"Unless you’d rather I discuss family business in front of half the training grounds."
"That sounds inconvenient."
"Then walk."
Owen followed his father away from the platform.
The cooler corridors inside the residence were a relief after the heat of the training grounds. Sweat had dried beneath Owen’s shirt, leaving the fabric uncomfortable against his back, and his legs felt heavier with every step.
By the time they reached Edmund’s study, he was glad nobody expected him to stand at attention.
Mercer remained outside as the door closed behind them.
Edmund returned to his desk but didn’t sit immediately.
"You’re exhausted."
Owen lowered himself into one of the chairs opposite the desk.
"I noticed."
Gareth remained standing beside him.
Edmund looked between them before focusing on Owen.
"What happened today is exactly why awakening is only the beginning."
Owen glanced at Gareth.
His brother looked annoyingly fresh.
Edmund’s attention returned to him. "Your sword is powerful, but today made something else equally clear. You aren’t ready to make full use of it yet."
Owen could hardly disagree. Gareth had finished the spar looking as though he could continue for another hour, while Owen’s Armament Core still felt almost completely empty.
"Cultivation will help with that," Edmund continued. "I’ve arranged for an instructor to begin teaching you tomorrow."
Owen straightened. "Tomorrow?"
"You’ve awakened. There’s no reason to delay it."
Owen nodded. He had spent years watching Gareth grow stronger through cultivation without being able to participate himself. After what had happened on the platform, he was more interested than ever in discovering what it would actually change.
Edmund looked toward Gareth. "Which brings me to the other matter."
Gareth seemed to know what was coming.
"The hunt?"
"Yes."
Owen looked between them.
Edmund noticed.
"In one month, I’ll be leading a joint subjugation with House Mowbray."
Owen knew the name as well as he knew his own. The Mowbrays were one of the Great Families, their bloodline associated with spear armaments in much the same way the Ferrers were associated with swords.
The title Great Family had never come simply from wealth. Families like the Ferrers and Mowbrays had produced generations of powerful awakened cultivators, preserved weapon traditions that other houses could not easily reproduce, and maintained military forces capable of participating in large-scale monster subjugations. Their inherited tendency toward the same weapon class was only the foundation of that influence.
The Ferrers had built theirs around the sword.
House Mowbray had done the same with the spear.
Gareth had already known about the operation. Owen could tell from the lack of surprise in his expression.
"You were already expected to attend," Edmund told Gareth before looking at Owen. "You were as well."
"Were?"
"Until this morning."
Owen understood.
Edmund rested one hand against the desk.
"After your awakening failed to produce a weapon, I had no intention of taking you into a subjugation zone merely because your name was already on the preparations. An active Armament Core without a usable armament would have made you a liability to yourself and everyone responsible for you."
Owen couldn’t disagree.
"But that is no longer the situation."
"So I can come?"
"If the next month goes well."
Owen sat a little straighter.
"You’ll need to show that you can control your weapon, manage your reserves, and follow instructions in the field. This isn’t another spar where your brother can stop an épée at your throat."
Gareth glanced down at him. "I thought it was a very good stop."
Owen looked away from him.
Edmund’s mouth twitched, but he continued.
"You have one month. Use it properly."
"I will."
His thoughts had already moved ahead.
A joint hunt with House Mowbray.
The thought immediately brought Owen back to the system window he had seen earlier that afternoon.
Spear — Locked.
He had grown up around Ferrers swordsmanship. In one month, he would have the chance to see what an entire Great Family built around the spear looked like in actual combat.
That made the hunt considerably more interesting.
He kept that thought to himself.
Gareth nodded toward their father.
"When do preparations begin?"
"They already have. You’ll receive the operational details later."
Edmund looked at Owen.
"For now, you have enough to concern yourself with."
Cultivation tomorrow.
A hunt in one month.
Fifty-three percent Sword mastery.
Owen had wanted answers when he walked into the Awakening Hall that morning.
Somehow, he had ended the day with considerably more questions.
Edmund leaned back.
"That’s all. Go wash, rest, and enjoy tonight. I don’t want to hear either of you discussing training schedules at the table."
Gareth looked mildly offended.
"I can discuss things other than training."
Edmund gave him a look.
Gareth opened the door.
"Come on, Owen."
By evening, the main courtyard barely resembled the place Owen normally crossed on his way between the residence and the training grounds.
Long wooden tables had been carried onto the stone and arranged beneath hanging lanterns and Ferrers banners. Braziers burned along the edges of the courtyard, their warmth mixing with the cooler night air and the smell of roasted meat drifting from the serving tables.
The kitchens had apparently taken Edmund’s order seriously.
Large platters of meat, bread, vegetables and steaming dishes moved from table to table, while opened casks near one wall attracted a steady flow of soldiers carrying cups.
Someone had found musicians.
Owen wasn’t sure when that had happened.
A bard near the far side of the courtyard was halfway through a song that several soldiers clearly knew better than he did. By the chorus, at least twenty people were singing along badly enough that the musicians had begun laughing while they played.
It was strange seeing the same men Owen had watched drilling in formation that afternoon sitting with loosened collars and cups in their hands.
One of the senior soldiers had somehow become involved in an argument about a hunt from years ago.
"You missed."
"I did not miss."
"You hit the tree."
"The creature was behind the tree."
"That doesn’t make the tree your target."
Their table erupted in laughter.
Owen passed them before anyone could drag him into the argument.
He had already endured enough congratulations that evening.
Most were brief. A clasp on the shoulder. A raised cup. A comment about the fire sword.
Thankfully, the entire party wasn’t interested in surrounding him.
Two soldiers nearby were far more invested in arguing over whether Gareth had deliberately allowed Owen’s final strike to land against his guard.
Another group had started teasing someone about a wager made during the spar, though nobody seemed willing to admit actual money had changed hands.
Owen found his mother near one of the tables with Edmund.
Eleanor looked him over immediately.
"You’re eating?"
"I’ve eaten."
"That wasn’t what I asked."
Owen looked down at the plate in his hand.
"I’m eating."
"Good."
She seemed satisfied enough with that.
His father was speaking to Mercer and two officers, so Owen didn’t interrupt. He continued farther into the courtyard until he found Gareth sitting near one of the quieter tables with a cup of wine.
Owen sat beside him.
Gareth glanced at the cup in Owen’s hand.
"Mother finally let you escape?"
"She made sure I was eating."
"She did the same thing to me after my awakening."
Owen took a drink.
For a while, neither of them said much.
The music filled the space comfortably, mixed with conversation and bursts of laughter from the tables closer to the center.
Owen flexed his right hand.
Most of the numbness had faded.
"What was it like?"
Gareth looked over.
"What?"
"When you started cultivating."
Gareth leaned back in his chair.
"Painfully boring."
Owen frowned.
"That’s your answer?"
"You asked what it was like."
"I expected something more useful."
Gareth considered that.
"My instructor was strict. Very strict. I spent more time sitting still and breathing properly than I thought should be possible."
"That doesn’t sound difficult."
"It does after someone makes you restart every time your concentration slips."
Owen looked down at his wine.
"How long before you noticed anything?"
"Not as long as it felt."
Gareth turned the cup slowly between his fingers.
"The first few lessons were mostly learning to sense what I was doing instead of letting the core respond however it wanted. Drawing energy in is one thing. Moving it without wasting half of it is another."
That sounded familiar.
Owen had spent most of the afternoon throwing energy through his sword because the result looked impressive.
His nearly empty core had been the consequence.
Gareth continued.
"The good part comes when you realize something that used to exhaust you doesn’t anymore. Then you advance, and suddenly you’re doing things that seemed impossible a few months earlier."
Owen looked at his brother.
Ascendant.
This afternoon, that had been a rank.
Then Gareth had attacked.
Now Owen could attach something real to it.
The speed of the épée.
The amount of energy Gareth still had after the match.
The ease with which he maintained lightning while Owen could barely produce another serious flame.
Tomorrow, Owen would finally begin working toward that himself.
Gareth nudged his cup against Owen’s.
"Stop."
Owen blinked. "Stop what?"
"Thinking about tomorrow."
"I asked you about cultivation."
"And now you’ve got that look."
"What look?"
"The one you get when you’re about to spend the rest of the evening planning something nobody asked you to plan."
Owen looked around the courtyard.
The bard had started another song.
Someone near the soldiers’ tables shouted that the previous one had been better.
The bard shouted something back that made half the courtyard laugh.
Gareth lifted his cup.
"You can become terrifying tomorrow. Tonight, drink the wine Father opened because you finally managed to awaken properly."
Owen laughed quietly.
"That sounds like terrible advice."
"It’s excellent advice."
Owen took another drink anyway.
The warmth of the wine settled pleasantly after the exhausting day, and for once he allowed himself to stop thinking about every problem waiting ahead.
His sword.
Fifty-three percent mastery.
Cultivation.
The hunt in one month.
House Mowbray.
There would be time for all of it.
Tonight, the courtyard was warm, the soldiers were singing badly with the bard, his parents were only a few tables away, and Gareth had finally stopped trying to stab him.
Owen leaned back in his chair and listened to the music.
Tomorrow could come when it came.