The School of Onyx and Phoenix

¶ The Summoning ¶ "You are just as useless as your mother...no good thing can ever come out of you!" Kick!!! Punch!!! Slap!!! "I regret birthing a son like you...you're better of dead!"he said and walked away. I managed to pick myself up and into the bathroom to wash off the blood stains. That's how cruel life has been ever since my dad found out I'm a shadow born. He hits me on a daily mostly whenever he's drunk. I washed myself,changed my clothes and brushed the old wooden floor. I touched the only thing that made me complete—my mum's necklace. I grabbed my bag and rushed down the street. We were out of steak at home and I needed some. "Good morning,Mrs Humpty" "Morning child"she cooed. Mrs Humpty lived few blocks away from our cottage. She would always help me whenever my dad threw me out in the cold at night. I arrived at the steak shop. "Good morning, Mr Wood" "Morning young boy" He grinned showing off his brown stained teeth. "Which steak are you buying today" I looked at his table trying to fish out the smallest. I picked the one needed. "How much for this sir" "5 bucks"he replied. I had only three bucks and that's what I had saved since I got the last steak. "The price went up?" "Yes,lad...winter has started"he said sharpening his knives. "Could you give me the one worth three bucks, please." He nodded."Haven't seen your father in a bit." He tossed me my steak. "He's always at the stellar down the street to your left." I dashed back home. Looking out the window,I prayed for my summoning letter. My mum had sold her jewelries and saved up to help me purchase the form and I had written an exam to get into the School of Onyx and Phoenix. "I can't wait to get my hands on that letter". --- "Creda, come down for breakfast."her mum's voice echoed through the house. Her little sister,Mary ran to the table trying to steal a steak but her father caught her lifting her up from the ground. "You shouldn't steal"he tickled her stomach making her giggle. "I'm down"I glided down the rail. "You should stop doing that"her mum said hitting her with a spatula. "Owwww" "Prayers?"her mum joined them on the table. After prayers,her spoon felt heavy. "I miss him so much"Creda murmured starring at her brother's favourite chair. "We all miss him too,it wasn't your fault"her dad said touching her hand. --- Elnathan stood alone on the edge of the gray cliffs that bordered the northern sea, where the wind clawed at his cloak and howled like a grieving specter. The air tasted of salt and storms. Waves crashed far below, their fury hidden in the twilight gloom. His boots were buried in frost-rimmed grass, motionless as stone. He had stood there for over an hour, waiting—though for what, he wasn’t sure. His eyes were red and patched with dry tears. His father had hit his mum again and he still couldn't stand up to him,the memories flashed hurting him. The sea, his only companion these past few years, churned restlessly beneath a bruised sky. He had felt it before it arrived. That sharp prickling of magic against his skin, like invisible needles threading through the air. It settled into the hollow of his chest, coiled and tight. Then it came. A spiral of blue flame bloomed in the air before him, spinning faster and faster until it expelled a small parchment wrapped in black ribbon. He caught it before it hit the ground, his hands trembling with cold—or perhaps something deeper. Fear. Awe. A strange sort of relief. The seal was pressed in black wax, glimmering faintly under the failing light. It bore a twin crest: a phoenix wreathed in fire on one side, and an obsidian stone encircled by a serpent on the other. The Onyx and Phoenix. His breath caught. The letter was short. Almost too short for what it meant. --- You are summoned. The House of Onyx awaits you. Midnight train from Marrow Station. Bring only what cannot be replaced. --- That night, Elnathan said nothing to his father. There was no point. He walked through the quiet house one last time, shadows clinging to every corner. He peeped at his mum and little brother sleep peacefully. How were they going to cope with his monstrous father. His father sat asleep in his chair by the fireplace, an empty bottle tipped against his leg. A soft wheeze escaped his lips—nothing more. Not a word of goodbye. Elnathan packed lightly. A pocket-sized book of northern myths. A feather, silvered with age, that once fell from a skyhawk during a summer hunt. Things without which he wouldn’t be himself. He stepped into the cold, the frost clinging to his boots like memory. On the ice-lined window of his room, he carved a single word with the tip of his blade: Goodbye. --- Far to the South… Creda’s summoning came differently. It was the fire that woke her, though nothing was burning. She stirred in her bed, eyes fluttering open to a strange crimson glow. At first, she thought it was sunrise, but when she sat up, she saw them—dozens of fireflies, made of red and gold flame, dancing in the air like living embers. They circled her, trailing sparks in wide, slow spirals. The room shimmered in their glow—walls, ceiling, even the pages of her open sketchbook catching firelight without burning. Then, from within the fireflies, a scroll emerged—no bigger than her palm, bound with a golden thread. When her fingers touched it, it burned. Not enough to hurt, but enough to test her. To make sure she wouldn’t let go. She didn’t. --- You are summoned. The House of Phoenix welcomes you. The train waits beneath the Grand Oak. Bring your fire. Leave your fear. --- She stared at it for a long time. Then she whispered the words aloud. “Bring your fire. Leave your fear.” In the doorway, her parents stood. They must have seen the glow from the hallway. Her mother’s eyes were already wet with unshed tears; her father’s hand rested gently on her shoulder, as though holding her steady by not holding her at all. “I’ll make you proud,” Creda said, folding the scroll tightly and pressing it to her chest. Her mother stepped forward, brushing a lock of soot-colored hair behind Creda’s ear. “You already have.” --- Midnight. The train appeared from nowhere, as if summoned by their footsteps. It stood at the edge of the hidden rail, gleaming under moonlight that filtered like silver silk through a veil of clouds. The tracks shimmered like starlight, stretching out into the unknown. There was no smoke, no whistle, no engine clatter. Just silence. Expectant, eternal. The carriages were made of burnished black metal, streaked with gold and silver filigree that pulsed faintly with enchantment. The windows were frosted with runes that shifted when no one was looking. Elnathan arrived first, his breath fogging the air. Marrow Station wasn’t really a station—just a half-buried stone arch deep in the northern wilds. The kind of place where ghosts whispered and hunters avoided. He stepped aboard, his boots clinking against the polished obsidian floor. Inside, it was warm. The seats were deep and velvet-lined, flickering lamps hovering in midair like captured stars. He took a seat beside the window, where frost etched spirals across the glass. Alone. Or so he thought. --- Creda found her way beneath the Grand Oak by instinct more than sight. The tree towered in the heart of the southern forest, older than memory, branches spread like wings. Beneath its roots, a tunnel had opened—lit with glowing veins of fire running through the bark. She entered without fear. The tunnel curved downward, and at its end, the train waited. She stepped aboard, her presence marked by the faint scent of embers and ash. The carriage welcomed her. The moment her foot touched the floor, flames flickered in her wake—quick and harmless, like joyous sparks greeting one of their own. She paused when she saw him. Elnathan sat near the window, his pale skin ghostly in the lamplight, eyes shadowed by more than fatigue. A boy sculpted of silence and winter. He looked up when the carriage door slid shut. Their eyes met. For one moment, everything stilled. The flickering lamps dimmed slightly. The air between them thrummed with something neither could name. Curiosity. Recognition. Wariness. Neither knew the other’s name. Neither knew the other’s pain, or pride, or what kind of fire they carried inside. Neither knew their destinies had just been entwined. But something passed between them. Something quiet, but unbreakable. A seed of fate, planted without their consent. Creda sat on the opposite side of the carriage, never breaking his gaze until the train gave a soft chime and began to move. --- Outside, the world blurred. The cliffs and forests and towns flicked past like candle flames snuffed by wind. The stars tilted. The moon blinked. They did not speak. Elnathan returned his gaze to the window, watching the frost run patterns along the glass—some of them familiar, some of them not. Creda opened her sketchbook. The pages flipped themselves to a blank sheet, and without thinking, her hand began to draw. Not what she saw, but what she felt. Fire, and ice. A phoenix wrapped in shadow. An onyx stone catching firelight. Each line was a question. Each shape, a future. Somewhere behind them, the life they knew dissolved into mist. Ahead of them lay Onyx and Phoenix. A school. A sanctuary. A storm. And this train, silent and gleaming, carried them toward it like offerings to a destiny neither had chosen—but would soon claim as their own.