The Summons
526 Words
The house has gone still.
Even the crickets outside seem quieter than usual, like the world itself is holding its breath. Moonlight spills through my window in thin ribbons, casting pale streaks across the floorboards.
I should be asleep. I’ve been lying here for hours, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about it—the letter.
But I can’t stop.
Every time I close my eyes, I see those words burned into the darkness behind my eyelids.
I sit up, pulling my knees close. The sheets are twisted around my legs, damp with sweat. My chest feels tight, like my heart’s still trying to race away from me.
Two weeks.
Dad’s probably already planning his strategy. Training. Pretending nothing’s wrong. But I know something’s different. Something’s off.
The memory of that tingling rushes back — the way the ink seemed to hum under my fingertips, alive and pulsing like a heartbeat. Even now, my hand still feels warm where I touched it, as if the magic is still there, dormant but waiting.
I glance at the clock. 2:43 a.m.
Don’t do it, Willow murmurs in my mind, already sensing what I’m about to do.
“I just want to look at it again,” I whisper, slipping from the bed.
The floorboards creak softly as I move across the room. Dad’s study is only a few doors down, but each step feels like a mile. The house smells faintly of cedar and smoke — home, but heavier now, like the air knows I shouldn’t be here.
I ease the study door open. The moonlight catches the edge of the desk, the envelope exactly where I left it. I pause, listening — nothing but silence and the rhythmic tick of the clock.
When I touch the letter again, a spark jumps beneath my skin.
I gasp softly, snatching my hand back. The wax seal glows faintly — not blue anymore, but silver, like moonlight caught in glass.
“Willow,” I whisper. “Do you see that?”
“I feel it,” she says slowly. “That’s not normal ink. That’s power.”
The air hums. My pulse syncs to the rhythm of the glow — thump, thump, thump — faster, louder, almost alive. I can’t look away.
Suddenly, a voice—deep, resonant—echoes faintly in the back of my mind. A whisper that isn’t Willow’s.
“Come to me….”
The light flickers, then fades.
I stumble back, breath ragged, clutching the edge of the desk. The letter lies still now, ordinary again. But my hand still tingles, my heartbeat still racing in time with something I can’t explain.
“What the hell was that?” I whisper.
Willow’s voice is low and uneasy. “A summons… but not for your father.”
The words send a shiver down my spine.
I look down at the glowing edge of my palm — faint, silvery veins of light pulsing just beneath the skin before they fade into nothing.
My throat goes dry.
Whatever this is, whatever King Gideon wants —
it’s not just for the Alphas.
It’s for me.
- Writer
