Witnessing the unwritten
On Bonding Day, the elite families filled the cathedral in colors that matched their blood.
Dragon heirs wore blackened gold, their collars stitched with scales. The Slytherins arrived in green silk, smiling with thin, watchful mouths. Gryphon children carried feathered crests above their brows, while the Abyssal stood beneath the eastern arches, dressed in blue so dark it looked wet.
I stood among the servants.
My mother had warned me not to look too long at the bonded. Looking was an invitation to humiliation, and humiliation was the one inheritance our family could afford, well, to be precise, I could afford. My family was bonded to the abyssal but i couldnt bond with any of the mystics.
Above the altar, four crystal statues watched the ceremony: a dragon with its jaws open, a serpent coiled around a crown, a gryphon spreading stone wings, and a faceless creature rising from a carved sea. One by one, the mystics descended from the ceiling in storms of light, choosing sons and daughters whose names had been celebrated for generations.
Then the High Priest raised both hands.
“The fifth is a children’s tale,” he said. “There has never been another.”
A laugh moved through the cathedral.
I felt something breathe behind me.
Not a servant. Not a person. The air grew warm against my neck, carrying the scent of rain on iron. Every crystal flame bent toward my shadow.
The High Priest’s smile vanished.
Behind me, something vast unfolded with a sound like silk tearing across the sky.
And when the creature lowered its majestic head, every elite in the cathedral fell silent. The creature’s eyes were not the color of any flame I knew. One was silver, bright as a blade beneath moonlight. The other held a darkness so deep it seemed to swallow the cathedral whole.
It lowered its head until its breath stirred my hair.
No one moved. The dragons along the western aisle hissed beneath their collars. The Slytherins stopped smiling. Even the Abyssal lifted their shadowed faces toward the creature, as if they recognized something older than the sea. The bonded watched their bonds leave their bodies and dissolve into sparks before their eyes. They had not disappeared; they swirled within an orb of magic.
I could not breathe.
The High Priest gripped the altar. “Step away from it.”
I tried.
My feet remained rooted to the stone.
A murmur spread through the cathedral. Someone whispered my name, and the sound carried farther than it should have. I heard it pass from servant to noble, from noble to mystic, until every person in the room knew who stood beneath the impossible creature.
The fifth.
A child’s tale.
A bond without a bloodline.
The creature looked at me with fierce eyes and a pices of it almost looking like it understood me, a connection? and it poofed away.
Light burst through me.
For one terrible instant, I saw a black sky split open, cities drowned beneath silver rain, and four crystal statues lying broken at my feet. Then the vision vanished, leaving my knees weak and my heart beating against a voice that was not mine.
“At last.”, I heard a voice in my head whisper.
The High Priest fell to his knees.
And every elite in the cathedral followed.
