubbing the floor and ridding the evidence of the failed and useless charcoal rune.

All the things he felt towards Josiah immediately after Keegan’s death had returned.

Returned with a startling vengeance.

He didn’t know why he’d even allowed the man closer after he’d returned to the capital. Yes, Josiah was intoxicating, and their interactions were oppressive and addicting. That didn’t change the fact that Josiah was hiding things from him.

A great deal of things.

Micah was all for power plays, but there came a point when he needed conformation. He did his part. He’d researched, schemed, followed the small clues, and accused. Josiah couldn’t just stand there and stay silent. And to take away his books…

Like some sort of parental punishment!

“I’ve been busy,” Micah replied to Kai as he deposited his book bag at the foot of the bed. “Homework. Essays.”

“Hm. That would explain the black marks across your face.”

Micah spared Kai an exasperated glance, noticing the blond-haired cadet watching him suspiciously from his bunk bed. Though there was a relatively large book opened on the man’s lap, he hardly seemed engrossed with the material.

Pausing, Micah observed the faint, glow-like radiance around Kai as he’d seen with Josiah. Only this time, instead of the setting sun, the illumination appeared to rival the pale rays of the moon.

“Black marks aside, you look a bit sick,” Kai observed. “Or upset.”

“Perhaps a bit of both.”

Turning away from the sight in front of him, Micah collapsed onto his bed. Throwing his boots onto the floor with a thump , he lay down, pressing a forearm over his eyes.

His head throbbed. His body was sore, as was his pride.

He’d just wanted to summon a simple daemon. That was it. Simple evidence to prove his skepticism wrong or right. Instead, he’d ignorantly summoned something much stronger that nearly tore his mind into two. He’d had to call out to Josiah like a weak, pathetic child only for the man to scold him and not take his inquiries seriously.

Now people glowed .

“I heard you dined with the Abitals last night.”

“I did.”

“Why the change of strategy?” When Micah did not respond, Kai persisted. “I thought you were just going to let things fall into place.”

“That remains my objective.” Micah closed his eyes against his sleeve. “I’ve come to the realization that a prince does not beg for his people.” He hated that he took Josiah’s words and made them his own. “That’s not to say I won’t work to establish close allies amongst the nobles I find valuable. I think the Abitals are advantageous to have behind me. I would also like to smooth things out with your father.”

“Why?” Kai demanded, suddenly heated upon the very mention of an alliance with his father. “If you’re doing this with the intention of helping me, you aren’t. You’re doing the opposite. I didn’t ask for your interference. I don’t want you going after him .”

Micah slowly dropped his arm and craned his neck around to peer at Kai. For a moment, he admired the way the light around Kai brightened with his mood. Oddly enough, it did not appear angry, but soothing, warm.

Compassionately cohesive.

“No, you didn’t ask for my interference. You didn’t have to.”

“I can say with complete certainty that my father will never find you agreeable, Egan. There is no point in trying. You’ll just trip over your feet for his own amusement.”

Micah smiled. “He’ll have to kneel to me eventually, Edlen. I don’t care how agreeable he thinks I am.”

That quieted the other man abruptly.

Faced with a long stretch of silence, Micah found himself dozing off. He felt so exhausted. Despite Josiah saying nothing was inside him, Micah could not trust the man. He felt different. He saw things he did not understand. Whom would he turn to for answers? Usually he’d turn to Josiah, but that was not an option any longer.

He had no one.

Not even his textbooks to consult.

“That’s certainly a new perspective I haven’t heard from you before,” Kai’s voice pierced through Micah’s thin veil of slumber. He sounded curious. Intrigued. “What made you change your outlook on this?”

Micah struggled to remember their conversation.

“I realized there were bigger things to worry about than the opinion of nobles.”

Like where the entity was and what it intended to do with his newfound strength. Mirroring Josiah in many ways, from their ominous auras to their proud attitude, Micah imagined the entity would also find a human host. After centuries of slumber, possessing a human would help the entity grow acclimated to the new world.

After which, Micah felt responsible for the terror it unleashed.

He then paused.

Had his uncle—his real uncle—accidentally summoned the entity that was now inside him? Had his intentions been, like Micah, to summon something entirely different?

Would Micah become the new host to the creature he had aroused from the depths of slumber? The thought set him on edge. He refused to be weak enough to allow something to take over his body and mind.

Just how long had Josiah been a prisoner in his own body and mind?

The thought was incredibly unsettling.

“Well, I approve of the new perception,” Kai said. “Are you sure you’re alright, Egan? It’s only ten o’clock and you look lifeless .”

“Do you know any Noir Users?” Micah mumbled flippantly, unable to keep his eyes open.

“Of course I do. Not a Noir User, per say, but I know of someone here at the capital who knows a great deal about Noir Magic.” Kai sounded amused. “If you’d asked sooner, we probably wouldn’t have needed to leave during break to hunt for your mysterious items that you thought you could hide from me.” He laughed once. “And you thought you were being sly.”

As much as Kai’s unexpected answer should have roused him from his sleep, he could do nothing but succumb to the drowsiness. It was a conversation for later.

Most definitely.