I scrub a hand across my face and reach for what used to be hot coffee. The screen flickers; an elderly man, and a woman in municipal workwear, walking in step between two enforcers. One of them cradles a cloth-wrapped object in their hands.
“These individuals were found transporting regulated rubies home post-shift—a simple misunderstanding. As outlined in protocol, all rubies must be checked in and out of workplace castingstations to ensure both occupational safety and public welfare. No charges were filed. The goal is education, not punishment.”
I snort under my breath, shifting in the chair as the feed cuts to a narrow alley behind a storefront. A woman in a bakery apron crouches in the shadows, drawing a precise line across her palm. The blood is minimal and controlled.
“Yet, not all citizens adhere to the system. This individual, a recent immigrant, was found practicing traditional bloodwork outside the Lower Rings, despite Eclipsera’s inclusive policy permitting unrestricted spellcasting within designated zones. Officials remind citizens that while ancestral magic is not illegal, its unregulated use may trigger acute psychological responses in district-born children unaccustomed to such practices.”
The image pauses on a child seated on a stoop, her gaze fixed on the small drop of blood near her foot, eyes wide and unblinking as the silence stretches. I press my fingers to my temples, the migraine now fully forming.
“That is why designated casting zones exist,” the anchor continues. “To preserve a caster’s autonomy while safeguarding the emotional well-being of our youngest citizens.”
And then comes the cherry on top—Alexander Darkmoor, his voice dipped in feigned benevolence, his expression sculpted for maximum manipulation.
“We would never ask anyone to abandon their heritage,” he says. “But culture must coexist with compassion. Eclipsera is a sanctuary, not a spectacle. When magic is exercised with discipline, fear disappears and only progress remains. The Founding Families remain unwavering in their duty to preserve that equilibrium.”
I roll my eyes so hard it makes my headache worse.
The closing shot pans across a city plaza. Three Void hounds flank the perimeter, their black, armored forms looking more statuesque than beastly. The caption reads:VOID UNITS PRESENT—NO INTERVENTIONREQUIRED.
A soft orchestral swell carries in as the Eclipsera emblem pulses onto the screen: four stars locked in a diamond constellation, linked by golden filaments that pulse like veins. Each star gleams in its family hue—Darkmoor’s void-black, Blackwood’s blood-crimson, Vale’s sharp emerald, and Silva’s lapis blue. The whole thing is encircled by thorns and roses against a field of onyx, with a motto gleaming in golden capitals:PER ORDINEM PERDURAMUS. PER SANGUINEM SURGIMUS.Through order, we endure. Through blood, we rise.
Because nothing says, “we’re definitely not tyrants,” like wrapping your power in pretty packaging and dead language.
I wave a hand to dismiss the broadcast and turn back to the journal, pulse still ticking in my ears.
The pages are crammed with theories and questions I used to tune out during Mom’s lectures, my teenage self-more interested in the practical aspects of our work than the ‘why’ behind it. But now, staring at her careful script unraveling essence theory decades before I was born, the framework she built begins slotting into place.
“Why do magical beings wield power without blood cost?”
I snort aloud, remembering the way I’d roll my eyes whenever she veered into one of her existential tangents. In the lab, I was her model apprentice. Scalpel precise, efficient, unflinching. But the moment she opened a theory text, I was already gone. For me, application always came before inquiry.
Except now, the diagrams I once traced without thought begin to speak. Each precise incision, each careful extraction—they weren’t random techniques at all, but the fundamentals of essence manipulation, drilled into me without explanation, training reflexes for something far more complex. One entry in particular draws my focus, its date written years before I was born. Her script, usually sterile, carries an unexpected undercurrent of awe.
“If DNA is the blueprint, then essence is the language it’s written in.”
I can hear her voice now, trying to explain while I fumbled through yet another extraction, half-listening at best. “The physical form is just the vessel, Aria. What matters is the essence within.”I’d nod, pretending to absorb it, more concerned about keeping the phoenix feather from combusting a third time.
I lift my hand, the ruby at my throat pulsing in recognition as the margins of her journal fill with my own annotations—quick glyphs that hover before sinking into the paper.
“Essence extraction method aligns with Year Threetraining,”I write beside one of the more intricate diagrams. The text glows briefly before sealing into midnight blue. My script looks rushed and almost combative beside hers.“Why teach molecular separation to a child? Why memorize creature anatomy before learning basic spells?”
I flip to an entry that makes me lean forward in surprise. Mom’s research takes an unexpected turn, devoting pages to a phenomenon I’ve only encountered through Eclipsera’s rigid magical binding contracts: bonds.
But what she describes isn’t the sterile spellwork I know. My fingers trace her elegant script as she documents creatures sharing magic in ways that defy everything I understand about power’s cost.
Chimera twins operating from a single essence pool, their magic flowing between them like shared breath. Siren clusters harmonizing into force-multiplying resonance that warps terrain. A mated pair of dragons breathing fire in perfect synchrony, their combined strength greater than any individual power.
I’ve signed enough magical contracts to know how binding magic operates. The cold, mechanical certainty of it. But this? These bonds aren’t cast. Theyform. And Mom’s writing, usually dispassionate, turns fervent. Obsessive, even.
“Why do some creatures form unbreakable magical bonds, and what happens to their magical essence when they do?”
Her observations bleed into the margins: shared injuries, mirrored abilities, essence remaining stable even under extreme stress. She was chasing something science couldn’t replicate.
“Whenever we isolate a bond pattern, it collapses under emotional interference. Essence doesn’t obey math once feeling’s involved. Bonds can’t be mapped. Only witnessed.”
And then I hit it.
She shifts focus again to recovered fragments from an ancient ritual known as the Blood Vow. Not just another magical contract, but something deeper. Something that bound essence itself, forcing absolute truth between participants. The consequences for lying weren’t just contractual punishment, they were physical, escalating from neurological pain to total magical degradation.
