Page 104 of Summoned
Cut into the wall, a window opened onto a vast field, its greenery spilling all the way to the horizon. That gave me hope—that fragile thread a condemned person clings to in the darkness. My heart surged at the sight of freedom. But the field morphed into a graveyard. The greenery beyond became the boundaries of my prison. The thrum in my chest fell silent for five hundred years.
Until recently…
I push the last thought away and return to the memory of my first days in the castle. I wandered for hours, searching for Madeline’s game. She said I wouldharvest souls, yet I didn’t see a single soul around. I ran into empty walls, explored vacant hallways, and opened doors to lifeless rooms. There was so much space, yet with every passing second, my lungs tightened. The emptiness consumed me, spreading through me like a biting cold.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t create a portal to escape. However, I could easily shape a couch to sit on and materialize some food without substance, just enough to give the illusion of satiety. As an immortal, I wouldn’t starve. But the feeling of imprisonment… My legs still weaken as I revisit those moments, even if only in my mind.
That day, I thought of my father and the tears in his eyes when I told him I wouldn’t follow in his craft. I wouldn’t waste my magic on frescoes and mosaics. I was made for greater art—to shape spectacle out of life itself and lead the world.
It took imprisonment for me to understand the true reason behind my father’s sorrow. He wasn’t grieving because I rejected his art. He was grieving forme. As if hehad sensed the disaster my bold, naïve mind would bring upon me.
Whether it was fate’s whim or sheer chance, in that instant of clarity, the castle awakened. At first, it was a shift in the air. Then the vibration intensified, rolled down the walls, and crawled across the floor. An icy wave flooded down my spine, and my hands went numb, as if an invisible cord was wrapping around my bones.
Something wet slid down my cheek. I was crying! The warm, sticky tear seared its way across my skin. I caught it on my fingertip and stared, everything in me sinking at the dark red, bloodied smear. In the world of magic, blood means only one thing: a promise, a contract. This one had been torn from me by force.
At that exact moment, the air thickened with the scent of caramelized sugar. I had dealt enough with the Higher Powers to recognize one of the most common conductors of black magic. The aroma was gentle, almost tempting, but carried a weight impossible to ignore. Sweetness, as a symbol of temptation, was Madeline’s favorite method to enhance her spells.
A faint, unintelligible whisper stirred my mind. I blamed it on the castle’s strangeness, later, I realized it was my connection to theharvest.
The invisible cord around my wrists pulled me. Magic surged through me with a power I hadn’t felt since arriving at the castle. I used that energy for another attempt at a portal. This time, the space before me shimmered with the threads ofmymagic. However, unlike before, I couldn’t control where it would take me. It didn’t matter. I would go anywhere to escape spending even a second longer within those cursed walls.
And when I did… The portal opened beneath the vaulted ceiling of Madeline’s bedroom. The manuscript ofSeptember Spellslay on the table beside the bed, right where I had left it. A slow fire crackled in the hearth, its heat seeping into my muscles and easing the tension.
My gaze swept over the unfamiliar woman sitting in bed (her presence didn’t surprise me; Madeline would often call for company when bored) and landed on Madeline. She assessed me from the corner, regal as ever, leaning back in her high-backed chair.
Any notion that she’d reconsidered the curse vanished the moment she said, “Did you feel the pull,il mio giullare?”
“The pull?”
“You were summoned.”
Summoned.That icy wave washed over me again and pierced my skull along with the word.Summoned, summoned…
Something compelled me to turn back toward the woman in bed, and this time I didn’t overlook the details. A small jar of honey on a wooden coaster, a tiny ritual dagger with a blade as black as obsidian. The blood-soaked wood. The woman’s eyes, shining with a strange excitement.
Madeline’s voice drifted behind me. “I told her the legend of the Black Joker. She believes she can handle the trials and win your grand prize… Of course, I left it to you to show her the contract.”
I remembered the bloody tear on my cheek. “What contract are you talking about, Madeline?”
“You know, my love. Or is this just another lesson you’ve failed to learn?”
With a frown, I concentrated on the unseen energy field surrounding me—the vault. The great masters of magic, like me, can store their most valuable items within it. It’s always with you, invisible to others—unless they possess Madeline’s skill. She’d emptied mine when she cursed me.
She had likely sensed the new item there before I did. With a swift flick of my fingers, I materialized its threads into physical form. A rolled parchment. As the sheet unrolled, the contract appeared. I read every word with the same dread that hundreds ofharvestswould come to know after me.
“Three trials, one for each harvest,il mio giullare. And the good news? You don’t have to wait for she’s already twenty-one. Consider it a gift. A faster path into your new craft.”
Twenty-one?What the fuck?
My attention jumped from Madeline to the unknown woman, whose confusion matched my own. She, too, now seemed to have grasped that she had unwittingly stepped into something far bigger than herself.
“And don’t forget,”—Madeline smiled—“ it’s either you…or her.”
My heart pounded, each beat counting down the seconds to the start. My vision narrowed into a tunnel. The magic inside me surged, eager to face the challenge. Dark energy poured into me, slipping under my skin, curling like venomous tendrils around my bones, and sinking into my heart. The fusion felt natural, as if the Black Joker had always been part of me, waiting to awaken.
“Give her a trial, Gaetano!”
I resisted the curse. Resisted myself. But I never fooled myself into believing I’d prioritize a stranger’s well-being over my own.
