DARKLIGHT

- 2 -

"Siderion!" my mom called from downstairs. I was sitting on my bed, adjusting the collar of my new uniform. My shirt and pants were silky and pure white, shimmering in the glow of the rising sun outside my window. On my breast pocket, a silver hydra, the Order's logo, was blowing streams of white fire from all nine of its heads. Soon, I'd be a fully-fledged member of the Order and finally find a purpose for my magical skills.

The shirt was short-sleeved so that my mage symbol, a white griffin, was visible and accessible. It was on the inside of my right forearm and covered nearly the entire length of it, with its eagle head near my wrist and its lion tail flicking towards my elbow. "Are you up?" my mother asked again as I ran my finger down the symbol's length, briefly lighting it up.

"Yes, Mom, I'm up," I replied, smirking. How could I still be asleep on such an important day? I finished tucking in my shirt and headed downstairs to the kitchen, where my mom was busy cooking breakfast. She had half an eye on a sausage pan that was moving lazily back and forth over the stove by itself, and she was cutting open a watermelon on the counter opposite it. Her mage symbol, also a griffin, was glowing brightly from the effort of keeping the pan afloat. "Do you need some help?" I asked her.

She turned to me and smiled as she looked over my new uniform, crossing her arms in front of her. I noticed that the knife she had been using continued chopping without her hand on it. My mom knew her way around the kitchen. "Would you mind fetching your father?" she eventually asked. "His eggs are getting cold."

I nodded and walked back up the stairs to my dad's room. "Time for breakfast," I called through the open doorway. He burst out of his room, wearing the same uniform that my mom and I already had on, except for three silver lines on his shoulder showing his Captain rank. My mom only had two, and they were green to represent the science department that she headed. The symbol on my dad's arm was much larger than mine, but a griffin nonetheless. That was one of many things that we all had in common.

"Are you excited, Sid?" he asked, ruffling my wavy ginger hair.

"Of course."

"Then put a smile on your face! You can't be starting your first day so down like that."

"I'm still worried about what I'll do once I'm finally in the Order," I admitted. "I won't possibly have a job as important as you or Mom do."

"Not right away, no. Running even a small part of the Order is a difficult business," he said proudly, "and Meri got to where she is with hard work. Only she and her coworkers know what they're doing with all of those weird machines."

My dad started down the stairs, and I followed him nervously. "So, what will I do?"

"I'm sure you could find work being a page or secretary."

"But I want a job using magic!" I protested.

"Then perhaps you could join the Order guard or find a craft you're interested in. Did you ever finish that poem?"

"No. I could never get the beginning right. Besides-"

I started to protest, but my dad cut me off. "There is a certain magic in words," he said mysteriously. "It's amazing what you can do with so few of them."

We reached the kitchen again, and this time my mother's griffin arkaetre was there instead. She was nearly a foot taller than my father and had an eagle's head and wings that morphed at the waist from feathers to lion fur. The griffin bent her head down in a greeting and padded forward to us on paws and claws. "Good morning, Siderion and Michal," she crowed.

I patted her on the shoulder, which was about as far up as I could reach. "Hello, Phari. Where'd Mom go?"

"Not far. We're about to leave; I was just finishing the newspaper." Phari trotted to the counter where the paper was sitting open, closing it with her beak and folding it neatly. "Meri! We should be going!"

My mom came running from the downstairs hall and Phari clicked her beak disapprovingly. "I'm here. I just needed to fetch a few things." She slid a jingling satchel over her shoulder and hopped nimbly onto her arkaetre's back. I caught a peek of what looked like silvery, thin coins among the papers and folders. "All right, let's go. Good luck, Sid." The griffin walked through the open doorway and shut it with a back leg. I watched gleefully as Phari started to leap down the road until I had to address the smell of eggs and sausages coming from the dining room.

As we ate, my dad called Hecatus, his griffin, saying, "Surem." I heard a rush of magic as the arkaetre took shape beside him. Then, a cold beak pressed against my neck, and I doubled over in laughter. "Hey, stop that!"

Hecatus snorted and gave me one more affectionate nuzzle before backing away. "You look so official," he praised.

"We should also get moving," my dad said. "We wouldn't want to miss the opening ceremony. It's time for you to earn your stripe." I nodded, gulped down the rest of my breakfast, and mounted Hecatus behind my father, and we set off.