Dawn light spilled over the ceremonial plateau, casting long shadows from the ancient stone pillars that ringed the sacred ground. Dozens of villagers, elders in grey and crimson robes, children with wide, glittering eyes, and beasttamers with their spirit beasts swirling around them in their small spirit form stood around the ceremonial plateau.
Leon stood barefoot on the cold stone, fist clenched tightly. His plain wool tunic, handed down by his late mother, fluttered in the cold mountain wind. He tried not to shiver.
Today was his last chance.
All around him, boys and girls his age, fifteen, sixteen stood in a loose line, each awaiting their moment. They whispered with excitement. Most of them already felt the stirrings of connection, hints of spirit beast that would choose them. Some boasted of dreams filled with wings or fangs. Others had seen signs. claws in the snow, whispers in the dark.
But Leon had dreamt of nothing.
He had seen no signs. He felt no pull.
And worst of all, he had been here twice before.
This was his third and final attempt at the Spirit Pact Ceremony. No one had ever succeeded on their third try. The cultivators would not permit a fourth.
Failure meant banishment from the pact-bonded society of beast tamers. Without a spiritual beast, one could not cultivate. Without cultivation, one could not survive in the village of Fangtooth.
He would be marked. A beastless. A Prey.
"Leon, step forward," Pact Priest called, a sharp-faced man draped in robes too grand for this remote mountain village. His voice echoed majestically across the plateau, a trick of his beast's wind-element affinity.
Leon stepped forward, dragging his legs uncertainly. The altar loomed before him, carved from black stone veined with crimson ore. Atop it sat a large, flat stone carved with runes older than the sect itself. It oozed faintly with qi.
Beside it stood a squat iron brazier. The priest reached into it and withdrew a branding iron shaped like a beast's fang.
"Pour your blood upon the altar," the priest commanded. "Your will to bond. Your soul laid bare. If the spirit of a beast answers, the pact will form. If not…"
Leon didn't need the rest explained.
He took the ritual dagger from the stone tray. It was heavier than it looked. He stared at his reflection in the polished blade.
Blue eyes, tangle of black hair, and a scar that ran across his left eye. He'd gotten it defending the storage shed from a feral beasts last winter. No spirit beast had stirred then either.
He sliced his palm without flinching and let the blood drip onto the altar.
It sizzled on contact.
The stone flared with light, soft gold and crimson lines chasing across the runes, lighting the sacred circle. The wind stilled. The world hushed.
Leon closed his eyes. He let his soul open, vulnerable. He focused on his breath. On the ache in his chest. On the cold that pressed into his skin like a second layer.
He waited for something.
A call.
A name.
A roar. A whisper.
Anything. But there was nothing.
No presence pressed against his soul. No spiritual warmth coiled through his veins. No sign of a beast reaching across the void.
The altar flickered. The light dimmed.
The rune's glow vanished.
The silence that followed was deafening.
A chuckle broke the hush. Then a snort. Then full-blown laughter from one of the boys waiting behind him. Joren, broad-shouldered and full of spite. He'd already bonded with a cave-lion cub last year and loved to remind Leon of his failures.
"Three times the altar rejects him," Joren said. "Maybe he's part beast himself. too dumb to hear a call."
Leon didn't respond. He stared at the stone, heart beating with a heavy sound that could be heard even by Joren.
The priest didn't speak. He simply reached for the branding iron again, but it was not the one he picked up earlier it is different one. the one marked with the rune of failure.
Leon's legs nearly gave out.
"I… I can try again," he said, his voice trembling.
"You have already tried," the priest said coldly. "Three years. No answer. The pact has been judged. Step aside." the priest voice rang like a thunder in the sacred hall.
The iron flared to life. Bright orange at the tip, glowing with suppressed spiritual heat.
Leon's arms were seized by two guards. He didn't resist.
As the iron was pressed against the skin of his left forearm, pain tore through him. The sizzling sound of flesh being scorched filled the altar. He bit his tongue to keep from screaming.
When the guards let go, Leon fell to his knees. His vision blurred.
The mark burned red on his arm: a downward fang, broken in half.
The symbol of the Beastless.
Unworthy. Forever outside the path of cultivation.
The villagers began to murmur. Some looked away. Others stared at him with pity, or worse, satisfaction.
Leon didn't know how long he knelt there. It might have been minutes. Might have been hours.
When he finally staggered to his feet, the stone was dark. The altar was cold. The line had moved on. Another name was being called.
He wasn't part of this world anymore. He turned and walked away, cradling his burned arm.
---
The village didn't expel him immediately.
That would have been too kind.
Instead, they made him walk through the streets under full sun, branded and broken, past every home that once offered him scraps or fleeting kindness. None of them called out to him now.
The sect wouldn't bother killing him. He was harmless.
That night, the village elders sent a runner to his hut.
"You've three days," the boy recited awkwardly. "To pack everything you own. After that, leave. Go to the Bone Wastes or wherever you want. Just not here."
Leon said nothing. He didn't need to. The door shut.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the mark on his arm.
The pain had dulled, but the heat remained beneath the skin, like the brand had reached deeper.
Down to his soul.
He didn't sleep.
Not really.
He dreamed, maybe.
But the dreams were strange.
No spirit beasts.
No fangs or wings or claws.
Just a forest of bones.
A voice without sound.
And a single red eye, watching him from behind the shadow.