Morning arrived with the same pale light that had marked every dawn. Cel sat with Lior and his father at the table while his mother ladled soup into wooden bowls - thick with grain and whatever vegetables could be spared, the same meal they’d eaten for days.
Outside, the morning air held a chill that would burn off by midday. The village had taken on a different quality in the week since the attack - quieter, more subdued. Smoke no longer rose from the pyres. The debris had been organized into manageable piles. But the empty spaces where homes had stood remained visible, gaps in the landscape that marked absence more clearly than presence ever could.
Cel stepped outside first, leaving Lior’s family space for whatever final moments families needed before parting.
Lior emerged next, his new cloak settling around his shoulders. His parents followed immediately behind, crowding the doorframe with the particular urgency of people who knew their time was short.
His mother’s arms wrapped around him. Pulled him close with desperate strength, her face pressing against his shoulder. “My boy. My sweet boy.”
Lior’s father joined them a moment later. His weathered arms completed the embrace, creating a knot of bodies and affection that Cel couldn’t imagine participating in even if invited.
They held him like that for long moments. Long enough that Cel’s attention drifted sideways, tracking across the village rather than watching what felt too private to witness. Other families were saying their own goodbyes. Students emerging from the homes they’d stayed in, receiving thanks and well-wishes from residents who’d survived because of their presence.
“You can always come back.” Lior’s mother’s voice carried across the distance, thick with emotion that threatened to choke the words entirely. “If it gets too hard… just come home.”
“I’m so proud of you.” Lior’s father’s tone held the particular steadiness of someone forcing composure through sheer will.
Then finally, Lior’s mother pulled back slightly, her hands coming up to frame her son’s face. “And next time you visit, you should bring a girl home.”
Heat crept up Cel’s neck despite not being the target of the comment. The casual assumption that romantic relationships were something normal people pursued, something parents encouraged rather than arranged for political advantage - it highlighted yet another gap between what he’d known and what apparently constituted ordinary family dynamics.
Lior’s father made a sound that might have been a laugh. “But only if she’s as beautiful as your mother.”
Lior’s mother’s face flushed immediately, her composure breaking into something flustered and pleased. She leaned against her husband, swatting at his chest with one hand while the other pressed against her own burning cheeks. “You can’t just say things like that...”
“It’s true though.” The father’s arm wrapped around her waist with comfortable familiarity. “No point bringing home someone who doesn’t measure up.”
Lior stood between them, his own face carrying a flush that suggested mortification and affection in equal measure. “I... I have to go. The instructors are waiting.”
His mother composed herself with visible effort. Reached out to adjust his cloak one final time, fingers smoothing fabric that didn’t need smoothing. “I know, I know. Just... be safe. Please.”
“I will.” Lior’s voice cracked slightly. “I promise.”
They released him then. Stepped back into the doorframe with the particular reluctance of people forcing themselves to let go. Lior turned, started toward where Cel waited on the road.
Then his mother’s voice called out again. “Celvian!”
Cel’s head snapped around.
“Be sure to come along next time too. You’re always welcome here.”
The statement landed with unexpected force.
“...I’ll try.” The words scraped out of him, rougher than intended.
He turned before the gratitude could build into something he couldn’t control. Fell into step beside Lior, both of them walking toward the village center where the other students would be gathering.
They moved in silence for a few steps before Cel’s thoughts caught up with what had just happened. The goodbye. The invitation. The assumption that this village - these people - would still be here for a next time.
Would they, though?
Without the students’ presence, without the instructors’ combat capability, what defense did this village actually possess? A handful of residents with farming tools and desperation. Maybe one or two who’d discovered reserves of courage they hadn’t known they carried.
But against another assault of that magnitude?
They’d be slaughtered. Erased from the map the same way countless other villages had been. Reduced to nothing but another statistic in the Empire’s long list of settlements that had ceased to exist.
The dark certainty of it pressed against his chest. He’d been invited back to a place that might not survive long enough for the invitation to matter.
Gathered students materialized ahead. Faces that had become familiar through shared labor and survival now carried the particular exhaustion of people who’d seen too much.
Instructor Saren stood at the formation’s front. Her posture remained rigid despite the weariness visible in her features. Beside her, Instructor Calder maintained his usual scarred silence, arms crossed, gaze tracking across the assembled students.
Cel and Lior joined the formation. Found positions near the middle where commoner students had naturally clustered, separated from the nobles who occupied the front ranks.
When the last stragglers arrived, Saren’s voice cut across the morning air with familiar precision.
“Before we depart, I need you to understand something.” Her gaze swept across the assembled group. “Many of you lost friends during the attack. Watched people you trained beside die to creatures you couldn’t stop. I won’t diminish what you’ve experienced.”
Silence held. Several students’ faces had gone tight, eyes dropping toward the ground as memories surfaced.
“But you need to see this as a lesson.” Saren continued without softening her tone. “This will not be the last creature attack you face. It will also not be the worst. People will continue to die despite your best efforts.”
Her words landed with brutal honesty. No comfort. No platitudes about how things would get easier or how they’d proven themselves capable. Just the unvarnished reality of what lay ahead.
“You will have to endure it. Because that’s what Chosen do. We endure. We fight. We protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
She paused, letting the weight of her words settle.
“So yes - grieve your losses. Process what happened here. But don’t let it break you. Because the moment you stop fighting is the moment more people die.”
Saren let the silence stand a moment longer. No one spoke. A few students straightened, jaws set, as if the weight of what she’d said had given their spines something to lean on.
Then she turned toward the village gates, her voice hardening back into command. “Now form up. We’re moving out.”
The group reformed itself into traveling formation. Students falling into the same positions they’d occupied on the journey here, though the gaps where the dead had stood remained visible. Empty spaces that nobody tried to fill, that served as silent reminders of who wouldn’t be returning to the Academy.
They moved through the village in a column. Past homes they’d helped repair. Past residents who’d emerged to watch their departure. The villagers lined the main road, standing in loose clusters.
Cel’s gaze tracked across the crowd. Found Lior’s parents standing near the well. His mother had one hand pressed against her mouth, tears streaming freely down her face. His father stood solid beside her, his weathered expression carrying the weight of watching his son walk toward danger he couldn’t prevent.
Beside him, Lior had noticed them too. His breathing hitched, shoulders drawing inward. Then moisture gathered in his sky-blue eyes, spilling over to track down his cheeks in thin lines.
He didn’t make a sound. Just cried silently as they passed, one hand lifting in a wave that his parents returned with desperate enthusiasm.
Cel watched without comment. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t understand the particular pain of missing someone who was still alive, whose absence would create a hollow space in daily existence that nothing else could fill.
He’d never experienced that. Had never anyone worth missing in the first place.
The thought turned his mind sideways. Toward his sister. Lyra.
She’d be fifteen by now. Old enough for her Divine Calling. Had she received one yet? Had she woken on her birthday to a vision that would determine her path forward?
He was nearly certain she would receive a Divine Calling. She had to. Because if the gods looked at someone as genuinely good and kind as Lyra and decided she wasn’t worth marking, then the gods weren’t worth the prayers.
And her bloodline practically guaranteed it. She’d receive either the Sun God’s blessing or the Ocean Goddess’s. The question was which, and what that choice would mean for her future.
Either way, she’d be part of a whole new world.
The realization sat heavy in his chest. One more person he cared about, moving through a hostile world, while he remained powerless to intervene.
They passed through the village gates. The forest waited beyond - trees pressing close, undergrowth thick between trunks.
The column stretched out as they moved deeper into the forest. Students spreading along the path in a line that made conversation difficult unless you were walking directly beside someone.
Time accumulated. The sun climbed higher, filtering through leaves overhead in scattered patches that painted the ground in shifting patterns of light and shadow. Eventually the instructors separated from the group.
Kyros’s group was the next that separated from the main formation - the Sun Clan heir moving with his usual entitled swagger, his sycophantic followers trailing behind like shadows.
Then Theron stepped forward, ready to lead his own group away. His brown hair was still slightly disheveled from the journey, armor gleaming where sunlight caught it through the canopy.
Then Hestia’s voice cut across the space.
“Theron.”
He stopped. Turned back toward where she stood perhaps ten steps away, her crimson eyes fixed on him with uncomfortable intensity.
“We need to talk.”