I woke before the sun did.
There was no reason to. Nothing about today required an early start, not really, and yet I had lain in bed for the better part of an hour, staring at the ceiling, feeling the particular kind of restlessness that came from knowing exactly what was waiting for you and being powerless to make the hours move any faster.
’Today.’
Breakfast was quieter than usual. My mother had made all of my favorites, the honeyed bread, the soft-boiled eggs, the little almond pastries I had loved since I was small enough to steal them off Sera’s plate, and none of us mentioned why. We did not have to. The whole table understood the occasion well enough that naming it out loud felt unnecessary, almost cruel.
My mother kept glancing at me between bites, the kind of glance that lingered a half second too long before she caught herself and looked away. My father said very little, which was not unusual for him, except that today his silence carried a different weight than usual, heavier, more deliberate.
Sera did not eat much at all.
By the time the carriage was due to arrive, the four of us stood together in the entrance hall, and for a moment nobody moved to say anything.
My mother broke first. She pulled me into a hug tighter than any she had given me in years, and when she finally let go, her eyes were suspiciously bright.
"Come home safe," she said, voice steady even though her hands were not. "That is all I ask."
"I will."
Sera did not hug me. She never had been the type. Instead she stepped close, straightened the collar of my coat with more force than strictly necessary, and looked at me with an expression I had rarely seen on her face before. Not her usual sharp amusement. Something closer to fear, carefully buried under everything else.
"Do not do anything stupid," she said quietly.
"I make no promises."
"Edmund."
"Fine. I will try not to."
She held my gaze a moment longer, like she was searching for something in it, then finally nodded and stepped back.
My father was last. He did not say much, the way he never did, but he reached into his coat and drew out something wrapped in dark cloth, holding it out toward me with both hands.
I unwrapped it slowly.
Inside was a sword.
Not one of the practice blades from the Academy, dull and grey and forgettable. This one had real weight to it, a dark hilt worn smooth from years of use, a blade that seemed to drink in the morning light rather than reflect it. I could feel something humming faintly beneath the surface of the metal, quiet but unmistakable, the way Sera’s whistle had hummed with something more than ordinary craftsmanship.
"This was mine," my father said. "Before you were born. Before I put it away."
’An Awakened Gift.’
I looked up at him, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, I saw something raw in his expression, something he usually kept locked away behind duty and decorum.
"Bring it back," he said simply. "And bring yourself back with it."
"I will, Father."
He nodded once, sharp and final, the way he ended every conversation he considered settled, and stepped back before whatever was in his eyes had the chance to spill over into something neither of us wanted to acknowledge out loud.
The carriage arrived not long after, and I climbed inside with the sword strapped carefully at my hip, the weight of it unfamiliar and strangely comforting all at once.
My team was already waiting inside.
Arthur sat closest to the door, offering me a grin that did not quite reach his eyes. Theo sat across from him, arms crossed, staring out the window like the rest of us did not exist. Mary sat in the corner, quiet as always, hands folded neatly in her lap. And across from all of us, back straight, expression composed, sat Eliza.
I remembered, belatedly, the particular rule that came with today.
"Greetings, Miss Eliza," I said, inclining my head with the exact amount of formality the law demanded of a first-year addressing his Captain.
She looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"Gods, Edmund, do not start that. Captain is fine. Miss Eliza makes me sound like somebody’s governess."
"Understood, Captain."
Arthur snorted. Even Theo’s mouth twitched, just slightly, before he remembered he was supposed to be sulking.
The carriage ride to the Academy passed quickly after that, filled with the kind of nervous conversation that filled space without really saying anything important. When we arrived, the courtyard was already full of other teams, first-years standing in tight clusters beside their captains, all of them wearing the same carefully composed expressions people wore when they were trying very hard not to look as afraid as they felt.
We were led, eventually, to the same chamber where I had first awakened my Core.
The inverted pentagram was still carved into the stone floor exactly as I remembered it, but the candles surrounding it were new, dozens of them, arranged in careful, deliberate rings that had not been there during the Awakening Ceremony. Their flames burned low and steady, casting long shadows against the walls.
An instructor moved through the gathered teams before we stepped forward, handing out equipment with brisk efficiency. Ten substitution charms, small metal tokens etched with warding symbols, dropped into my palm one at a time. Then a revolver, heavier than I expected, along with a small case containing twenty-five spiritual bullets, each one humming faintly with the same quiet energy I had felt in my father’s sword.
’Illegal without a license, unless the Academy issues it for exactly this purpose.’
I tucked everything away carefully, hands steadier than I expected them to be.
Eliza gathered the four of us near the edge of the pentagram, checking each of us over with the same brisk efficiency the instructor had shown.
"Stay close to me once we are through," she said. "No wandering off. No heroics. We are here to survive first and profit second."
"Understood, Captain," I said again, mostly to see her roll her eyes.
She did not disappoint.
The chamber lights dimmed further as the ritual began, the candles flaring bright all at once before settling into a low, steady glow. I felt the same pulling sensation I remembered from my first Awakening, a strange weightlessness spreading through my chest, the floor beneath me seeming to dissolve into something that was not quite floor anymore.
Beside me, Mary’s expression remained perfectly calm. Theo’s jaw was tight. Arthur had gone slightly pale.
Then the world folded in on itself, and the chamber vanished entirely.
[Welcome to the Realm of the Evil, Fighter Edmund Rhys]