Edit: I wanted to thank MrBirthday over at the spacebattles forum for beta-reading this. Thanks man.
Prologue
"Mistress!"
"Louise!"
"Miss Vallière!"
Ten-year-old Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière remained hidden in the closet, in one of her family's mansion guest rooms, while her family servants' voices washed over her. It was not an uncommon occurrence for Louise to disappear like this; it could even be considered strange for Louise to spend a week without disappearing like this, especially when Eléonore was home from school.
The two sisters' tempers were incredibly similar and they were constantly at odds with one another. The reason for the latest dispute was, once again, Louise's magic.
Louise managed to show some talent for most theoretical aspects of magic, something she really liked to show off to her sisters. However, whenever Louise tried to actually cast a spell, only explosions occurred, as her older sister Eléonore liked so much to remind her. Afterwards, Louise would try (and usually fail) to get revenge on her sister; starting yet another row with Eléonore.
Eléonore didn't actually try to be mean to Louise, but when you combined the tempers from both sisters, things always managed to escalate to completely-out-of-proportions levels; the kind of levels where fratricide by explosion was considered by the younger sister. When Eléonore lost her temper, Louise's cheeks were the ones to suffer.
This time, though, Louise hadn't run after her confrontation with Eléonore. Oh, they had been at each other's throats once again, and Louise intended to get even with Eléonore later; but no, Louise hadn't run away to hide. She was doing this with a very special reason in mind. After this, no one else would say she couldn't use magic.
Louise waited a few more minutes for the voices to completely fade away, before slowly exiting her hiding place. She knew how the searches for her usually went. The servants would walk around calling for her, thoroughly search her room, and then go outside, where a much more intense searching effort would occur; after all, Louise had never hidden inside the house, or so her family servants believed. Louise felt a little proud about her hiding skills. It was true that she usually didn't hide inside the mansion; sometimes she did, using the small amount of time without supervision to explore the library and read books that her family wouldn't let her see otherwise.
It was something that she read in one of those books that gave her this idea. She was reading an old book about rituals, when she read about the familiar summoning ritual; one of the most famous rituals of all, created by the very Founder himself. She knew about familiars, of course; her mother's familiar was a very big and old manticore, who Louise sometimes feed meat from the kitchens, but she never actually thought about the summoning of the familiar. The book she found talked about the ritual, explaining about some of its characteristics, but it wasn't terribly detailed about it.
Louise didn't let that discourage her; after browsing the library for some time, she found a few more books that spoke about the summoning. A few of those were exclusively dedicated to the summoning and care of familiars, giving some examples of some of the most magnificent familiars ever summoned.
Louise had stealthily left the library with a few selected tomes in hand and had hid them in her bedroom, before going outside. A few minutes later she had let the servants find her and call off the search.
Since that day, Louise had read all of the tomes she had borrowed, going so far as to find a few more. She became almost obsessed with the summoning ritual, dreaming of summoning some majestic creature as a familiar; something like her mother's manticore, or a dragon, or any other almost legendary creature like that.
She asked both her parents about their familiars and their summoning, bothering them so many times for details about the ritual that her family started worrying about her seeming obsession with familiars; after which Karin put a stop to Louise's questions. It had seemed that not even Louise's stubbornness managed to match Karin's and so Louise seemingly backed down on her questioning.
But, underneath all that, Louise never stopped thinking about the ritual; after thoroughly reviewing the books on the subject, she decided to summon a familiar. It would be a hard task, some would even say heretical; after all, the Founder summoned his familiar when he was on the verge of becoming a grown man. As every mage should do. Ten-year-old Louise didn't care about any of that, and not even giving a thought to the Founder, she started preparing for the ritual.
She first memorized the chant, memorizing its words and what was trying to be convened by every word. Then she studied the summoning circle, studying each character and its meaning. Finally she started drawing small summoning circles, practicing for when the ritual came.
Eventually, Louise started making the final preparations for the summoning itself. She choose to attempt the ritual in the library; after all, that was the place she got the idea from. After a few more of her "escapades", during which she spent some time in the library drawing a circle hidden beneath one of the thick carpets, she was finished with all of her preparations.
Today was the day that Louise had chosen for the ritual. That was the reason why she had provoked Eléonore earlier, seemly running away once again at the end of it. If things played out as usual, she would have more than enough time to complete the ritual.
Slowly and carefully Louise left the guest room and moved in direction of the library, trying not to make any loud noises. A few minutes later she arrived at the library and, after a few seconds of listening at the door, entered and moved towards the hidden circle.
Looking for a few seconds at the circle, Louise sighed and slowly started the ceremony. She started the chant slowly, trying to be as silent as possible, before her confidence grew and she chanted louder.
"I beg of you… My servant who lives somewhere in the universe!"
Louise could almost feel her magic pulsing with her every word, as if this was the first true spell she attempted to cast.
"Oh sacred, beautiful and strong familiar spirit!"
Some of the runes of the circle seemed to light up.
"I desire and here I plead from my heart!"
Please! Please! Please! Louise shouted in her mind.
"Answer to my guidance!"
With what almost felt like a roar, Louise's magic answered to her commands. For a moment, Louise felt somewhat faint, fearing she failed once again; then an explosion, the biggest she had ever made, threw her against one of the library's walls.
Louise lost consciousness for a few moments; she woke, still on the floor of the library, and looked around after slowly getting up, seeing the destruction she had caused.
"Mother's going to kill me!" Louise whimpered to herself.
Suddenly the library's door crashed inwards, opened with almost supernatural strength, and Eléonore entered the library.
"What have you done now, runt?" Eléonore asked Louise, after a few moments of looking around the room.
"Nothing?" Half-squeaked Louise, trying and failing to appear innocent.
"Nothing? Nothing?" Screeched Eléonore, while both sisters once again started one of their usual fights. And like that, the sisters warred and shouted back and forth, not paying attention to the familiar that still remained unconscious inside Louise's magic circle.
.
.
.
Karin Desiree de La Vallière was, above all else, an extremely rigorous woman. During her entire life she followed her own set of rules, her rule of steel, upholding values such as loyalty, courage and honor.
She was known all throughout Halkeginia as one of the most powerful mages in the land. She was the former commander of the Manticore Corps of the Tristanian Kingdom and her legend was such that enemy soldiers usually preferred to desert than to risk fighting against her. More than one army had simply fled once they heard they would have to face her.
Despite all that, she didn't let her own legend inflate her sense of self. She knew she wasn't perfect, not even near. Sometimes, one of the things she feared most was that she wasn't a good mother. She did her best, of course, but she couldn't let herself be less strict with her daughters than she was with herself. She had seen many spoiled children during her time at court; seen their behavior and swore to herself that any child she had would be held to a higher standard.
With all that in mind, Karin sometimes wondered if she was doing a good job as a parent. She never let anyone see her doubts, of course; how to hide things behind a false face was one of the first things that she had learned at court, but she still had those doubts deep inside.
Eléonore was her first child. The day she was born was one of the happiest of Karin's life, rivaled only by the days Cattleya and Louise were born. Despite the lack of practice, Karin did her best raising her; she believed that she had raised Eléonore successfully. After all, Eléonore was a powerful mage for her age, a triangle class, and had been one of the best students of the Tristain Academy of Magic. Eléonore's temper needed some work; as did her manners sometimes, but taking everything into account, Karin was happy with how Eléonore turned out.
Cattleya was her second child, and one that almost cost them both their lives at birth. While Eléonore was born and grew up with incredible similarities to her father, Cattleya resembled Karin from the day she was born. For the first few months after Cattleya's birth, Karin found something that was rare to her, happiness. It was a kind of happiness that not even Eléonore's birth had managed to bring about. For those few months, Karin was happy as she had never been before; she smiled more and played with both her children, laughed as Eléonore made happy faces at Cattleya, and kissed her husband with more warmth than ever before.
That was when it all came crashing down. Cattleya was found to be sick with a rare wasting sickness that not even the best healers could cure. For all of their efforts, all water mages could offer was some relief of her symptoms, some small improvement that soon the disease managed to undo.
Karin was forced to bottle her emotions inside herself and be strong enough for all of her family, for her husband and children. She swore she would never again let herself become as vulnerable as she was those few months.
Louise was her third child. Like Cattleya, Louise strongly resembled Karin, although her father could also be seen plainly in her face. In a way, Louise was the one who, out of all of Karin's children, most resembled her. While her looks weren't the same, Louise behaved very much like Karin did at her age, if you accounted for the differences in their upbringing. She was stubborn, bossy and did all she could for things to go her way.
Despite similarities to her younger self, Karin didn't, couldn't let Louise do as she willed, so she spent considerable time bending her daughter's will to hers, making Louise behave as she should and not as she wanted to. It wasn't an easy task, but Louise eventually stopped defying Karin's will as openly as she would before, or at least, she seemed to.
Seemed to sounds about right. Karin thought about her daughter's latest magical mishap. Her daughter had somehow managed to summon a familiar at the incredible age of ten, something that should, by all rights, make her daughter a magical prodigy. Yet that was not to be. While her daughter was very apt at most theoretical aspects of magic, she had never before managed to successfully complete a spell. Every time she tried she had gotten an explosion as the end result.
Now, though, her daughter did something almost unbelievable; not only had she managed to summon a familiar at the age of ten, but she summoned another human being, something spoken about only in legends.
Her daughter's familiar was roughly Karin's age, neither tall nor small, with short black hair starting to turn grey and expressive brown eyes. To Karin's eyes, he resembled some of the Academy's magical professors; he had an almost intellectual look about him. The familiar also brought another problem to the table.
He couldn't speak their language; and no one recognized the language he was speaking. In the past week, several attempts had been made to communicate to the man, but all of them failed. The familiar still remained in the infirmary, after suffering some small injuries from his summoning, but no one had managed to actually talk to him. He seemed to understand what the water mages were doing to him and so didn't resist their efforts in curing him; although, he acted extremely surprised whenever someone used magic around him.
Louise was ecstatic about her familiar; for the past week she had a bright grin in her face, a grin that only faded slightly when confronted by Karin, but even then she didn't completely lose it. She even went as far as breaking into the infirmary and binding her familiar after Karin had forbidden it, but for some reason Karin couldn't especially blame her daughter for that; after all, he was her familiar, even if he was a human being.
Some small voice in Karin's head insisted that Karin didn't punish her daughter because deep inside, she wanted to scream like a schoolgirl with pride at her Louise's success. She ignored that voice.
While thinking about all that happened in the last week, Karin swiftly arrived at her husband's study and let herself in.
Her husband was sitting at his table, concentrating on reading some documents. For a moment Karin stopped and looked at her husband. He wasn't the fairest of men, but Karin loved him all the same. He was pale-skinned and blonde, with his hair down to his shoulders. His was a kind face, somewhat marked by age. The only thing that Karin didn't like about her husband's appearance was the mustache he sported, but that was something that her husband vehemently refused to remove, one of the few things in which Karin couldn't convince her husband to do as she willed.
Karin's own looks were something that most people would call beautiful. She didn't particularly care about her appearance, but she did do her utmost to always appear presentable, as should all nobles. Karin hair was pink, arranged in a bun on top of her head, but for two locks of hair that came down around her face and almost reached her waist. Her face was pale and beautiful, showing no sign of her age, as beautiful now as it was in her youth.
Coughing lightly, Karin announced her presence to her husband. He started, and letting his monocle fall to the desk, looked at her.
"Karin."
"We need to talk about Louise." Karin said.
"And what has our wayward daughter done now?" The Duke asked.
"You mean besides summoning a human being, at age ten?" Karin asked, arching her brow.
"Yes, besides that."
"Nothing yet, but in the future …" Karin's voice faded out.
"What do you mean?" Karin's husband asked slowly.
Karin sighed and sat down on one of the chair in front of her husband's table. She remained silent for some moments before speaking again.
"Louise did something amazing; some would say impossible, but how did she do it?" Karin didn't let her husband respond before continuing. "You saw the circle; it was perfect, something that in itself was an excellent accomplishment for a ten year old. Then she summoned a human, despite the fact that Louise never managed to successfully cast a spell before. Something strange is going on with our daughter's magic. Something's wrong and we have to do something about it."
The Duke remained silent for a few moments, before replaying to his wife's concerns.
"But what can we do? How many healers and specialists did we call to see Louise?" The Duke made an irritated sound at the word specialists. "They don't know what's going on with our daughter's magic, and the only thing they can think of doing is to wait and see if whatever is wrong disappears as she grows up; incompetent fools."
They both remained silent for some time, simply looking at each other, before the duke continued.
"At least now that our daughter successfully summoned something we know she can do magic right, or almost right if we take into account the explosion during the ritual."
"There's also the familiar." Karin interrupted. "Perhaps we should search for some recording of human familiars. Search also for the familiar's runes, seeing if they appeared before on someone's familiar. That might give us some ideas about what wrong with our daughter."
"I already sent a draft of the runes to a friend in the capital." The Duke said. "Perhaps I can ask him about some of those legends of human summoning's. I have other contacts that I can try, as well."
Karin nodded at that. "There's something more we can do."
"Oh?" The Duke made an inquisitive sound.
Karin nodded. "Some of the books that were destroyed by Louise's explosion during the ritual were old and valuable books, but above all else they were enchanted against the elements, some of them ridiculously so. Perhaps we should test just how powerful our daughter's explosions are."
"A good point." The Duke agreed, nodding.
Not seeing anything else to be discussed, Karin got up and slowly started walking to the door. Arriving there, she turned to her husband once more.
"Then tomorrow morning, I will call Louise and I will test her explosions. Perhaps that might give us some more clues about her magic."
Having said her piece, Karin bade her husband goodbye and retired to her bedroom. While walking, the only thing she could think about was what the next day and the future might bring.