August 5th, 1991
Jaeron had been continuing his morning practice secretly, without his aunt's knowledge and he had met up with that man, Carwin and talked to him about the work. He had already started working there.
So Mannisa wasn't curious about his morning interests.
Right now, they sat in the hall of their home.
The television flickered in the dim lamplight of the sitting room, some melodrama playing out on the screen that Jaeron wasn't really watching. His mind kept drifting to the barn, to midnight, to Angela waiting for him in the darkness. Beside him on the worn sofa, Aunt Mannisa was actually paying attention to the show, occasionally tutting at the characters' poor decisions.
The normalcy of it felt suffocating.
Then came the knock.
Not the casual rap of a neighbor or the quick rhythm of a friend.
This was three slow, deliberate strikes that seemed to echo through the cottage with unusual weight.
Aunt Mannisa looked up from the television, her brow furrowing.
"Who could that be at this hour?" she murmured, rising from the sofa.
"It's nearly ten."
Jaeron listened as his aunt's footsteps crossed to the door, heard the creak of hinges, then silence.
A long, strange silence that made him sit up straighter.
When his aunt finally spoke, her voice carried a note he'd never heard before, something between awe and uncertainty.
"Yes, of course. Please, come in."
The woman who entered the sitting room seemed to bring a change in the very air.
She was perhaps in her mid-forties, though age sat on her like an ornament rather than a burden. Her silver-streaked black hair was pulled back in an intricate braid, and she wore traveling clothes of deep midnight blue that looked both practical and expensive, the kind of quality that spoke of distant cities and important business. But it was her eyes that captured attention: storm-grey and piercing, the eyes of someone who had seen battlefields and council chambers, who had made decisions that shaped lives.
She moved with the grace of someone powerful, Jaeron noticed immediately. Every step was balanced and careful, like if she stepped wrongly, everything around would be decimated.
"Jaeron Blaze?" Her voice was smooth and commanding, accented in a way that marked her as coming from the capital regions.
"Yes," he said, standing. His heart had begun to hammer against his ribs.
The woman studied him for a long moment, and he had the uncomfortable sensation of being weighed and measured by someone who knew exactly what they were looking for.
A small smile touched her lips.
"You have his eyes," she said quietly.
"And his stubborn jaw. Yes, you'll do."
"I'm sorry, who are you?" Aunt Mannisa asked, hovering between hospitality and protectiveness. "What is this about?"
"My name is Leonara Stormwright, Second Master of the Imperial Academy of Twin Paths."
She reached into her coat and withdrew a cream-colored envelope, sealed with dark blue wax. "I've come a long way to deliver this personally."
Jaeron's breath caught.
The Imperial Academy? Every child in Caladryrean knew that name but not Jaeron. Not this part of the world.
It was one of the three great academies where cultivators and battle mages trained, where ordinary people were forged into legends. Where students learned to channel qi through their bodies and weapons, where magic was studied and mastered, where the warriors who served kings and protected cities were born.
"There must be some mistake," Aunt Mannisa said, even as Jaeron's hand reached for the letter with a will of its own.
"My nephew is not... he has no training, no background in cultivation. His father was just a soldier—"
"His father," Leonara interrupted gently, "was Daemon Blaze. The Unparalleled Lord of Qimeg. The man who stood at the peak of both sword cultivation and magic, who walked what we call the Twin Paths when all others said it was impossible. He was a legend before he was thirty and a myth by the time he was forty."
The world tilted.
Jaeron stared at the envelope in his hands, at the wax seal embossed with a symbol he'd seen in books, a sword and a staff crossed over an open eye.
Doubt, confusion and every sort of emotion flickered in his mind.
His father? He thought Mannisa's brother wasn't his father. Then why was she saying that he was?
He looked at Mannisa, who had the same expression on her face.
"That's impossible," his aunt whispered.
"Daemon was... he never spoke of such things. He was just my brother. Just a man who came home from the war."
"And he never told me that this boy was his son…"
"I'm sure he had his reasons."
"He came home because he chose to," Leonara said, and her voice held respect bordering on reverence.
"There's a lot that happened and I can't be the one to say those things. But im sure about one thing. He wanted Jaeron to have a choice, to live a normal life if that's what he desired."
"Then why now?" Jaeron's voice sounded strange to his own ears.
"Why come for me now? Where is he? Why didn't he come to meet us?"
Leonara's expression softened. "He told me to find you and bring you in; he made a promise to me."
Jaeron's fingers trembled as he broke the seal and unfolded the letter. The paper was thick and expensive.
The writing was elegant:
To Jaeron Blaze,
You are hereby accepted to the Imperial Academy of Twin Paths for the year 1991, to begin your studies in the disciplines of Sword Cultivation and Arcane Arts. Your father's legacy has granted you this opportunity, but your own determination has earned it.
Term begins on the tenth day of autumn. Tuition and lodging are provided. You will need training clothes, personal effects, and one practice weapon of your choosing. All other materials will be supplied.
Your path awaits, should you choose to walk it.
Grand Magister Alanor Makkistar, the headmaster of the Imperial Academy.
The letter was signed by the Grandmaster himself and stamped with three official seals.
"This is real," Jaeron breathed.
"Very real," Leonara confirmed.
"I'll be honest with you, boy. The road ahead is brutal. The Academy takes in two hundred students each year. Half wash out within the first six months. Of those who remain, only a handful ever reach true mastery. You'll be starting later than most—the children of nobles begin their training at fifteen. You'll have to work twice as hard to catch up."
"I've been training for eighteen years."
"You've been swinging a wooden sword," she corrected, not unkindly.
"That's different from cultivation. Different from channeling qi, from understanding the meridians in your body, from learning to weave magic with blade work. Everything you think you know is just the foundation. The real education begins now."
Aunt Mannisa had sunk back onto the sofa, her face pale.
"This is what you wanted," she said to Jaeron, and there was resignation in her voice.
"All those mornings. All those dreams. They were real after all."
He looked at his aunt, this woman who had raised him, who had worried over him, who had tried so hard to give him a practical future. "Aunt Mannisa—"
"Don't," she said, holding up a hand.
She was crying, he realized.
But she was also smiling. "Don't apologize for becoming what you were meant to be. I just... I wish your father had told me. I wish I'd understood."
Leonara stepped forward. "The morning train leaves at dawn. Meet me at the Station with whatever luggage you can carry. The journey to the capital takes two days by rail. Classes begin immediately upon arrival, so come prepared to work."
She moved toward the door, then paused, looking back at Jaeron with those piercing gray eyes.
"Your father was special, boy. Not just because of his power, though he had that in abundance. But because he understood something few cultivators ever do—that strength without purpose is just violence, and power without compassion is just tyranny. He walked both the sword path and the magic path, and he used them to protect people. To build, not just destroy."
She smiled slightly.
"Before he left us, he said his greatest work wouldn't be the battles he won or the techniques he mastered. It would be you. His son. His legacy."
"I never knew him," Jaeron said quietly.
"Not really. Not who he truly was."
"Then learn. Become stronger and find him yourself."
Leonara opened the door, letting in the cool night air.
"Dawn, Jaeron Blaze. Don't be late. The world doesn't wait for those who hesitate."
And then she was gone, disappearing into the darkness like smoke.
Jaeron stood in the doorway, the letter still clutched in his hand, his entire world restructuring itself around this single moment. The television continued playing its forgotten drama. The clock on the mantle ticked steadily forward. Through the window, he could see Angela's cottage next door, a single lamp burning in an upstairs window.
Midnight at the barn.
he'd promised.
But dawn at the station.
His real life was finally beginning.
"You need to pack," Aunt Mannisa said, wiping her eyes.
"I'll help you. We don't have much time."
"Aunt—"
"I was wrong," she said firmly.
"Wrong to doubt. Wrong to try to make you into something you weren't. Your father clearly knew what he was doing, even if he never told me his plans."
She stood, squaring her shoulders with that practical strength he'd always known in her.
"Come on. You'll need sturdy clothes, your training sword, whatever books you want to bring. I have some coins saved—not much, but enough for meals on the journey."
They climbed the stairs together, and Jaeron felt as though he was floating.
The Imperial Academy.
Real training.
A chance to become what he'd dreamed of for years. His father—his father!—had been a legend, had stood at heights Jaeron could barely imagine.
As he began pulling clothes from his chest, as his aunt bustled about gathering supplies, his eyes fell on the wooden practice sword leaning against the wall.
18 years of dawn training.
Eighteen years of forms repeated until his muscles knew them like breathing.
Through his window, he could see the path to the old barn where Angela would be waiting.
"I'm going to the Academy," he said aloud, testing the words.
They felt like truth.
Like destiny finally catching up to him.
"You're going to make your father proud," Aunt Mannisa said, pressing a worn leather satchel into his hands.
"Now pack. Dawn comes quickly, and you've got a life to begin."
Outside, the night deepened.
In the barn, Angela would wait alone.
In the morning, a train would carry him away from Millhaven, away from wooden swords and impossible affairs, away from the small life that had almost swallowed him.
Toward something bigger, something dangerous, something real.
Jaeron packed with steady hands, his heart hammering with equal parts terror and exhilaration.
His path, finally, was beginning.