Book One – Chapter 8

At Emery Thurm, familiars delved into their own capabilities. Midnight had been thrust into the awareness of how she would grow in size and strength, just like her wizard. The masters spoke of dormant magical abilities, a potential coiled within every familiar’s existecte, though only Midnight would feel it stir. Alongside the familiars of Yves’ commilita, she had endured arduous training with master wizards and their familiars. Beyond that, she had autonomously sought out other pathera and midnight stalkers, with whom she had delved into the shadows.

Each quest beyond the academy’s walls had provided an exploration of her innate abilities tethered to the shadows. Observing familiars from other wizards during their artefact hunts, Midnight had gleaned as much as she could about who she might become. Still, she had never before witnessed the arcane potential that lay beyond her innate midnight stalker abilities.

From the cryptic knowledge she gathered, these abilities might birth at random, be triggered in moments of great peril, or emerge through her wizard’s actions. His growth and prowess affected her. It was understood that wizards excelling in their craft shared bonds with more potent familiars, whose abilities were unravelled earlier than the average of their race.

In the desolate entrails of the Albweiss Mountains, caught within the weaver’s trap and marked for the hunt by the impending predator, Midnight was overtaken by existential dread. The passage of time, once a steady stream, now rippled with a disquiet that clawed at the adequacy of her being; the distortion between her body and thoughts that became a reflection of her insufficiency.

Midnight had wondered when that time would come for her and how she would know. She needed it to be now. Her truth, the belief that she was always herself and her whole, shifting over time yet anchored in the present, was grievously disturbed. Now, her body died because she had not been enough. As time had festered, she grew too little. While her wizard had changed, she evolved too slowly. She needed to be more, even though she had never been less than her all.