The sword was not as light as the instructor had described, but it wasn't heavy either… It felt as if it was waiting for his hand. In the vast training courtyard of Valontir Keep, surrounded by a grey mountain and a sky untouched by dew, the clashing of swords and the shouts of commanders echoed. The stone-paved ground was crowded with sons of nobles, training under the eyes of knights who never laughed, never showed mercy, and never repeated an order. The training cycle came once every ten years, and whoever failed the first test was never called again—regardless of bloodline.
"Leonar! To the circle!"
The commander's voice rang out, and the children's necks turned. The blond boy, who had barely spoken since his arrival, stood and walked silently to the center. His gaze was still, deep—unfitting for a ten-year-old's face. His body wasn't the strongest, but he carried a strange balance, as though something heavier than his body lived within him.
"Your opponent will be the son of Marquess Gildar. No magic. No protection. Only the sword."
The other boy rose, tall and proud in his silver armor, stepping forward with the confidence of one who had trained for years.
Leonar raised his sword without a word. His eyes weren't on his opponent… but beyond him, as if watching a shadow walking in unseen steps.
"Begin!"
The opponent lunged with a swift, attacking strike, as if to fell a boy in the blink of an eye.
But Leonar didn't wait.
Before the strike had completed, he twisted his body, shifted his weight backward, then slid with eerie fluidity—as if the air had whispered what was to come. With the flat of his blade, he struck his opponent's forehead. The boy staggered and fell to the ground without resistance.
The courtyard fell silent.
Even the wind forgot to blow.
The commander stepped forward, astonished, staring at the boy who showed neither fatigue nor emotion.
"Who taught you that maneuver?" he asked, kneeling, peering into the boy's eyes—glowing with a calm golden hue.
"I wasn't taught…" Leonar whispered, his voice dry like stone.
"Then who showed you how to move before the attack?"
The boy tilted his head slightly and looked to the sky, then spoke without blinking:
"I see them… every night. In my dreams. I dream they attack me… before they actually do. And I… I feel the strike before it's struck."
High above the keep, behind a latticed window, an old woman dressed in a robe of darkened red watched him unseen. Her eyes did not gleam with wonder, but with caution, as if she'd been expecting this moment.
She whispered to herself:
"So… his powers are seeping in… before their time.
Blood… doesn't lie.
He is no mere duke's son… He is an ancient mark… and a spark that will ignite the buried."
That evening, when the boys returned to their quarters, Leonar was summoned—unusually—to the chamber of the High Overseer, where his father, Duke of the Western Light, waited with a cold expression.
"You've been found out, Leonar." The duke said without preamble.
The boy gave no reply. He merely stood, as if silence was his natural response.
"I thought you'd inherit the land… not reach for the sky." The duke stepped closer, looked into his son's eyes, and continued:
"Astiral High Academy will open its gates in five years. And they've chosen you. I did not consent… but it seems some doors do not need permission to open."
He turned his back and added with bitter tone:
"You will go. Not because I wish it… but because you slipped from my authority the day you were born."
That night, Leonar did not sleep.
He sat by the window, staring at the moon that felt farther than usual, yet he sensed someone watching him from above.
And in his sleep, the dream came.
A dream with no sound, no color.
But he saw himself standing in an endless hall, where seven pillars of light rose, and behind each stood a shadow.
From among the pillars, a hand emerged… neither human nor ghost… and it pointed at him.
When he awoke, dawn had not yet come…
But on his right palm appeared a small red mark—a circle encircling a point.
He stared at it for a long time. It didn't hurt, but it seemed to… pulse.
He turned his face away—for the eye was not used to gazing at something that throbbed without a heart.
Outside, silence still wrapped Valontir Keep, save for the faint trickling of water from the lower courtyard, and the flutter of a bat crossing between two towers.
Far away in the glacial continent, beyond the grey mountains, in a palace shaped like a white stone flower rooted in eternal frost, a girl named Eliara also awoke.
She opened her eyes slowly and sighed.
The room around her glowed with a dim light, as if the walls themselves shimmered.
She rose from her glass bed and stood before the large window overlooking the frozen plateaus.
Her fingers trembled slightly—not from the cold, but from the dream.
"They were calling me… by name."
She whispered, placing her hand over her chest, where a sudden warmth had bloomed.
She didn't know what the dream meant. In it, she saw a lake of light, and faceless figures trying to speak to her.
In the long corridor, her maid stood silently, then spoke in a soft voice:
"It's time, Princess… the signs have begun."
But Eliara gave no reply.
Suddenly, the world felt too big for her—and her skin no longer felt like it could hold her body, as if something inside her wanted to escape… to expand… or to explode.
…
In the far east, at the edge of an endless desert, within a fortress carved into the back of a petrified dragon, a boy named Kael was running.
Running from something he didn't know, but always felt behind him.
He stopped, panting, looked behind him, then at his hands.
His right hand was trembling. No scar, no blood—but his skin had changed. It was rough, hardened, like cracked eggshell.
Last night, he dreamt of his father being cleaved in half. No blood, just screams… then smoke.
Kael was the son of the Emperor of Sand. But he had never liked the title.
Inside him, there was a small stone… but it had begun to melt.
…
In a place where the sun never rose, where the rivers were black and the sky nearer to ash, Naera, daughter of the Lady of Shadows, sat on a broken step in a half-buried temple.
She was drawing many eyes into the dirt with her fingers.
Her veiled handmaid asked, "You saw them again?"
Naera nodded.
"How many this time?"
She replied in a faint voice, as if the air itself spoke in her stead:
"Seven… and the eighth hand finally appeared."
The handmaid laughed—an odd laugh, filled with fear and affection—and said:
"You'll be called too. We can't delay you any longer. The Academy is near."
But Naera did not smile. She just kept drawing.
Then she whispered:
"Every time I dream… something in my world vanishes.
The door I used to play beneath… now has no handle.
My mother's face is fog… even my shadow… has grown slower than me."
…
Far away, in the great meadows among the blue-golden trees, Thalen, son of the Star Shepherdess, was fixing his wooden toy.
Younger than the others, and the one who laughed most.
But for a week now, he hadn't laughed.
At night, he began hearing a language he didn't know.
When he told his uncle, the man laughed and said:
"Madness is a gift to those with too much time."
But Thalen wasn't mad.
He heard it—each evening—from between the grasses. A language that lulled him like his mother once did. But each night, it grew harsher, as if commanding him.
That night, the sky opened above their farm, and a small meteor fell before his home.
When he approached… there was no fire—but a book.
Warm… whispering to him in a tongue he both knew and did not know.
…
In every continent, in every palace, in every cottage far from cities—something was changing.
The children were no longer just children.
They were dreams walking on small feet, not yet knowing to whom they belonged.
Five years remained between them and their fate…
And the Academy, which opens only once a decade… had begun to breathe.
And the first to hear the call… would not be the strongest, nor the wisest—
but the one who no longer belonged to where they stood.