Headmaster Belius flung his cloak around Jared and pulled him to his feet. The frantic look in his eyes terrified Daevon and the temp of his heart picked up. What did it mean to be twice marked? Would he need to choose between them? So many questions raced through Daevon’s mind. The headmaster's actions indicated he knew something about the phenomena.

Bending his head closer, Belius whispered through gritted teeth. “We must go. Now!”

“Shamaiah, Damien, finish the ceremony at once. The other students will wait until tomorrow.”

Bowing low, the two master summoners whispered incantations. A soft breeze rustled their robes and the candles flickered out. Daevon knew they would be cleaning up the materials and ensuring their summons had fully retreated before dismissing the rest of the students, but by the time the candlelight winked out, Belius already had him halfway to the academy entrance.

“Headmaster, wha—“

“Silence! We mustn’t speak here.”

Daeven bit back his retort and meekly followed the headmaster through the ornate wooden gates to the academy proper. Daevon remembered the first time he saw the academy. It was a breathtaking scene. The academy was an ancient castle nestled in the middle of a basin. Mountain peaks capped with snow created a natural barrier from the rest of the world. The journey to the academy was a two-week affair through the heart of the mountain. Caverns and cave systems provided access from a dozen different locations, but only a summoner could make the journey. Not only was the way obscured with magic, but creatures of dark also roamed the tunnels.

Once per year a summoner from both affinities would gather the new class at a small town on the outskirts of the mountain and lead them through. The summoner of light would lead the way with light wisps and other summons that cast natural light to see. Meanwhile, the summoner of dark affinity would would keep the dark-aligned creatures at bay. Without the two of them, the journey would be impossible. Over the years, some had tried to scale the mountains, but they would soon find the journey impossible from freezing temperatures and altitude blindness.

If the archives were to be believed, the academy had never experienced an intruder. Daevon had no idea what would happen if they did. Magic wasn’t a secret, but the existence of a secret academy and the eternal war between light and dark was held to the strictest of secrecy. The rest of the world used mana and enchantments. What they don’t know is that mana is just the essence of supernatural beings. The residual effects of their presence in the world. Which meant there was always a limit to the potential of a mage or enchanter. They could grow strong, and learn how to more efficiently harness the ambient mana around them, but it wasn’t something with themselves. Thus, they will never reach higher than a summoner who has direct access to the beings in question.

This academy was the only place in the world to study summoning. The ceremony that just went awry was the only way to be Marked. The only way to true power and Daevon’s lifelong dream is to obtain an agreement with an angelic being. Only now, he didn’t know what would happen. How could he summon an infinitely pure creature while marked by a demon? Further, how could he summon a demon when touched by the light? As far back as he could remember, Daevon dreamed of this day. Longed for it with every fiber of his being. Yet now he wanted nothing more than to rewind the time. He wanted to go back and do something different. Perhaps if he pursued a new path he wouldn’t be in his current predicament. It was too late.

Three flights of stairs, five corridors, and two rooms later, they arrived at the headmaster's private office. Daevon had never entered the room. There had never been a need. The antechamber was a classroom, which was the closest he’d come. Balius taught history and ceremony. It was a mandatory class, one of the few that met every day. It was also one of the most boring classes. That wasn’t quite fair to the headmaster, but ceremony was extremely repetitive. After the intro and the first week, Daevon had learned every lesson thoroughly. He didn’t need to learn the same lessons week after week after week. Sure, he understood the reason. Ceremony and following the rites properly were paramount to a summoner, but two years of lessons where every week was the same exhausted and bored him.

Balius practically pushed Daevon into the room, locking the door behind him. He muttered under his breath as he rushed to a bookshelf frantically searching for a volume.

“Where is it…where is it. Not here. Nope.”

Daevon rolled his sleeves up and looked at the Marks on his arms. Intricate lines and runic symbols shimmered and rippled. They seemed alive, their pattern random.

“Magic…”

“What?”

Daevon started to respond, but realize it was more rambling as Balius paid him no mind. At his point, the headmaster had taken half the books off his shelves and was currently rooting through several chests against the back wall.

“Can I help you find something?”

“What? Oh, no…”

Shrugging, Daevon wandered around the office. Balius clearly preferred order and organization. Before he’d started ransacking the office looking for something there hadn’t been an item out of place. The books and scrolls all pertained to the headmaster's profession, history, and rites. There was a book for every single part of a ritual. A dozen books on summoning circles and proper containment of a summons. There was a chronology of history beginning with scrolls, then bound sheaves of paper, and finally leather-bound tomes with gold stitching. The historical references occupied an entire wall by themselves.

None of the books sparked his curiosity until he found a small section on Marks. One volume, in particular, caught his fancy titled The Shapes and Meaning of Marks. Daevon glanced over to the headmaster but realized at some point he’d disappeared into another adjoining room. Peering inside, Daevon found yet more shelves of books. There were some glass cases with artifacts and another row of chests.

Ignored and curious, Daevon took a seat in front of the headmaster's wormwood desk and opened the book. The opening lines hooked him completely.

The true power of a mark is contained within its design. Contained within these pages are all known variations of Marks dating back to our earliest depictions and thoroughly cataloged with each generation of summoners. The last known deviation in Marked dates to Myriad 15.

Daevon paused and wondered if his Marks were a variation or if they were just unique because he had two. It was currently Myriad 23, so it had been at least eight years since any recorded deviations in a Mark. He frowned, if the book covered 10,015 years of history why was it so small? More curious than ever, he continued reading.

Throughout the generations, the variants for Marked of Light and Dark contain only minor deviations. Summoners speculate that these changes are the result of our blood diluting through marriage to different families. Though, the changes in these Marks do not always manifest between siblings of new family pairings. Thus, the findings are inconclusive. Despite family lineage likely having little impact on the deviants, we can ascertain specific characteristics of marks through countless observations and comparisons. These comparisons begin with the basic forms, the originals. While this record covers all major deviations, additional micro-changes can be observed in familial archives of the great houses.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

A crash from the other room startled Daevon. “Found it!”

Barely had he cracked the pages and he already wanted to devour the contents of the book. He shoved the book into his robes, hoping Balius didn’t miss the historical record. With the number of books and items strewn about, Daevon suspected he either wouldn’t notice or at least it would take him a while. At that time, he would be able to finish reading it and perhaps slip it under the headmaster's door at a later time.

Headmaster Balius rushed out of the room. Somewhere in the mess, he’d found a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles bound by a chain around his neck. Daevon didn’t remember him using them before. Perhaps it was a sore topic with the headmaster in his old age. What that age was none of the students knew. He was well into his second century, but it was impossible to tell. At some point, summoners stop aging in the same way a normal human would. The standing belief was the immortal essence of their summons partially infusing their bodies. The closer a summoner reached to the higher tiers of Light and Dark the longer they lived. Immortality was non-existent, at least on this plane of existence. No one knew how long they had once they entered Heaven or Hell and once again their summons wouldn’t speak of it. For all they knew, Heaven and Hell might just be one more stop along an ever-winding path to some other dimension.

“Here, right here! Read it!”

Daevon found a dusty tome shoved into his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose as a sneeze formed. Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced the sneeze away and breathed through his mouth. With the threat of sneezing all over headmaster Balius, who was right in his face, and the apparent archaic tome over, Daevon looked at the place marked. It was very difficult to read. The heading read Twice Marked, but the rest was in Enochian.

Roughly translated, it read “Marked by Fate. Marked by Light. Marked by Dark. He shall bring forth a new era. He shall dance with fate. He shall build up. He shall tear down. Fate lies within. It is he that shall unite. It is he that shall divide. Fate yet decided. Fated not once, but thrice.”

“Uh, headmaster I don’t—“

“Read it again, but this time start at the end. Enochian is often written right to left, but since we primarily speak English we attempted to standardize over time. This text predates any known living summoner and followed the old ways.”

Daevon read it again, slowly this time. Thrice marked by fate… his namesake, and now both Marks of Light and Dark. The person spoken of in the text would at first divide and tear down, but unite and build up. Thus, ushering in a new era. The final three stanzas were requirements. Light, Dark, and Fate. But what of dancing with fate? Could that mean a pact with the Angel of Fate?

“You don’t think this is talking about me?”

“Daevon, this is a prophecy! It is the only prophecy ever recorded. We don’t even have a record of who spoke the words, only that it was important enough to record in old Enochian and preserve over the years. That’s why I remembered it. It was quite odd at the time because what is a prophecy? We live in a world of magic where we summon supernatural beings that transcend our material plane.”

“This could be talking about anyone! Maybe someone in the past had two Marks.”

“If someone else had two Marks and fulfilled the only prophecy recorded in a Myriad, do you really think we wouldn’t have it in our archives? Think this through. Your family name comes from the Angel of Fate. You are marked by Light and Dark. You, Daevon, are the person spoken of here.”

“But what does it even mean? I mean, I’m only eighteen. I can’t summon anything more than a mature wisp. How am I to divide and unite or tear down and build up. Or, usher in a new era? Whoever said these words was probably crazy. Just ramblings someone wrote down with no thought.”

“Do you know what this book is Daevon?”

“Should I?”

“I doubt you would have ever seen this version, but this is a copy of the oldest Enochian manuscript. This is our most authoritative text. It speaks of the accord, the responsibility of summoners, and the everlasting nature of this war. To doubt this is to call our entire order into question.”

Daevon leaned back in his chair, stunned. What was he supposed to do with this knowledge? He didn’t know anything. He was at the top of his class, but that didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t begin to inflict change on the world with his meager abilities. It would be decades, maybe even centuries before he could rise to the power of the master summoners.

“If it is talking about me, what happens now? I need many more years of study and training to even hope to summon anything in the angelic hierarchy, let alone the Angel of Fate.”

“I do not know--” Balius paced to the other end of the room, peering into the adjoining room arms folded and lost in thought. “—yet, but we must do something.” The words were barely audible. There were clearly more thoughts running through his head, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Can’t I just go back to school and get stronger?”

Balius whirled to face him. “No! No, you cannot return to classes.”

“What do you mean I can’t go back to class?” Incredulous, Daevon jumped to his feet in outrage. “This is my life, this is where I belong.”

“No, not anymore you don’t. We cannot be certain any of your summons would work or contain the beings you reach. You are marked by both sides Daevon. Imagine with me for just a moment. Imagine if you summon a Wisp and being your pact. What happens when an Imp answers your call through your Dark alignment?”

“But it’s different words? Different summons?”

“Is it? Is a Wisp really the name we give it? Do we know for certain that it has no dark version of itself? You are no longer free to summon through words alone. From now on, all your summons will channel through your Mark. Marks. Therefore, you can no longer study here for the safety of the students. No, you must go.”

Daevon’s heart sank. He didn’t want to go. His dreams were vanishing before his very eyes. He needed this. What would his family say? Would they still accept him back? House Marmaroth boasted of hundreds of master summoners over the years. Daevon was the only student from the house currently at the academy. There hadn’t been a new child born to the current house patrons in more than fifteen years. There was one more who had the spark to become a summoner, but his little niece was only three years old. His house, and his family needed this.

“I don’t want to. I can’t. My famil—“

“Your family must know. They have the prophecy. I’m sure of it. The references to the Angel of Fate are certain. Your family is marked by Fate. You are marked by Fate. Yes, they must know…” Balius went back to pacing and muttering to himself.

An empty chasm opened in Daevon’s chest. If he returned home now, he would be a failure. His father and mother would shun him. His niece would have no one to look up to. What would his sisters say?

“Shamaiah and Damien will accompany you and train you. None other, save for them must know. If I had it my way, no one else would know, but you must be trained.”

“I don’t understand headmaster. Why can no one know?”

“Daevon, I thought you were smarter than this. Think boy, think! You, the fulfillment of the only prophecy and foretold to bring about destruction and division. You are fated to change fate itself. What will the other great houses do to you or your family should they find out? Never before has such a risk to the other houses arisen. If…no, not if. You! You are the one foretold and you will disrupt the world. Damien, Shamaiah…I don’t know if I can entrust them with this information either. They have their own houses to whom they owe allegiance…”

It was too much for Daevon. He bowed his head and couldn’t stop the tears from dripping down his cheeks and splashing to the ground. Everything he worked for and loved was ripped out from under him for what? Fate? A responsibility he did not want. He never even wanted to participate in the infernal war to begin with and now he was smack in the middle of it with no ability and no way to defend himself. Unless he ran… Maybe that was the answer. Could he run? How would he get through the tunnels? He could summon a wisp to guide him, but what of the others? There were countless variations of shadow creatures and were-beasts beneath the mountains. Would his new Mark protect him?

Slowly, a plan began to form. If he ran, it would solve his problems. He would not be the center of attention. He would run from fate. He could even steal books and future years' textbooks to continue his training on his own. He knew how to properly set a circle and the incessant repetition from Balius over the years had printed every rite and ceremony rule on his mind. If he made it out, he could still correspond with his family to let them know he was okay, that he’d received his Mark, and that he was training abroad to accelerate his learning. Would Balius tell them? It’s possible, but if he waited who knows what would happen. Balius would put the two master summoners over him and one, or both, could try to kill him to preserve their own house and position in the event he really was the answer to prophesy.

Bit by bit, Daevon hardened his resolve. He would run away. Now, he just needed to find a way to steal some guide and training material, supplies for a two-week hike, and then a time to slip away unnoticed.

A small flame lit in his heart. He would do this. He would train. He would come back stronger and fate be damned.