The Great Crystal Hall shimmered with ritual energy, its marble inlays glowing as students stood in their assigned summoning circles. The day had come—the Binding. Every mage would receive their familiar: a lifelong magical partner, shaped by their soul.
Albedo stood motionless, hands behind his back, pale hair catching the morning light through the stained glass. He didn’t fidget like the others. He didn’t need to.
He had never failed a single charm. He cast third-tier transmutations like they were breathwork. The professors had stopped calling on him because he always knew the answer.
Some said he had no emotions. Others said he was a prophecy—The Soul of Absolute Accord.
When his circle activated, the room dimmed. The glyphs beneath him pulsed—then warped. Lines bent where they shouldn’t. Runes bled into one another.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Then—crack.
Light exploded outward in a spiral, forcing students to shield their eyes. The summoning circle flickered, nearly breaking under the pressure. And then… it stopped.
Whispers rose like wind:
“It didn’t work?” “Is that even possible?” “Maybe he’s too perfect to bond with anything—”
Then, from the center of the circle, something moved.
A small, awkward jumping spider stepped forward, twitching.
A pause. Silence.
Then a few stifled laughs.
“Oh my god,” someone muttered. “That’s his familiar?” “That’s… lame.”
But the spider convulsed—shifted.
It grew. Legs dissolved, reformed into hooves, wings, paws, shapes too fast to follow. One heartbeat it was a glass-eyed deer; the next, a blur of mist and light.
Then it stood up.
A humanoid figure, androgynous and motionless, with nothing distinct except skin that shimmered subtly under the light—like distant galaxies scattered across flesh.
The laughter stopped.
The air felt wrong.
A professor stumbled back.
“That’s… That’s a chimeric bond.”
A word not spoken in centuries.
Albedo looked at the figure and tilted his head. He didn’t smile.
“Interesting.” He said, eyebrows raised as he met the eyes of his familiar.