The professor accompanying Kira on the way to the head master’s office was silent, with only a pair of muffled thumps of shoes on carpet could be heard.
Kira’s insides twisted and churned with increasing worry at every step that brought her closer to doom. The pair made their way through the abnormally deserted hallways and ascended silent staircases. And she knew with a sinking feeling of the fate of their usual inhabitants, all crammed in a small overcrowded nook of the castle, with many more awaiting healing within their own rooms spread around the building.
But Kira couldn’t afford to care for them, as she herself could soon be facing a fate far worse than death: expulsion. If the headmaster were to expel her from the school, it would be an immediate death sentence, no, worse, her house would find no value left to keep her within the family.
With her family name rescinded and her reputation forever tarnished, she would not be able to survive if the rival houses enacted their revenge, let alone find any honest jobs or make a living in peace. Within the country at least.
Elias’ proposal to leave the country was looking pretty good now. But she’ll probably never see him again, or father, or even mother…Kira put all her might into controlling her tears, refusing to lose her dignity in front of the unknown professor, even though she would soon lose it to everyone else.
The professor suddenly stopped at the headmaster’s door, and Kira almost ran head-long into him, not paying attention to her surroundings. He knocked the old wooden door embellished with a worn gold nameplate with fancy slanted writing scrawled across it. It proudly read Headmaster of the Elderglow Institute of Magic Alaric Ravencrest.
The professor turned to Kira and impassively announced, “The headmaster will see you now,” Placing a cold hand on her shoulder, Kira flinched as he leaned in and hissed with scorn.
“You will pay for sabotaging the House of Warhaven’s heir. I hope the headmaster’s justice will be swift and brutal,” Meeting Kira’s fearful eyes with two hate filled ones, and his fingernails dug deep into her flesh.
Roughly shoving Kira through the arched doorway, uncaring for her yelp in pain, he stepped in behind her and closed the door. Dozens of intense gazes fell on Kira as all the heads of departments turned their attention to her.
The bustling room suddenly went silent as everyone in the room awaited the headmaster’s verdict.
“Kira Rockwell, the Executive Leadership Council has a few questions about yesterday’s summoning ceremony, would you mind filling us in?”
Kira’s insides turned to lead.
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…
Valendor was in a stupendously good mood. Licking some icing off his lips, he cheerfully stuck his hand into a large paper bag for another donut. Theodric was originally skeptical of how one could finish all by themselves: a small mound of donuts that filled a bag, which could fit a small child inside, to the brim.
But after witnessing Valendor mow through more than half of the donuts with no sign of slowing down, he admitted that he might have severely underestimated the voracity of such a powerful being.
They were lazily sprawled out on a bench near the donut stall in the shade, with Valendor still delightfully gorging himself on donuts, and Theodric took a bite out of his second one, enjoying the lighthearted and relaxing atmosphere in the park.
Savouring the sweetness, he thought back to just a few hours ago and the stark contrast in mood between then and now. He thought that Valendor just had wild mood swings often, but looking back on it, it was quite unreasonable to expect Valendor, who had shadow affinity so naturally he must be weak against light, to enjoy being under the sun: which was not at all.
Theodric mentally kicked himself for his oversight, it was no wonder why Valendor jumped into his shadow to escape, he had even tried putting up with the sunlight a while. Not a day in and he already caused his new familiar problems, he felt like a clueless amateur summoner once again. The first lesson of summoning was to know your familiar’s strengths and weaknesses so you could fight effectively as a unit. How could he claim to teach the subject as a hypocrite?
“Sorry for making you walk in the sun,” Theodric awkwardly scratched his head. “I should’ve considered waiting until sundown to take you shopping,”
“Eh, I could phase into shadow anytime I wanted,”Valendor paused mid-bite and waved him off with a jelly-filled donut. In truth, it was embarrassing to admit that the Lord of Night had forgotten he could’ve done that, since he was so used to already swimming in shadow all day, he naturally didn’t need to phase into shadow since he was already in one.
“But I do prefer to sleep in the day and go out at sunset so we should plan our future ‘shopping trips’, as you called them, around my sleep schedule,” Valendor inspected a purple blue-berry donut before popping half into his mouth.
“Did you just say ‘future shopping trips’? You mean you want to go again?” Theodric feared he might’ve scared his familiar off by accidentally baking him alive.
Valendor stopped chewing on his donut, and swivelled his antlers as he tilted his head, looking Theodric dead in the eye. “You introduce me to this delectable donut-thing, and expect me not to come back for more?”
“I was afraid I made shopping leave a bad impression,”
Valendor huffed as he freed the last pink donut and crumpled the bag up with his other hand, popping the ball of paper straight into mouth as Theodric looked on in morbid fascination.
“To be honest, I didn’t think I would be so affected by sunlight either,” Mumbling past his full mouth, he swallowed and washed the paper taste down with the last donut. “It’s probably because I’m all out of mana, and was too exhausted to resist the sun at its zenith,”
Swallowing, he said. “I should be alright if I piggy-back in your shadow, or…,” Valendor got up and looked back down at Theodric, flashing a fanged grin. “Or if I had another round of donuts,”
He was not joking about the donuts, those sugary abominations were so saturated with fat, calories and sugar, Valendor could understand why humans consume them as fuel, probably as cheaper alternatives to mana beast meat with the large amount of energy they provided.