He opened his eyes to the pale glow of the table lamp.
[ 05 : 42 : 15 : 30 ]
For a moment he simply lay there, watching the light play across the ceiling. Then he turned onto his side and sat up, letting his bare feet find the carpet.
The artificial fibers felt strange beneath his soles. He breathed in the filtered air slowly, deeply, his head lowered.
After a few breaths, he raised his head.
His wheat-blonde hair fell forward slightly, framing his face in the lamplight.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," he said quietly to the empty windowless room. "The surreal feeling of it all."
He turned the thought over for a moment, what if this is all just an elaborate dream, and I'm still lying unconscious somewhere, He then let it drift away.
'Dwelling on that wouldn't help anyone.'
He stood. The cupboard held the academy-issued jumpsuit, folded neatly. He changed into it, noting with faint irritation that these were apparently his only clothes.
"I should have asked Borsha for a spare set," he muttered to himself.
After washing up, he stood at the door and listened to the hallway. Silence. He stepped out and pulled it closed behind him.
He arrived at her door.
He knocked.
No answer.
He waited a moment, then knocked again, harder this time.
A response came after a beat. A soft voice,
"Who is it?"
"It's me. Ivan."
A pause. Then the door creaked open.
Cassie emerged slowly, blonde hair catching the hallway light and seeming to glow with it.
She was still in her modest dress from earlier today, her movements carefully tracing the wall as she stepped halfway into the corridor.
Ivan kept his expression steady through sheer force of will, even as his heart decided to perform an erratic sprint in his chest.
No matter how many times he saw her, it never stopped feeling like the first time.
"Ivan?" she said, as though confirming the voice matched the person.
"That's me." He smiled softly. "Good Evening."
Her entire face brightened. "Good Evening! I was wondering when you'd — I mean, I didn't know what time you'd come, but I was hoping it would be soon."
She paused, catching herself rambling, and smiled instead.
He opened his mouth to respond.
Then the motes appeared.
They surrounded her in a gentle swirl, no longer the dim, barely colored wisps of yesterday, but a vibrant constellation of hues.
Bright, warm colors, gold and amber moving like fireflies through invisible air. Beautiful in a way that made his chest ache slightly to witness.
Beneath them, faint but present, thin wisps of black, weaving through the brightness like dark water through clear.
In just a few hours… what happened?
He analyzed the shift.
His understanding had deepened. That was the logical answer.
The motes responded to comprehension, the better he understood someone, the more clearly he could read them.
Yesterday he had only observed from a distance, his understanding shallow and secondhand. Now, after the conversation, of witnessing her fears and her behavior, the picture had become much sharper.
But that doesn't explain the degree of change.
The emotional shift had been dramatic. From despair so complete it had carved out a physical shape in the air around her, to this.
Unless—
"Well," he said, pulling himself back to the present moment, "unless you're the type to have dinner at six in the evening, we're still about an hour or two early. Since we're teammates now, I thought we could plan a bit. Consider it an orientation."
Cassie's expression shifted to something sheepish. "Oh! I completely forgot we were supposed to do that."
"Don't stress about it," he said gently. "We have tomorrow as well. Think of this as just… getting to know each other better."
She nodded, her energy suddenly brightening further. "Yes, okay, let's do it."
He noted the shift with quiet surprise.
Her changes were happening rapidly. In just a few hours, her entire demeanor had transformed from someone weighted down by unbearable dread to someone with a genuine smile.
Is this her true self? he wondered.
He thought he knew the answer.
The Cassie of the novel had been shaped by years of isolation. But this Cassie was younger. Greener. She hadn't yet learned to armor herself against abandonment.
And what had changed her in a single afternoon? What had lifted that storm of despair
He already knew that too.
It was a simple answer, almost embarrassing in its simplicity. He had sat with her. Listened to her. And then, most importantly, he had teamed up with her.
A small thing. But to someone drowning, even a small piece of driftwood becomes a raft.
He noticed that the black motes hadn't disappeared entirely.
They lingered still.
I should understand that better later, he thought.
Almost instinctively, his hand moved toward her.
"May I?" he asked softly.
She lingered as he watched the motes shift with her movement, they waved like water responding to wind, gentle and fluid.
Her expression softened, becoming almost contemplative, as though she were looking at something distant.
She reached out her hand as he held her hand.
He closed her door carefully and guided her down the hallway. He walked slowly, so she could follow without hesitation.
He had to consciously focus on his breathing to keep the rising heat in his cheeks from becoming noticeable.
"We need to go down the stairs," he said quietly, "so we'll take it slowly."
"Okay," she replied.
They descended carefully, and the ambient noise of the academy began to rise around them. By the time they reached the main corridor, the hum of activity had become almost constant.
The food lounge was already occupied, as it seemed to be at almost every hour.
Ivan guided Cassie inside, finding a quiet corner table and settled her into a seat before taking his own.
"Comfortable?" he asked.
She nodded, her head tilted slightly as she was listening to the sounds of the place.
"So," he said, "let's talk about tomorrow."
***
Cassie remained silent for a while, her hands clasped together on the table.
Ivan simply observed.
The motes of greys and soft blue's around her had shifted again..
A lot has changed, he thought, continuing to watch the gentle drift of light around her.
He let his mind wander as she thought.
By tomorrow afternoon, Sunny and Nephis would arrive. The narrative would begin its proper motion, pulling the main characters into their designated roles.
Sunny would make his dramatic debut, play down his abilities with exaggerated incompetence, begin his training. Nephis would do what Nephis did. The plot would roll forward like it always had.
The only difference was Cassie.
He didn't regret his choice, he would make the same decision a thousand times over, circumstances be damned.
But there was a fear that came with it, the specific cold fear of a transmigrator facing the unknown.
Knowledge was armor. The novel had been his map. But by pulling Cassie out of her isolation, making her a variable in the story.
This version of her a more open Cassie, still carrying her wounds but not crushed by them, this Cassie would make different choices than the one in the book.
And he had no way of knowing what those choices would be.
"Tomorrow, our classes begin." Cassie's voice pulled him back.
"I'm mostly worried about them. And then…" She trailed off, but he understood.
The dream realm.
He opened his eyes fully and focused on her.
Her hands were clasped tightly, despite the calmness of her expression. Her shoulders were stiff with tension.
Trying to be brave for my sake, he realized.
A thought formed.
"Cassie," he said gently. "Do you remember what I told you earlier?"
She raised her head, her unseeing eyes turning toward the sound of his voice.
"I…" She paused, filtering through the day's conversations.
"There were several things…"
"It is that I would take care of you," he said, before she could spiral further into guessing.
"Even though I'm not really a fighter. There is a mountain of things i am capable of.."
He watched the motes shift slightly, a faint brightening at the edges.
"The classes tomorrow aren't trials that you have to survive, Cassie. They are simply to help you with the know how of a sleeper.. " He kept his voice steady.
She was quiet, listening.
"As for the dream realm…" He paused, considering.
"Yes, there's a chance we could be dropped in entirely different regions. That's a possibility. But in recent years, most sleepers are dropped near citadels. The chances of ending up in a completely unexplored region or worse a death zone are far lower than they used to be."
He folded his arms on the table, leaning forward slightly.
"And even if the worst comes to pass," he said.
"even if we're separated the moment we enter, I will come find you."
The motes around her moved.
The grey softened into warmer, pale gold. The blue shifted into something deeper, richer, like twilight.
Her eyes, which had been pointed in his direction, seemed to soften slightly.
A small smile curved on her lips. Her eyes drooped down.
"I don't know how to thank you enough…"
"You don't have to fret about it," Ivan replied, his eyes dropping to his crossed arms.
He let out a breath. "Just survive and make it out."
"I will." Her voice came out quiet but firm, carrying the particular weight of someone making a promise to themselves as much as to him.
"I definitely will."
Ivan smiled. "Good."
He brought his hand to her head and patted it once. "Do not give up."
Cassie froze. She pressed her lips into a line. "You really are a strange one."
"Pff — hahahaha."
A short laugh escaped before he could stop it.
"That's the fourth time today," he said, recovering.
"And I believe the correct phrasing is 'the most reasonable human in the world… or three worlds even.'"
Cassie's laughter came back warm and unhurried.
"Sure, sure. Teaming up with a blind girl in a life and death situation, promising to carry the both of us out, sounds perfectly reasonable to me."
"I'm not being unreasonable," he said,
"With my aspect ability, making it out is entirely possible."
Cassie smiled at that. "My father used to say that confidence is good, but overconfidence will anger your luck and cause it to run away."
Ivan smiled wryly. The image was amusing enough that he let it sit for a moment before replying.
"Then I suppose I'll just have to be fast enough that my luck can't keep up."
Cassie tilted her head. "Hearing you talk makes me think you have some truly outrageous aspect ability fueling all of that."
"Naturally."
She crossed her arms on the table and rested her head sideways on them, exhaling with light amusement.
"Don't tell me you have a divine aspect or something."
"You are correct."
The words traveled across the table and landed in silence.
Cassie went still.
Her resting head lifted slowly. Straightened. Her unseeing eyes fixed on the space where he sat.
"What did you say?"
"I said I have a divine aspect," he confirmed. "Your guess was exactly right."
She stayed frozen for a long moment. Then her expression settled into something unreadable.
"Give me your hand," she said.
"Hm?" He slid his hand across the table toward her.
She traced the surface carefully until her fingers found his arm. "Oh, I just wanted to…"
She pinched him. Hard.
"Ouch!"
"So I'm not dreaming," she said, to no one in particular, her tone completely neutral. "That's quite a shock."
"Aren't you supposed to pinch yourself?" Ivan replied, his voice entirely innocent. "Why am I the one getting pinched?"
"Do you really have a divine aspect? Seriously?"
"Yes. Seriously."
"Haa… wow." She went quiet for a moment. "No wonder you're so strange."
"Heyyy!. And that's the fifth time today."
Cassie smiled, unhurried. "You keep proving me right."
"Really," he echoed.
"I always thought divine aspects were just myth." She shook her head slowly, still absorbing it. "But now… wow."
A comfortable moment passed.
"What's your aspect rank?" Ivan asked. "If you don't mind."
Cassie paused briefly. Then she sighed. "Sacred ranked. But it isn't very useful."
"Why don't we share our abilities properly?" Ivan suggested.
Cassie turned her head slightly, then nodded.
"I'll start then." He settled into it, straightforward.
"My aspect ability is called Envision. It allows me to create basic tools or food just by thinking about them."
Cassie's mouth fell open. The motes around her scattered briefly, colors darting outward in all directions before regrouping, reflecting the rapid churn of thoughts behind her expression.
Almost immediately, she closed her mouth and reached for his arm.
Ivan pulled it back.
Her hand found empty air causing her to pout.
He let out a quiet breath of relief, though he was genuinely unsure what she had been planning.
"You don't seem too surprised," he observed. It came out as a comment but landed closer to a question.
"Honestly," she said, settling back, "the existence of a divine aspect is more surprising than what it actually does. Once you accept the first part, the rest follows."
"I suppose that makes sense."
It did. The existence of something impossible was always the harder wall to climb. Once you were over it, the details became almost reasonable.
He fell into thought for a moment, remembering the first time he had opened his eyes in this world.
The sheer absurdity of waking up inside a novel you had once read was perhaps the hardest wall to climb, even with reality pressing in on all sides as its own proof.
He buried the thought and returned to the present.
"Lastly, my flaw is"
"Wait!"
He stopped, caught off guard by the sudden interruption.
He looked at her face. The ease that had settled over her in the last hour had been replaced by something quieter and tighter.
"You probably don't remember this, but revealing your flaw is…"
"Risky?" he finished.
Cassie paused. Her brows curved downward, her lips pressed together, something uncertain moving behind her eyes. Then she nodded.
"I know," he said. "It's one of the more obvious things. But we are partners, aren't we?"
Her brows rose. Her lips parted slightly, then closed. "We are, but…"
"I trust you." He said it plainly, without ceremony, letting it stand on its own.
"And trust has to start somewhere. We will be at each other's backs."
Silence settled over the table. Around them the food lounge had filled considerably, the low hum of background pressing in from all sides.
After a moment, Cassie opened her mouth.
"Yes, yes," Ivan said, before she could get a word out. "I am strange. You don't have to repeat it."
Cassie paused. No reply came. She only smiled. "At least you know."
A single beat of laughter was the only response he offered.
Time blurred after that, the conversation moving from one thing to the next without effort, pulling them both along.
——
"Eggs?" Ivan asked.
Cassie nodded, smiling. "My mom makes the best eggs you will ever find in your life."
"I have a particular taste," Ivan replied. "It takes quite a lot to impress me."
"I am telling you, there is no one alive who can make them better than my mom. No one."
"I'll believe it when I taste it myself."
Cassie straightened slightly with the conviction of someone staking their reputation on this.
"Fine. When all of this is over and we make it out, I will personally have my mother make them for you. And then you will have to admit I was right."
"I look forward to holding you to that," he replied.
She settled back, satisfied.
Ivan watched her for a moment, then asked,
"When is your birthday?"
Cassie paused, as though the question had caught her slightly off guard. "The twenty-eighth of June."
"So it's already passed," he said quietly.
She nodded, then seemed to hesitate. The question formed slowly on her face before she finally asked it.
"Do you… remember yours?"
Ivan raised his brows. He hadn't expected that.
He thought about it genuinely for a moment, then decided to use the date he already knew by heart.
"First of January," he said. A short reply.
Cassie tilted her head. "You remember it? Even with the memory loss?"
"It just came to me naturally," he said. "So I would bet it is the real one, or at least close enough."
She nodded slowly and said nothing further.
Neither of them spoke for a stretch. The quiet between them was comfortable rather than empty, the kind that settles when two people no longer need to fill the space.
Ivan glanced to his right. The buffet counter had opened, staff beginning to set out trays.
"Looks like the food is out," he said. "Is there anything you want?"
Cassie pondered for a moment, then simply shrugged.
"I don't have a preference. Whatever you choose is fine."
"Very well. I'll be back soon, wait here."
"Okay."
He stood and began making his way through the tables.
Midway across the lounge he stopped and glanced back. Cassie remained seated, her hands resting in her lap, her unseeing eyes fixed on nothing in particular.
He scanned the air above her briefly. The usual ambient motes drifted past, nothing unusual. He turned and continued toward the buffet.
Arriving at the tray table, he picked up a large tray and scanned the selections. Then he paused.
He looked back at Cassie. Then at the food.
"I suppose this is a good time to practice."
He stepped to the side where the foot traffic thinned out, finding a spot sufficiently out of the way. His pale blue eyes dissolved slowly into deep gold.
Almost immediately the veins along his temples began to surface. Sweat gathered at his hairline. His breathing grew laboured, the kind of effort that looked, to any passing observer, like a man quietly enduring a dead lift.
His expression remained controlled, but only just.
On the tray, hazy shapes began to form out of light. Two plates materialized first. Then rice. Then curry, settling into itself with a faint warmth rising from the surface.
He set the tray on the nearest counter and gripped the edge with both hands, head lowered, letting the initial wave of exhaustion pass through him. The ringing in his ears faded slowly.
The headache that followed was familiar by now, wrapping itself around his skull like a band tightening by degrees.
After a moment he straightened.
He looked down at the two plates on the tray. Steam curled upward. The smell reached him before the thought did.
It feels real. Smells real.
He picked the tray up carefully. He wanted to know if she could tell the difference.
Eager to find out, he made his way back.
"I'm back," he said as he approached, announcing himself before sitting. "Did you wait long?"
"Not at all. Did you get the food?"
He hummed in reply, setting her plate in front of her and his on his own side.
"Bon appétit," he said.
Cassie tilted her head.
Oh. That expression isn't common anymore.
"It means enjoy your meal," he explained. "An old phrase. European in origin."
Cassie's expression brightened with genuine interest. "You know about history?"
Sweat gathered at the back of his neck.
Bloody hell.. I forgot. Envision makes me prone to mistakes. Of course it does.
"Partially," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Not too much."
"That's strange though," she said, her hands beginning to trace the table in front of her.
"You lost your memories but you still remember things like that. I thought memory loss was complete."
He reached over, found her hand, and placed a spoon into it before guiding it toward the plate.
"It's hard to describe. From what I can tell, the loss seems personal in nature. Factual knowledge, things that feel more like information than experience, most of that seems to have stayed. Though I can only just barely reach it sometimes."
Cassie hummed, taking a mouthful. She chewed and swallowed thoughtfully. "Interesting. Is there anything else you remember?"
"Nothing specific at the moment."
She paused. Then, quietly, "Don't push yourself. Everything will be alright.."
Ivan went still.
The words… were the same as the ones he used to comfort her.
A warm smile settled onto his face without him deciding to put it there.
He looked down at his plate as the headache hummed steadily at the back of his skull.
"Thank you," he said softly. "That means a lot."
"I should be the one thanking you." She smiled back. "We are partners, after all."
His smile widened slightly, enough to show the edge of his canine.
For just a moment the gold in his eyes brightened, pulsing once in a quiet rhythm with something in his chest.
"Yeah," he said. "We are."
***
Not long after, they finished dinner.
Ivan excused himself to take the trays away. In a few short moments he was back at the secluded spot, setting the trays down and releasing his hold on the Envisioning.
As before, the plates and cutlery grew hazy, then collapsed inward like crumbling sand, dissolving into nothing.
The relief that followed was immediate. His mind felt lighter, the residual pressure easing down to a mild and manageable headache.
He rested both hands on the table and let his shoulders carry his weight through them.
He breathed out slowly and took stock of himself.
He was full, the way a person is after a proper meal. Even after dismissing the Envisioning, the hunger hadn't returned.
Which meant the food had been real enough to register, to be processed, to nourish. It wouldn't vanish from his system just because the source had.
His eyes brightened, gold flickering at the edges. The smile that came was wide enough to reach his ears.
He wanted to laugh, to let the exhilaration out properly, but he scanned the surrounding area first. A few sleepers passed nearby without looking his way.
He composed himself, left the tray where it was, and walked back.
As he approached their table, Cassie tilted her head slightly. "Everything alright?"
He paused mid-step, then continued and settled into his seat. "Yeah. Why?"
Cassie smiled her usual soft smile and shrugged. "You were gone for a while."
Ivan's expression stilled. A quiet grimace he couldn't quite suppress appeared.
"Ah. There wasn't any issue. But wait," he said, redirecting, "you could tell when I arrived?"
Cassie smiled and pointed at her own eyes. "When you come close, your runes appear. That's how I knew."
Ivan considered that. "Interesting."
The conversation picked up again from there, time blurring around them.
Eventually Ivan scanned the lounge and noted the hour. He rose and held out his hand taking Cassie's hand, and they made their way out.
The corridor was quiet as they walked back. Neither of them spoke for a stretch.
Then Cassie asked, "Ivan. I never asked, but what do you want to do after? After we make it out of the dream realm?"
His expression stilled.
The corner of his mouth dropped slightly. The gold in his eyes lost some of its brightness.
He kept walking, steady in pace, but something in him had gone quiet.
Cassie followed half a step behind, waiting.
He was silent for a moment or two. Then he lowered his head forward, looking at the floor ahead of him.
Until now every thought he had given to the future was immediate. The next day. The names and faces and events he could anticipate.
But beyond that? His own future had no shape yet. No plans beyond the immediate.
He was an ordinary teenager not long ago. Then he had closed his eyes and woken up inside a story, given abilities and a flaw.
His earlier bravado was for Cassie's sake this afternoon, and he had meant it. But bravery for someone else and certainty about yourself were different things entirely.
"I don't know," he said. The words came out low.
His expression tightened slightly at the edges, the question now stirring something he had no answer for.
Then Cassie squeezed his hand.
He stopped walking and turned to look at her.
She stopped too, tilting her head upward toward his face as though she could meet his eyes. She couldn't. But somehow she nearly managed the impression of it.
Her expression was gentle. Her brows angled slightly inward.
"If you're okay with it," she said, "my father works in the government. After all this is over, you could come to our home. It would be quite helpful..."
Ivan looked at her for a long moment.
The gold in his eyes faded quietly, dissolving back into his usual pale blue.
Around her the motes had multiplied. A great many of them now, colors shifting and overlapping, warm and varied.
He watched them without speaking.
Then he patted her head once and spoke. "I'll take you up on that. But first we survive. Yes?"
Cassie reached up and smoothed down the hair he had just ruffled, turning her head forward.
When she spoke, her voice carried her renewed spirit in it.
"Yes."
They resumed walking.
Ivan looked up at the open space ahead of them, the long corridor stretching toward the dormitory wing.
Tomorrow the story would truly begin its plotted journey.
Nephis would arrive. Sunny would arrive. The three of them would begin their paths. A fallen monarch, a treacherous slave, and a despondent seer.
He almost stopped there.
Then another thought arrived, quieter than the rest.
He had been thinking of three. But there was a fourth presence in this story now. One that had been there from the beginning, patient and unseen, shaping everything in this story.
The word left him before he chose to say it.
"Fate."
——
Ivan walked Cassie to her door. They wished each other a good night and he waited until the door closed before turning away.
He stood in the corridor for a moment, looking at his own door down the hall. Then he turned the other direction and started walking.
"I won't be able to sleep for another hour. Might as well do something about this parched throat."
Without Cassie beside him his stride opened up, covering the distance easily. He arrived at the drink dispenser, or as the people of 21st century would have called it:
THE VENDING MACHINE.
"The vocabulary of this time is a headache all on its own."
He scanned his tag. The machine dispensed a can of something that resembled cola. He cracked it open, took a sip, and held the taste in his mouth for a moment.
"Well. They tried." He looked at the can. "It's far from the original. They must have lost the recipe somewhere in the dark times."
He leaned against the wall.
The dark times. A post-world conflict that had consumed most of the digital record along with much of the environment.
Centuries of accumulated knowledge, erased or corrupted. Languages, histories, formulas, recipes for cola, all of it reduced to fragments that later generations had to reconstruct by educated guesswork.
He took another sip and looked up at nothing in particular.
"What a world." He exhaled through his nose. "It might have taken humanity an extraordinary amount of time to heal.
But the earth is dead. Given the variables, a few centuries at most before it took the rest of humanity with it."
He turned the can in his hand slowly.
"And then the spell appeared."
He was quiet for a moment, considering it.
Something mysterious and unexplained, arriving precisely when the margin for survival had run almost entirely out. Changing everything. Giving humanity something to hold onto, a lifeline cast from a direction no one had anticipated.
At what cost, knowing the future, humanity is in more peril than it was before.
He rested his head back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.
"A price is always exacted for what fate bestows."
a moment later.
"You're right."
The vending machine clicked softly beside him.
Ivan flinched. His gaze snapped to the dispenser, where a young man stood, roughly his height, scanning his tag with unhurried ease.
His clothes were pressed and sharp. Brown hair, a clean and handsome face, eyes that were a clear shade of green carrying a friendly humor.
Everything about him announced itself without needing to.
The Scion of the Hanli Clan.
Ivan's mind raced.
When did he arrive? What is he doing here? Was I saying that out loud?
He caught himself, smoothed his expression, as his eyes shifted to gold.
"Hanli Caster," he said first.
Caster's green eyes dropped briefly to the dispenser as he collected his can, then moved back up without hurry.
He smiled. "That's me. You know me?"
"It would be remiss of me not to recognize the Hanli name," Ivan replied, inclining his head slightly. "You're quite popular among the sleepers."
"Haha." Caster waved a hand as he cracked the can open.
"Please, you don't have to stand in ceremony. Legacy or not, we're all the same here."
Surprisingly humble, Ivan noted internally..
"May I?" Caster gestured at the wall beside him.
"Go ahead."
Caster settled beside him, leaning back against the wall and taking a slow sip.
"What do I owe the company at this hour?" Ivan asked.
"I could ask you the same." Caster glanced at him sideways.
"And please, just call me Caster. In the academy and in the dream realm, rank tends to become rather tedious."
You don't believe a word of that, Ivan thought. But he kept it behind his teeth.
"Alright," he said, shifting his tone to match.
"I won't stand on ceremony then."
Caster smiled. "You're a flexible one. Oh, I forgot to ask your name."
"Ivan," he said, without turning his head fully. "I arrived yesterday."
"Ivan." Caster repeated it a couple of times, rolling it quietly.
"As for your question, no particular reason. I wanted some time to myself. This seemed like the place for it."
Ivan considered that. "Forgive me, but I had assumed someone from a legacy background might seek out a more refined selection for a night drink."
Caster raised a brow, then laughed once. "That stereotype is more inflated than accurate. We don't limit ourselves to formal settings. We enjoy ordinary things too, when no one is watching."
He raised the can slightly, making the point without elaborating further.
"I see." Ivan took a sip of his own drink, the imitation cola still falling short of whatever the original had once tasted like.
They stood in companionable quiet for a moment.
Then Caster broke it. "About what you said earlier. I agree with it."
Ivan turned his head slightly to look at him.
"You want to know why?" Caster asked.
Ivan didn't answer. But his golden eyes held steady, and the question in them was plain enough.
Caster smiled and looked down at his can. "How do I put this." He thought for a moment, then his expression cleared.
"We are slaves."
Ivan's eyes stilled. The gold went quiet.
He had been prepared for Something more philosophical, the kind of reflection that nobility offered when it wanted to appear wise.
But… Not this.
Caster noticed. "Shocked? I suppose it is an unconventional answer."
"What do you mean by it?" Ivan asked.
Caster's gaze dropped to the surface of the can. "You know my clan."
Ivan nodded.
"The Hanli clan is formally a vassal of the Great Clan Song. On paper it reads as partnership. In reality this arrangement is more nuanced than that." He paused.
"Do you know what the Hanli clan actually is to Song?"
Ivan weighed it. "An associate. A partner in standing."
Caster gave a short sound that was almost a laugh, almost a scoff, and nothing quite either.
"You would think so. You wouldn't be wrong to expect so either. But in reality the Hanli clan is like a servant in the house of a ki"
He stopped.
His eyes shifted for just a fraction of a second.
Ivan's gold flashed imperceptibly. The King of Swords?
"Like a king?" Ivan offered, his tone easy, as though he were simply completing the thought.
Caster recovered in less than a breath. "Yes. Something like that. Not exactly, but close enough to the shape of it."
Amateur, Ivan thought. You handed me the critical piece and now you're walking it back.
Almost immediately, colorless motes began drifting into view around Caster. Faint still, but present.
Ivan's understanding was beginning to find its footing.
"How did it come to be?" Ivan asked, keeping his voice light.
Caster took a long sip before answering. "A long time ago, the founder of our clan reached a dead end. Resources were scarce. The world was fragmented. He had people depending on him and no clear path forward. The Great Clan Song arrived at exactly the right moment. They had expanded by then. Our founder accepted their hand, pledged his support, and the Hanli clan was born from that agreement." Caster went quiet.
"That's one way to tell it."
Even without reading the motes clearly Ivan could tell the account had been smoothed considerably. The dead end likely had a sharper edge to it.
it was that when the great clans decided who ascended and who did not. But he didn't press. He waited.
"The truth of it," Caster said after a moment, his voice dropping slightly, "is that we chose to become slaves. Song gave us a lifeline, and we gave them our servitude in return. That was the price exacted."
He looked at his empty can, then crushed it in one hand.
"Don't overthink it," he added, glancing at Ivan's expression. "Life is built on exchanges. Most of them were never fair to begin with, and most of the choices we carry the weight of were never really ours to make."
Ivan raised his head and met Caster's green eyes with his own gold. "You sound considerably older than you look."
Caster laughed, genuinely enough that it was difficult to dismiss entirely. "Not really. Just take it as passing advice."
The motes around him remained colorless.
Whatever was moving behind those green eyes hadn't yet shown itself clearly enough for Ivan to read.
Caster pushed off the wall and rolled his shoulders. Then, without fully turning, he spoke.
"Classes begin tomorrow. Best of luck. And if you ever need anything, don't hesitate. If we're fortunate enough to find each other in the dream realm, come say Hi."
Ivan was quiet for a beat. Then he nodded. "Thank you."
Caster raised a hand in a dismissive gesture, as though the thanks were unnecessary, and walked away down the corridor until the sound of his footsteps faded.
Ivan remained where he was.
His golden eyes stayed in the direction Caster had gone, still and considering.
Then he looked down at the crushed can in his own hand, tossed it into the bin, and after a moment turned and walked back into the hall.
His thoughts, strangely, were quieter than expected.
***
The next day arrived quickly.
As though it had already become routine, Ivan stood in front of Cassie's door, knocked, and waited.
The door opened slowly.
She was incredibly pretty. Possibly more so than yesterday, though he couldn't have explained why exactly.
She wore a dress that leaned toward the formal end without crossing into it, tasteful in its simplicity. Her golden hair rested softly on her shoulders, and her pale unseeing eyes, set in a face that needed no embellishment, made the whole picture quietly extraordinary.
Cassie smiled. "Ivan. Good morning."
He pulled himself back within a couple of heartbeats and smiled in return, his gaze instinctively moving to the motes around her.
They have increased considerably since last night. The range of colors had widened too, the picture more complex than before. Some were simple enough to read at a glance, happiness here, a thread of worry there.
But most were layered and shifting, colors bleeding into each other in combinations that were not easy to name.
The human mind, he thought, was not designed to be read cleanly.
He filed it away and greeted her. "Good morning."
"The induction ceremony starts soon. Ready?"
Cassie nodded and reached her hand out toward him, the gesture natural now. He took it, waited as she locked her door, and they set off toward the hall.
He adjusted his pace without thinking about it, keeping it measured and even, giving her room to move without strain.
They exchanged a few words along the way, then fell into a comfortable quiet.
Then Cassie asked, without particular buildup, "Did you have any dreams recently?"
Ivan raised a brow. Not a strange question on its own, but it pulled at something he hadn't considered.
"No," he said. "I didn't. Why?"
It was the truth. Sleep, for as long as he could remember, arrived as pure black and left just as cleanly. Dreams were exceedingly rare for him, if they had ever happened at all.
Cassie was quiet for a moment. The motes around her shifted into something stiffer, their movement less fluid. "I had a strange dream last night."
She said it calmly, but the motes said otherwise.
A thought surfaced immediately. A dream. Did she have a vision?
He kept his expression neutral, though his brows drew in slightly.
The first of her visions in the novel came later today. Had something arrived earlier than it should have?
"Oh?" he said. "What kind of dream?"
She paused, deliberating. Her expression moved between confusion and uncertainty. "I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't remember?"
"I just…" She shook her head. "I don't know how to describe it."
His eyes had drifted to gold without him noticing.
"Describe it simply then. Whatever comes first."
Cassie lowered her head. The motes around her began moving in a slow synchrony, the kind of rhythm that came with deep thought pulling inward.
Then she spoke.
"All I could see was a raging sea. Incomprehensible. Both blinding and dark at the same time. It felt sinister at first, but then it felt calm. I was floating far above it. I couldn't see anything beyond, so I looked down, and there was a body. Floating flat on the surface. And then it all went away."
His expression crumbled slightly before he could stop it. His eyes pulsed gold.
A blinding and dark sea, sinister but also calm. The forgotten shore? No, the description doesn't quite fit. The storm sea? But what would a body on the surface mean?
He turned it over quickly and arrived at one conclusion: there was no vision like this in the novel. Cassie's point of view had always been sparse in the early chapters, and anything she experienced before meeting Sunny had been left unwritten.
With his free hand he combed his hair back, still thinking.
Eventually he let it rest. Her visions in the early period had always been scattered, carrying symbolic weight that didn't resolve neatly. There were likely many like this one he had never read.
He would remember it and return to it later.
He lifted her hand slightly as the corner of the hall came into view. "Don't stress over it," he said. "For all we know it was just a random vision. It doesn't have to mean anything yet."
Cassie exhaled and her posture loosened.
They rounded the corner and the hall opened before them, packed with sleepers in every variety of dress, elegant and modest and everything between. The noise of it hit immediately.
Ivan stood at the entrance for a moment and breathed out slowly.
"Everything starts now," he said, quiet enough that only he heard it.
Nephis and Sunny would arrive soon. All three main characters would be present. He would be there to watch the very beginning of it, and their fates beginning their long entanglement.
He stepped inside, still holding Cassie's hand, and navigated them through the crowd.
Almost immediately he spotted a secluded bench near the far wall.
He recognized it without having to think. This was where Cassie had been sitting when Sunny first saw her in the novel.
He guided her over and settled her onto it, taking the seat beside her.
"It's quite lively today," she said.
"It is. Official induction day. Everyone is comparing experiences and building connections."
She nodded, her smile surfacing. Then it caught on something, and a bitter edge bled through.
"If I didn't have this…" She let the end of it go unfinished, her voice dropping slightly, as though she didn't want to follow the thought any further.
Sniff. Sniff.
Cassie frowned and turned her head to the left.
"It seems I am not enough for you." Ivan's voice came out with the full weight of a man gravely wronged.
"I understand. I see how it is." Another sniffle, long and theatrical.
Cassie's mouth fell open.
She stared at the general direction of his face with an expression of complete and utter appalment, as though she were reconsidering several recent life decisions.
She found his arm, grabbed it, and pinched.
"Ouch. Hey!"
A moment later.
A helpless smile broke across her face before she could stop it.
She shook her head slowly. "The more I know you, the stranger you become."
A hand settled on top of her head and ruffled her hair.
She had grown used enough to it that she simply shrugged it off and smoothed it back down.
"Am I really that strange? I genuinely don't see it."
"You are," she said. "But in a good way."
He laughed and looked around the hall, scanning the entrance with idle attention.
"Cassie."
She hummed.
"I'm going to make a prediction. Do you want to hear it?"
She turned toward him, her expression somewhere between wry and genuinely curious. A non-seer making a prediction was a novel thing.
"What kind of prediction?"
He smiled. When he spoke, his voice carried something between quiet comfort and absolute certainty.
"A few years from now, most of the sleepers in this hall will be nameless to anyone who matters. While you will have risen so far above them that some of them will wait ages just for a single glance."
He let it settle. "What do you think?"
Cassie's expression froze for a moment. Then she smiled, but it was a soft and unconvinced thing, carrying none of the confidence his words had carried.
"I don't think I'll make it that far."
"Why not? You told me you were well known in school. What makes this different?"
"Because school and the awakened world are not the same. There are so many powerful awakened, and I…"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Ivan scratched the back of his head. "You underestimate yourself, Cassie."
"I'm being reasonable."
"And I'm telling you that you're not." He said it without heat.
"I am the most reasonable person alive. And my assessment is that you will rise above all of them."
He paused briefly. "And before you argue, remember that you have me. The two of us together are the ultimate duo."
He let that sit for a moment, then added more quietly, "Believe in yourself the way I believe in you. With both of us in it, the dream realm becomes a piece of cake."
Cassie was still for a moment, her expression holding a mild and genuine wonder.
He had a way of doing this, of lifting things without making it feel forced. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with that.
She smiled. "Thank you. For believing in me."
A brief pause.
"But the ultimate duo is a little much, don't you think?"
Ivan laughed, partly at the abrupt nitpicking tucked inside her gratitude, and partly because a new cluster of motes had arrived, pressing against the warm and bright ones already surrounding her. He read them easily.
Embarrassment.
"What would you call it then?" he asked.
Cassie opened her mouth and raised one finger, then closed both. "I… will have to think about it."
He patted her head. "Think then. We have time."
He turned back to the entrance, mostly out of habit.
And stopped.
Two figures just walked inside the doorway.
The first was a young woman around his age, tall and slender, with short silver hair parted to one side.
She wore a police issued tracksuit with the ease of someone who hadn't thought twice about it. A pair of headphones rested around her neck.
Her expression was cold, aloof, and entirely indifferent to the room around her.
Beside her stood a boy, shorter than average, with dark hair and a face that was, against all reasonable expectation, genuinely delicate.
He wore the same tracksuit. He looked like he had wandered in from somewhere quieter.
Ivan leaned forward. His eyes shifted to gold.
He had been waiting for this moment since he arrived in this world, and now that it was here, the reality of it landed differently than he had imagined.
There was only one answer to who they were.
And Fate, it seemed, had kept perfect time.