Origins: Kerrowyn Lightfoot - Part III

Part III: A Lightfoot at the Tower

What Freedom Costs

There was no formal induction for the first day at the Tower; you simply woke up, put on the new robe that still smelled of the dye, and found your way to the refectory by the scent of burnt porridge and ink. Kerrowyn spent the first few days in a fog, moving from fevered convalescence to waking disorientation to the biting clarity of Alric’s company. In the unfamiliar hush of her assigned dormitory, she kept waiting for the subtle threats and racket of her old life, the games of dominance that the Lightfoot Clan had played even in sleep. Here, the only games were silent and required less brawn than a willingness to be underestimated.

Alric’s family, it turned out, had arranged for her to be “sponsored” as a charity case—no different than the indigent orphans or war refugees that sometimes filtered through the city’s bureaucracy and landed, blinking, in the Tower’s lowest echelons. That suited Kerrowyn fine; the work was hard, but the rules were written down, and the punishments, while draconian, at least had a logic. It was the opposite of the Clan, where the rules changed with the weather and her mother’s mood.

Kerrowyn’s first true lesson came before dawn, two days after her arrival, when Alric found her hunched in the corridor outside the library, picking at the scabs on her palm. “You’ll get yourself thrown out for vagrancy,” he said, voice bright with mock-scold, “if you don’t start pretending you belong here.”

Kerrowyn shrugged, tucking her hands in the sleeves of her robe. “I’m good at not belonging. It’s my principal skill.”

Alric, for all his wealth and connections, never looked down on her. He had the particular patience of the very privileged, the kind that grows in children who have always been told they were special, but he wore it loosely, like a favorite old scarf. He sat beside her on the cold floor, ignoring the disapproving glances of early-rising Adepts. “You want to talk about what happened?” he asked.

She snorted. “What, the part where my own family tried to kill me, or the part where I almost died on your doorstep?”

“Either. Both. Or neither, if you prefer.”

Kerrowyn did not answer. The silence was comfortable enough; after a minute, Alric pulled out a bundle of parchment and started copying lines from a spellbook. She watched the side of his face, the way the candlelight threw his nose into sharp relief and caught on the soft hair above his lip.

“Do you want to change your name?” he asked, not looking up from his work.

“What?”

He shrugged. “You know, start fresh. Shed the Lightfoot. My mother could arrange it—she’s got friends in the registry. You could be anything you wanted. Kerrowyn Verenium has a nice ring.”

The joke hit her like a sucker punch; for a moment, she saw herself—Kerrowyn Verenium—somehow neat and gilded, her rough edges planed down to fit into polite society. It was worse than being called a thief or a gutter rat.

She forced herself to laugh. “Not a chance, Al. I earned this name. And if the rest of the world doesn’t like it, they can learn to spell it with a boot up their arse.”

He seemed to expect this, but his face did not betray whether he was pleased or disappointed. “It’s your call. But the Academy doesn’t play by the same rules as the street. You have to be twice as good, or they’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

Kerrowyn wanted to say that she was used to that—had survived worse, in fact—but the words died in her mouth. Instead, she reached for the parchment and started copying, matching Alric’s script as best she could.

The first class of the day was Arithmetical Alchemy, taught by a tetchy, mouse-faced man who regarded his students as if each were a particularly stubborn rust stain. The other students—all human, with the occasional halfling or elf thrown in for flavor—clustered in silent, strategic alliances, always leaving Kerrowyn a half-seat at the end of the bench. She did not mind, at first; she was used to being the afterthought, the overlooked liability. But by the end of the lesson, after the professor had called on her three times in a row for answers she could not possibly know, she began to recognize the shape of the trap.

In the next class, Illusory Practice, it was worse. The instructor—a woman with hair like bleached hay and a voice like glass shattering—referred to her, not once but three times, as “Verenium’s charity project.” When Kerrowyn failed to produce a convincing illusion on the first try, the professor sneered. “Perhaps Miss Lightfoot is more used to sleight of hand than actual magic.”

The class tittered. Someone near the front, a half-elven girl with perfect posture and perfect contempt, whispered loudly enough for the room to hear: “At least she’s housebroken.”

Kerrowyn clenched her teeth so hard her jaw clicked, but she said nothing. She had learned, from years in the Clan, that the real punishment was surviving and showing nothing, not even a flinch.

The days blurred: lessons in Rhetoric, lectures on the Theory of Leylines, interminable hours in the practice yard trying to make a single, clean spell without burning out or misfiring. Alric floated through it all with the easy assurance of someone born to the life; Kerrowyn labored, fumed, and learned. It was never enough to be good. She had to be the best, or she was nothing.

One evening, as she staggered out of a remedial potion class, she found Alric waiting for her in the cloistered garden. He handed her a cup of cider and a strip of candied ginger. “I’m not supposed to say this,” he said, “but you’re doing better than half the class. They just don’t want you to know it.”

She took the ginger, chewed it slowly. The sugar burned her tongue, but the taste was so different from her old life she found herself savoring it. “Why?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Because it’s a closed system. If you do better, someone else does worse. And no one likes a new rival, especially one who didn’t pay her way in.”

Kerrowyn spat a seed into the grass. “That’s fine. I wasn’t planning on making friends.”

Alric studied her. “You could, though. If you wanted. You’re not nearly as scary as you think.”

“I don’t want to be scary. I want to be left alone.”

He smiled, and there was no malice in it. “Well, you’re failing at that. You’re kind of spectacular.”

Kerrowyn looked away, out toward the city, where the lamps were starting to light one by one, the lines of the avenue like a constellation for the living. For the first time, she let herself imagine a future, not as a Lightfoot, not as a ghost of her family, but as herself. The possibility was terrifying.

She finished her cider and handed the empty cup back to Alric. “Thanks,” she said, and then, more quietly: “For everything.”

He waved it away. “You would have made it here even without me. You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“That’s the first honest compliment I’ve gotten all week.”

They sat in silence, the night gathering around them. Kerrowyn thought of her mother, of the way she’d once said, “You have to learn what it costs.” She thought she understood it now. Everything costs something, especially freedom, especially a name you chose to keep.

In the morning, Kerrowyn would get up, put on the robe, and do it all again. She was a Lightfoot, after all, and there was no going back. Not now, not ever.

Sponsored and Seen

The summons to dine at Alric’s home arrived via a crisp white card, sealed with the Verenium crest and bearing, in a very neat and very legible hand, a time and date. It was, Kerrowyn decided, more intimidating than any threat she’d ever received. She kept it hidden in the bottom of her desk drawer, taking it out every few hours as if the message might change if she looked at it from a new angle.

When the evening arrived, Kerrowyn dressed in her least threadbare tunic and borrowed a clean sash from the Tower’s lost-and-found bin, uncertain whether it would be more disrespectful to show up in gnome formalwear or to approximate human fashion. She scrubbed the ink stains from her fingers and even tried to brush her hair into submission, but the cowlicks rebelled as they always did. She looked in the cracked mirror and didn’t recognize the person staring back—a girl who looked almost normal, almost like she belonged to someone.

Alric met her at the gate to the estate, which sprawled over two city blocks and was lit with blue mage-lamps that glowed like captured moons. “You look great,” he said, and for once, it sounded like he meant it. His own robe was pressed and tailored, the Verenium crest embroidered in silver at the breast.

“I look like a scarecrow at a fancy funeral,” Kerrowyn replied, but she let him lead her up the walk, past hedges trimmed into the shapes of animals she could not name.

Inside, the house was cathedral-quiet, with ceilings so high she wondered if the upper floors were for show rather than habitation. A butler greeted them—an actual butler, with a face like a dried apple and gloves so white they looked painted on—and led them through a series of rooms: a marble foyer, a hall of portraits, a library larger than any classroom Kerrowyn had ever seen. In each room, there were small, deliberate displays of wealth: a polished Sunstone lamp here, a vase of fresh nightbloom there, a glass-topped table that reflected their faces back at them as they passed.

In the dining room, the table was set for four, each place gleaming with silver and crystal. Kerrowyn’s seat, at least, had a cushion to boost her to something approaching eye-level with the others, but her feet still dangled a high above the carpet.

The Verenium parents entered together, a study in contrasts: the mother elven, tall, elegant, with streaks of copper in her hair; the father human, shorter and broader, his face open and endlessly interested. They smiled when they saw Kerrowyn, and she was startled to find that the smiles looked genuine.

“Kerrowyn Lightfoot,” said the mother, taking her hand with a softness that felt almost criminal. “We are so pleased you could join us. Alric speaks of you often.”

Kerrowyn bowed her head, awkwardly. “Thank you for having me.”

“It’s our pleasure,” said the father, who had a voice like a velvet couch—soft but unyielding. “Any friend of Alric’s is a friend of the family.”

They sat, and the butler poured wine—Kerrowyn declined, then instantly worried that this was the wrong move. The first course was soup, and the bowl was so wide she feared drowning in it. The spoons were almost the size of her head; she had to use both hands to avoid a spill. Alric tried not to laugh, and mostly succeeded.

For a while, conversation stayed safe: the weather, the progress of the city’s new aqueduct, a polite interest in the curriculum at the Tower. The parents asked questions, but never about her past, never about the Clan or her branding, never about the real reason she’d wound up in their son’s social orbit. They asked how she liked her studies, what she wanted to specialize in, whether she had any hobbies outside of spellwork.

Kerrowyn answered as best she could, always wary of the trap, always waiting for the moment when the mask would drop and she’d be called out as a fraud, a charity case, a parasite on their son’s good nature. But the moment never came.

Halfway through the second course—tiny roast birds served on a bed of greens so bitter they made her eyes water—the mother turned to her and said, “We hope you don’t mind us sponsoring your education. Alric insisted. He can be very persuasive.”

Kerrowyn nearly choked on a bone. “I’m… grateful,” she managed, after swallowing. “I just don’t want to be a burden.”

“Nonsense,” said the father. “We know what it is to be outsiders, even in a place like this. Our house may be large, but our history is very small.” He said it with a sly smile, as if sharing a secret.

The mother nodded. “Alric’s always had a soft spot for outsiders. And for those with the courage to leave old lives behind.”

Kerrowyn glanced at Alric, who looked mortified. She smirked, then turned back to the parents. “He’s not so bad,” she said. “Could do worse.”

Laughter, real and warm, filled the room. For a moment, Kerrowyn felt her guard loosen, just a fraction. The rest of the meal passed in a blur: bread, cheese, a final course of honeyed cakes that stuck to her teeth and tasted like nothing she’d ever known. The parents asked about her favorite books, her best spell, and whether she planned to return to her old neighborhood. She answered, at first, out of obligation, then with growing honesty. She realized she wanted them to like her, wanted them to see that she was not a mistake, not an accident of charity.

After dinner, the father brought out a battered chess set and challenged her to a game. Alric, already blushing, excused himself to help his mother clean up, and for a while, Kerrowyn and the senior Verenium played in near-silence. The father was good, but he played with an evident joy, and when she won—barely, and only because of a lucky queen’s sacrifice—he laughed and pounded the table. “Alric was right,” he said. “You’re a clever one.”

As the evening wound down, the mother returned and thanked her again. “We hope you’ll come back,” she said, with an odd intensity. “It can be lonely, in a house this size.”

Kerrowyn smiled, for real this time. “I’d like that.”

On the walk back to the Tower, the city felt different. The lamps were brighter, the streets less menacing, the air sweeter. Alric, embarrassed but happy, asked, “Was it awful?”

Kerrowyn thought about it. “No,” she said, surprising herself. “It was… nice. Your parents are nice.”

He grinned. “You’re welcome any time. They’re always looking for new reasons to set the good table.”

They walked in companionable silence for a while, until Kerrowyn said, “I never really understood families like yours.”

Alric shrugged. “They’re not perfect. But they care. Sometimes that’s enough.”

She nodded. The Lightfoot home had never felt warm, not even at its best. The only heat there was the heat of competition, of survival. The Verenium house, with its blue lamps and perfect hedges, was another universe entirely.

That night, as she lay in her narrow dormitory bed, Kerrowyn replayed the dinner in her mind—the laughter, the chess, the way the parents had looked at her not as a problem to be solved but as a person. She could not decide whether it made her feel better or worse. But she knew, as she drifted to sleep, that she wanted to be invited back.

She wondered what her mother would have said about that.

She fell asleep before she could come up with an answer.

A Familiar Problem

By the end of her first month at the Tower, Kerrowyn had learned the secret geography of its corridors—the invisible borders between the polite and the dangerous, the places where students whispered and the alcoves where they plotted. But nothing called to her like the third-floor east classroom, home to the Tower’s conjuration seminars.

The room was unlike the others: the desks arranged in concentric circles, the center cleared for spellwork, the floor inlaid with faint, swirling sigils that caught the afternoon light and reflected it up in bands of gold and blue. The professor, a half-elven woman with hair the color of walnut shells and an eye for detail, was among the few instructors who treated Kerrowyn as more than a necessary evil. Her name was Miralen, but the students called her Professor M.

On the day of the new assignment, Professor M glided to the center of the room and called the class to order with a gesture as gentle as a lullaby. The students, an even split of humans, elves, and the occasional ambitious halfling, silenced themselves immediately.

“Today,” she said, “we begin the most important lesson of the first year: the Summoning of Familiars.”

The room buzzed, a low susurrus of excitement and dread. Kerrowyn sat at the back, feet not quite touching the floor, spine straight as a rod. She had read ahead—of-course she had—and was already halfway through the required text, but she waited for Professor M to explain.

“There is a reason this assignment is both an honor and a terror,” the professor continued. “It is not simply about magic. It is about responsibility. When you conjure a familiar, you do not call a pet—you call a mirror. What you create will reflect who you are, not who you wish to be.” Her eyes swept the room, pausing briefly on Kerrowyn.

She held up a slip of parchment. “You will have one month. You must produce your familiar, train it, and demonstrate its obedience to the class. Failure to do so will result in a failure of the course.” There was a sharp intake of breath from the front row.

“As a reminder,” she said, “the permissible forms are as follows: cats, owls, crows, ravens, snakes, rats, and spiders. You are strongly advised to begin with the familiar forms. Attempts to innovate will be permitted only if pre-approved.” Here her gaze returned to Kerrowyn, and there was the faintest smile at the corner of her mouth.

She set down her paper, then reached into the folds of her robe. “As a demonstration—”

A swirl of magic gathered around her wrist. With a single, fluid motion, she cast her hand forward, and the air above her palm split open like a seam in silk. Out stepped a spotted bengal cat, fur shimmering with the faintest blue shimmer, eyes huge and green as marbles. The cat padded onto the lectern, sat, and began to clean its paw with a disdain reserved for royalty.

The students gasped, some with envy, others with unvarnished delight.

Professor M smiled, genuine and proud. “This is Fennel. She’s been my partner for many years, and though she’s more loyal to salmon than to me, we’ve achieved a mutual understanding.” She stroked the cat once, then turned back to the class. “You’ll find the incantation and required reagents in chapter six. Remember: it’s not about power, but about intention. You must mean it. You must need it.”

Class dismissed, the students scattered—some to gather ingredients, others to plot strategy. Kerrowyn lingered, watching the way the professor cradled Fennel, the way the cat twined around her wrist, the seamless intimacy of the bond. She wanted that, more than she’d wanted anything in years.

In her own dormitory, Kerrowyn cleared the desk of its clutter and spread out the reagents: charcoal, incense, and a bundle of herbs. She lit a candle and opened her spellbook, heart thrumming with something that felt dangerously close to hope.

The first two attempts failed. The third produced a wisp, a vague silhouette of an owl that dissipated as soon as she reached for it. She worked until her fingers were numb and her voice was raw from reciting the incantations, but nothing stuck. It was as if the world was telling her she didn’t deserve the magic, that her intentions were not enough.

In the morning, after a night spent pacing and rewriting notes, she trudged to the Tower Archives. The place was cathedral-cold, filled with the dusty perfume of a thousand forgotten spells, the kind of quiet that amplified every footstep into a declaration. She found herself drawn to the lowest stack, where the books were older and the margins more crowded with annotations.

It was there, buried in a stack of neglected treatises, that she found the essay: “On the Theory and Practice of Advanced Familiar Binding.” The author was anonymous, the script a crabbed hand that seemed to vibrate with anxiety. But the content was clear: a variation of the familiar spell, more dangerous, more demanding, and—according to the notes in the margin—capable of producing familiars of exceptional intelligence and power.

Kerrowyn read the essay three times before she understood it. The spell was more than words and components; it required a piece of the summoner’s self—an offering, a sacrifice, a raw willingness to be changed by the magic. The margin notes warned: “Success not guaranteed. Result unpredictable. Side effects may include persistent fatigue, altered perception, and permanent familiar bond.”

She copied the spell into her notebook and returned to her room. That night, she did not sleep.

Over the next week, Kerrowyn prepared with a fanatic’s discipline. She studied the diagrams, practiced the new gestures until her fingers ached, and collected every rare ingredient the Archives recommended. She even visited the city’s night market, trading two of her best lockpicks for a sliver of “void crystal,” said to be essential for conjuring creatures from the deep fae.

She worked in secret, never mentioning the experimental spell to Alric or anyone else. She wanted—needed—to do this on her own. Every failure was a lesson; every tiny success felt like a rebellion against the teachers, the other students, and the world that told her to aim lower, to be satisfied with the ordinary.

At last, on the eve of the demonstration day, she was ready.

She arranged the components in a circle, drew the sigils on the floor, and steadied her breath. This would either work, or it would destroy her.

She began the incantation, voice trembling but clear, and felt the magic gather in her chest, hotter and sharper than ever before. The air thickened, the world seemed to tilt, and the room filled with the scent of ozone and distant summer storms.

As the spell reached its crescendo, Kerrowyn could feel something alive and hungry on the other side of the veil, waiting to see if she was worthy.

She threw herself into the final words, heart hammering, eyes fixed on the center of the circle.

For one perfect second, the room went silent, and then—

A surge of light, a sound like glass shattering, and the world changed forever.

What She Should Have Been

When the world came back into focus, Kerrowyn was flat on her back, eyes dazzled by afterimages and ears ringing with a high, brittle note. Something sharp and cold pressed against her cheek; she realized it was the obsidian of the classroom floor, webbed with cracks and glimmering with the residue of her spell.

Around her, the room was in uproar. A scorched owl wheeled through the rafters, shedding feathers as it went. The benches were overturned, the chalkboard had been split clean in two, and a half-dozen students were crouched under their desks, hands over their heads. At the epicenter of the chaos, perched atop a smoking pile of spellbooks, was a creature that had not, by any reasonable standard, been invited.

It was a pseudodragon, but unlike any she’d ever seen in sketches or paintings: pale lavender, with an iridescent sheen that seemed to change color depending on how you looked at it. Its wings were delicate and lacy, trailing sparks of violet with every beat. The eyes were too large for its head, rimmed with gold, and its tail ended in a delicate, feathered flourish. The moment it noticed her, it let out a high, offended hiss and spat a glob of purple fire that set a stack of parchment alight.

The classroom dissolved into pandemonium. Professor M, usually the picture of composure, leapt onto a table and started hurling water spells at the spreading blaze. The pseudodragon took flight, making tight, acrobatic loops around the chandelier before dive-bombing a terrified halfling and stealing a strip of bacon from his lunchbox.

Kerrowyn, still stunned, tried to push herself up, but her arms trembled with the aftershock of the magic. She blinked, and for a moment, she thought the familiar had vanished—but then it reappeared, inches from her face, all teeth and whirring wings.

“Hello,” she croaked, reaching out a tentative hand.

The pseudodragon regarded her with something close to contempt, then snapped its jaws shut millimeters from her fingertip. It landed on her shoulder, claws pricking through her robe, and glared at the rest of the room as if daring anyone to object to its presence.

Professor M restored order with a spell that doused every flame and sent a wave of cool air rippling through the class. The other students crept from their hiding spots, eyes wide, some murmuring in awe, others in purest horror.

“Well,” said Professor M, smoothing her hair with one hand and steadying herself with the other. “Miss Lightfoot, I see you took my advice about innovation to heart.”

Kerrowyn swallowed. “Sorry, Professor. I thought—”

“You thought correctly,” the woman interrupted, her voice sharp but not unkind. “But next time, perhaps warn me before you attempt an unsanctioned spell.” She paused, assessing the pseudodragon with a mixture of fascination and wariness. “You will have exactly one week to bind it properly. If you fail, I will have no choice but to banish it.”

Kerrowyn nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The familiar was still perched on her shoulder, its tail curled around her neck like a living necklace. Its wings vibrated, as if fueled by her own residual panic.

After class, Alric found her sitting cross-legged on the green outside the Tower, the pseudodragon curled around her forearm, refusing to budge. He studied the creature, then grinned.

“I thought you were going for something subtle,” he said.

Kerrowyn glared at him. “I was. I wanted a lynx. Something sleek, something nobody would mess with. Instead, I got this.”

The pseudodragon yawned, revealing a forked, pale-pink tongue. It then tried to bite Alric’s finger. He withdrew his hand, still smiling.

“Maybe it suits you,” he offered. “You’re both small, loud, and a little bit dangerous.”

Kerrowyn scowled. “You’re hilarious. You want to take it for a walk?”

“Pass. I like my fingers where they are.”

The next week was a blur of failed attempts to train the pseudodragon. It refused every command. It ate two pairs of her shoes and shredded the contents of her backpack. At night, it perched on the window ledge and howled at the moons, keeping the entire dormitory awake. Kerrowyn tried bribery, discipline, and even threats. Nothing worked.

On the fourth night, desperate, she brought it to the roof of the Tower and sat with it under the stars. She spoke to it, not as a master, but as a fellow misfit: about her mother, about the Clan, about the loneliness of trying to prove herself to a world that would never say thank you.

The pseudodragon listened. When she finished, it unfurled its wings, climbed onto her lap, and nuzzled its head under her chin. She scratched it behind the ear, and it purred—a low, thrumming sound that vibrated through her bones.

From that night on, it was hers.

At the demonstration, a week to the day after the chaos, Kerrowyn entered the classroom with the pseudodragon balanced on her shoulder. The other students gave her a wide berth. Professor M watched with her usual inscrutable smile.

“Have you named it?” the professor asked.

Kerrowyn hesitated, then nodded. “Lynx,” she said, voice steady. “For what it was supposed to be.”

The other students—some in awe, some in jealousy, most in honest admiration—watched as she commanded Lynx to perform a sequence of acrobatics, then to fetch a coin, then to curl up in her arms like a living jewel. There was a beat of silence, then, unexpectedly, applause from the back row.

Professor M inclined her head. “Excellent work, Miss Lightfoot. You’ve exceeded the assignment.”

Kerrowyn grinned, and for the first time since arriving at the Tower, she believed it.

After class, she lingered in the hallway, Lynx draped over her shoulders like a scarf. Alric found her, eyes crinkled with pride. “You did it,” he said.

She nodded, stroking the familiar’s soft, lavender scales. “Turns out being different isn’t always a bad thing.”

“No,” Alric said, “sometimes it’s the only thing that matters.”

Kerrowyn looked down at Lynx, who was now fast asleep, tail twitching in dreams. She wondered what the familiar was dreaming of—a world of endless skies, perhaps, or a place where all the outcasts and mistakes found each other.

She had named it for its unmet expectations, a mirror to her own surname—Lightfoot—a name that had never quite fit. In the end, they had both become something wilder, stranger, and far more magnificent than anyone had intended.

She stood, straightened her robes, and walked into the future she had summoned for herself—one wild, impossible day at a time.