Page 1 of Prince of Flowers
1
The bigger they are,the harder to call.
At least that was what Father used to say about forging pacts with mythical creatures, the great beasts of legend. But hey, if a grand summoner said it, it must be true. Father had walked so I could run, and all I had to do was follow in his footsteps. His big, intimidating footsteps. Some day, maybe, I would fulfill the dream he had for me, become a grand summoner myself.
But right then, in that forest, wearing my ranging gear and clutching my father’s big, cumbersome grimoire, I was just Locke, college burnout and super senior. Super, super senior, actually. Don’t ask.
Call on a flock of seagulls, a swarm of rats? That’s freshman stuff, easy peasy. Want the ability to summon an entire dragon? Better be ready to pay the price. I negotiated the forest carefully, every step deliberate as I weaved between branches, avoided twigs. No sense calling too much attention to myself. The only calling I planned to do was out into the ether, for the express purpose of contracting something supremely powerful.
Biting on my lower lip, I thought of what price I might have to pay myself. A dragon would be nice, sure, but I’d settle for a dire wolf, a unicorn, hell, even a lion. “But every summoner starts small,” said the voices of my many professors in my head. A sweet sentiment, except for how I was supposed to have upgraded ages ago, no longer sticking to summoning starlings and doves and chickadees.
“I summon you, great power of the cosmos,” I muttered under my breath, running my finger across the pages of my well-worn grimoire, practicing the recitation of the first part of the binding spell for the thousandth time.
The task was simple enough — in theory. Explore the forests surrounding the great and ancient academy of the Wispwood. Follow the traces and tangles of spiritual force lingering in the cool, misty air. Find a thread leading to the ideal familiar — an eidolon, rather, a being of great arcane might to which you can bind your soul, form a mutually beneficial magical relationship. And hey, presto! You’ve forged a contract with an eidolon.
Again, simple stuff — in theory. The Wispwood forests weren’t exactly known for being home to truly powerful creatures, the kind I would need to acquire my Crest. But I was getting desperate. Beggars can’t be choosers. I switched hands for my grimoire, worried that the sweat on my fingers would imprint on the old leather-bound cover.
It was a summoner’s book of shadows, a tome of spells. Within the context of the Wispwood, it was really more of a glorified textbook. I’d inherited my father’s copy. I was supposed to inherit his wealth, too, but the old man had made it so that I’d only gain access to his ridiculous riches if I actually secured my Crest, with a capital C. It was close to the equivalent of a college graduation, only harder. Okay, a lot harder.
Scrape by enough classes, get enough credits to qualify for my degree? Easy, even if I spent half my schooldays cutting class, eating chips, and playing video games. But this was like getting a master’s degree in summoning. Scratch that, a master’s master’s degree.
Father had forged contracts with dragons, with vengeful ghosts, with the guardian spirits of raging volcanoes. I had huge shoes to fill. Massive.
Sometimes I wondered if I was even meant to continue the family business. I chuckled under my breath. Now and then, I would quietly joke to myself about taking the easy way out. I could always hawk the Wilde grimoire at the Black Market and live off the proceeds, at least for a few years.
Grand Summoner Baylor Wilde’s personal grimoire? This thing could fetch a pretty penny indeed. I grinned absently to myself, imagining how sweet life would be without the pressure of living up to Father’s name, of constantly being harangued by both the faculty and the student body.
And that was when I stepped on the world’s loudest, crunchiest twig.
“Summoner filth!”
Oh, fuck. The rasping voice had come from underground, briefly preceding the eruption of the grass and soil not three feet away from where I stood. A blood-red flower the size of an armchair emerged, its petals velvety and dewy as they unfurled to reveal a beautiful woman. Not a woman, actually, but a wild alraune, one of the half-human and half-plant creatures who made every trip through the Wispwood forests a pulse-pounding, potentially dangerous adventure.
Want to take a hike? Try Los Angeles, I hear the hills are lovely. Want to be accosted by a flower-person able to strangle or rip you apart with its vine-like tentacles? Head on over to the Wispwood, where the trees are misty and violent dismemberment comes free of charge.
The alraune stretched out her hand, a volley of thorns whistling at me from between her fingers. I slammed the grimoire shut, tucked, and rolled, no doubt picking up blades of grass and forest floor debris in the curls of my hair, but never mind that. I could shower all the dirt away later. No chance I could shower away being dead.
“Nice to see you again,” I shouted over my shoulder as I took off running.
The alraune screamed and shook her fist, the ground already rumbling as her vines snaked through the earth to chase me. I always wondered why some of the supernatural denizens of the forests hated us students so much.
Frankly I was convinced that the Wispwood professors, hell, maybe even the headmasters themselves were paying the alraunes and all the other woodland critters to be as nasty to us as possible. I wouldn’t put it past them to believe that frequent attacks and ambushes were good for building character, if not stamina. I kept on running, the grimoire clutched against my chest, the muscles in my legs burning.
I wouldn’t consider myself a slouch in the athletic department, necessarily, despite my steady diet of snack cakes and video games. I performed the prescribed academy exercises as well as I could, mostly calisthenics and bodyweight routines. And I could proudly say that I was pretty damn fast on my feet. That sort of thing comes in handy when you’re in danger and you try to summon help that doesn’t want to show up.
Or when you’re running from an angry alraune, for example.
I risked a glance over my shoulder, my heart thumping when I caught sight of the ground rippling closer and closer toward me. The vines could burst out of the earth at any moment, loop around my ankles and break them. And then the alraune would drag me back to her waiting blood-red bloom, eating me for lunch and using my life essences to water her thirsty roots.
For a moment I tried to recall whether alraunes were carnivorous, but I decided that both my brainpower and my muscles were better devoted to the singular goal of escaping her clutches. Never getting to find out whether she ate people for lunch was probably the better option, right?
I held out my grimoire, the pages fluttering as it followed my silent orders, opening to the section that had one of my favorite summoning spells. Ah. Good enough. My eyes scanned the page hurriedly even as the disembodied voices of my professors rang inside my head, scolding me for still not memorizing this one simple thing.
“Yes, yes, I know,” I snarled, answering the imaginary insults and complaints out loud.
I blinked hard as I spotted a new predicament: all that running had taken me straight toward a ravine. Well, crap. Actually, wait. This was perfect. If I cleared this thing, then I’d be free to slow down and take my time once I reached the other side. No way in hell that alraune’s vines could reach me across the gap.
Of course, the first step was actually crossing the gap alive. My mind raced through the final words and motions of the spell, a recitation that I once again promised I would learn by heart. Soon. Eventually. I thrust my hand out, the magic curled and gathered in my blood uncoiling all at once, bursting through my skin in triumphant release.
