The pavilion was overwhelming, packed with dozens of young men and women milling about the grass, their chattering rising into an illegible drone that threatened to crush her concentration. Fauna of all kinds milled about, and the short-statured girl tried her best not to pay any of the beasts any mind—but how could she not pay them mind? Creatures of all kinds accompanied each and every one of the people here, ranging from the mundane to the fantastic! Even her hated rival was kneeling down next to a sinuous reptile clad in red scales, and further off, a great dragon stood poised over everyone, next to the girl reading a small book.
The droning began to quiet down, and she felt a spike of alarm. Their balding instructor was talking as he looked about. “Have we gone through everyone?” he called, making sure everyone had underwent the trial.
She scowled as her rival grinned at the man. “No, not yet,” she said, sounding all the cat that had gotten the cream. “Miss Vallière is left,” she told him as she turned, looking straight at her. Louise de la Vallière started as their attention focused now on her, the only one remaining who had not underwent the summoning of a familiar. After a moment, her lips twisted into a pouting frown of irritation.
Before she knew it, she was in the middle of a clearing, facing her instructor and surrounded by every one of her fellow pupils. They were whispering all around her.
“It’s Louise the Zero, man…”
“What is she going to summon?”
“I’m sure she can’t. It’ll be another explosion and that will be it.”
She put it out of her mind to the best of her ability. But then that damnable Kirche spoke again!
“You said that you can summon something greater than this boy, right, Louise?” she asked, her aggravating smirk still painted on her face.
“Naturally!” she responded with all the grace of a noblewoman, but she looked away, her slender hand tightening on her wand as her nervousness flooded through her system. “I beg you…” she whispered, too low for anyone to hear.
She mustered her courage and snapped her wand up.
“My slave, who lives somewhere in the universe!” she called, beginning her invocation. Confusion immediately erupted among the throng, and one girl clearly asked what was up with her chant. She put it out of her mind, focusing only on her spell, trying to bring forth all of her willpower and magic.
“Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit! Here I desire and plead from my heart!”
Oh, by the Founder, let this work…!
“Answer to my guidance!”
Her wand waved in a circle, almost of its own volition, and she slashed it downwards, pointing it before her.
The screams were deafened over the resulting explosion as fire and smoke burst from its tip, swallowing her and a third of the pavilion whole.
The rumbling shook the whole school, and students angrily picked themselves up from where they were thrown from the ground.
“I knew this was going to happen!” one boy shouted, coughing up dust.
One of the handsomest boys there knelt down to a fallen girl, concerned. “Are you all right, Montmorency?”
But the girl could only stutter, staring and pointing at ground zero of the blast.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking up to where she pointed. And he, too, froze on the spot.
A book hung silently in the air, upheld by nothing. They could feel no magic, see no strings that could be keeping it suspended in midair. Ancient leather wrapped the tome, lined in gold around a brilliant pointed cross. Iron chains without any lock bound the thick book shut, as if to keep its contents sealed forever.
Louise stared at it, stupefied. What in the Founder’s name was this? She could hear everyone whispering, their words ranging from the confused to the derogatory as they spoke of her unusual failure.
Words that died on their lips as the tome began to emit an eerie, dreadful light.
The world around them seemed to darken as violet, almost impossibly black light poured out from the surfaces of the book, and Louise stepped back, her heart thudding in her chest. Apprehension and fear coursed through her, but she could not run. She felt an unbearable pressure upon her, rooting them all in place as the air around the book seemed to warp, making it look as if it were growing larger… or perhaps everything else smaller, as if they were all utterly insignificant to its power.
The gemstone held in the center of its cross seemed to swallow Louise whole, and the ground began to shake, and the girl found herself stumbling, throwing her spindly arms out to catch herself as she fell to the ground before it.
People were shouting and screaming, begging for Louise to stop what she was doing, but they could not run, and she could do nothing! This wasn’t her fault! She had no more control over this than they did!
The ancient leather of the tome was beginning to move, veins bulging out across it if it were alive—and Louise knew in her heart that it was alive. Its entire form began to shudder and pulse, and without warning, the chains of iron shattered, and the book threw itself open to reveal blank pages to Louise. One by one, its pages swept by, six hundred and sixty six pages of nothingness streaming through her vision, each one alight with that malevolent glow.
And then it spoke, its words reverberating throughout her mind and to everyone’s ears.
“Ich entferne eine Versiegelung.”
The book slammed shut with a dreadful finality, lowering itself from its towering stance, rotating until its golden cross faced Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière directly. She could only back away slowly, afraid of the terrible pressure emanating from the tome. Once more, its voice spoke, full of paradoxical command and subservience.
“Anfang.”
And the cross began to glow a brilliant gold, like molten sunlight, followed by a brilliant white and violet light.
A similar light burst out from Louise’s chest, a pinpoint of vital energy that sparkled and burned as it lifted up before her fearful, wondering eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest, perfectly in sync with the pulsing of the book as that light crept towards it. A runic circle of the likes she’d never seen exploded around them, twisting a black triangle within a black circle into existence, blinding her with its light, until it hung between the book at the tiny light that had come from her body.
The screaming from the students had stopped. EVERYTHING had stopped. When the light cleared, Louise looked up, seeing that little pinpoint of energy hovering upwards. And she looked down, and once more her breath caught in her throat as four figures draped in black knelt in front of her, within the runic circle of unknown origin, with the tome hovering over them all imperiously.
“Confirmed startup of the Book of Darkness,” the woman in the forefront said, her hair such a brilliant strawberry blonde it seemed pink, much like her own.
“We are the guardian knights who will gather for the Book of Darkness, and protect its master,” said the blond-haired woman kneeling beside the first, head lowered in a perfect stance of subservience.
“Clouds that gather under the Master of the Night Sky…” came the deep, strong voice of the man behind them, his skin dark and his hair white and hiding wolven ears of gray-blue fur.
“The Wolkenritter await your command,” said the little girl that knelt at their side, her hair like fire braided into twin tails.
All at once, Louise’s senses shut down, and she plunged into darkness.