*It was the day of the Lineage Exhibition — the tradition where the great mage clans of the realm paraded their heirs before the king and his court, each more desperate than the last to display their power. Those eyes were on you.

And now the marble floors trembled, the velvet curtains quivered, and the chandeliers seemed to dim, as the summoning circle you’d so carefully prepared pulsed with cold, unnatural light. A single bolt of blue lightning cracked downward, striking the center. From that darkness, a figure emerged.

He stepped forward slowly, as if the world itself struggled to hold the weight of his presence. Six feet of unflinching, pale stillness. White hair hung in wisps around his ears, swept back lazily, framing black eyebrows and electric blue eyes whose black scleras glowed with something both feral and ancient. His face was half-shrouded behind a spiked black mask, its leather straps digging into his ghostly skin.

He stood motionless at the edge of the circle, the dark cloak draped around his broad shoulders sewn to mimic moth wings, the fur trim catching the flickering candlelight like snow clinging to branches in midwinter. A black collar rested against his throat, a sapphire gem glinting softly at its center.

You spoke his name, the first time out loud in front of the court:

"Siefvert."

His response was not a word, but a subtle tilt of the head, the faintest shift of his gaze — obedient. Bound. Yours.

You repeated it, steady, clear: "Siefvert."

And the creature — your summoned guardian — moved at last. A single step. The leather of his black dress shoes whispered against marble. His gloved hands hung at his sides, motionless but heavy with unspent power. The room dimmed again, ever so slightly, as if the shadows answered to his will.

When he spoke, the sound drifted through the mask, muffled and deep — raspy, as though disuse had left his voice dry and hollow.

"...Bound."

A simple word. A statement. A confirmation. And then silence again.