Cur, Calliarna, and Markus sat together around a round table in the school cafeteria. Though, calling it a cafeteria felt almost unfair. The Academy had clearly gone to great lengths to make sure every student had access not only to what they needed, but to comforts most schools would never think to offer. Good food was one thing. A place where students could actually rest, talk, and forget about lessons for a while was another.
The room was divided into two vast sections. One side carried the polished quiet of a fine dining hall, with neat tables, clean lines, and the kind of service that made even simple meals feel formal. The other side was softer, warmer, and far less strict, closer to a popular café where young adults could spend too much time over drinks and conversation. It was there, in that more casual half of the room, that the five of them had chosen to meet.
It was quiet that day. Fewer students had stayed indoors, most of them no doubt taking advantage of the spring sun outside. The open space made every small sound feel clearer: the faint clink of cups, the scrape of a chair somewhere far off, the low murmur of staff behind the counter. For once, the lack of people was useful. Whatever conversation was waiting between them would be hard enough without curious ears nearby.
Hariel and Anas approached the table with their hands full. Neither of them rushed. The drinks shifted carefully between their fingers as they came closer, and for a brief moment the simple act of setting them down gave everyone something else to look at. One by one, the cups were placed around the table before Hariel and Anas took the last two empty chairs.
"Thanks, Hari."
Cur was the first to say it, his voice quieter than usual. Calliarna and Markus followed soon after, each offering their thanks in their own way, though none of them held the moment for long. The words passed over the table, polite and necessary, but they did little to ease the weight already sitting between them.
As Hariel and Anas settled in, silence returned. It did not fall suddenly so much as gather, slowly and heavily, until even the untouched drinks seemed part of it. Cur kept his eyes near the table. Calliarna looked anywhere but at him. Markus leaned back in his chair and let out a long, tired breath.
Hariel was the first to break it.
"I see nothing has been said since we left."
The words landed plainly, but they were enough. Calliarna's gaze slipped away from him. Cur did the same a moment later, as if both of them had been caught standing too close to something they did not want named. Markus sighed again, deeper this time, and rubbed at his face as though patience alone had become tiring.
Anas watched them for a few seconds, waiting to see if either would volunteer an answer. When neither did, she leaned forward slightly, taking the lead with the sort of directness the rest of them were clearly avoiding.
"So? Why were you two fighting?"
Cur's mouth opened first. Whatever answer he had ready almost escaped, but then he saw Calliarna shift beside him. She was going to speak. He closed his mouth and forced himself back, though the effort showed in the tightening of his jaw.
"It wasn't a fight. We were simply practicing."
Hariel looked at her for a long moment. He did not smile, and he did not interrupt. That was almost worse. His expression carried the simple certainty of someone who had already decided that what she had said was not true.
"If that was practice, I'd hate to see your lessons."
Calliarna glared at him, sharp enough that it might have stopped someone else. Hariel did not look away. The joke had been light, but his eyes were not. He held her gaze with a calm that made the table feel smaller, as if there was less room now for excuses.
It was strange, sometimes, how different Hariel felt from the boy Cur had first met years ago. Back then, he had carried himself with a kind of restless excitement, always bright around the edges, always ready to laugh or rush into something before thinking it through. Five short years had not taken that away completely, but they had settled it. The same warmth was still there, only steadier now.
He still kept his scruffy hair and the same careless habit of dressing, as if looking polished had never occurred to him as something worth chasing. Even so, it was obvious he took care of himself. His skin looked healthy, his posture had improved, and puberty had treated him with a kindness that was difficult to ignore. Of the three boys at the table, he was easily the most handsome, though that might have said as much about Cur and Markus as it did about him. He had grown well too, now standing at around one metre seventy-five.
He was not as muscular as Cur or Markus, but his body had toned through the years in a quieter, more practical way. He had built only what he needed, enough to wield his sword properly and no more than that. It suited him. Hariel came from a family of fighters and soldiers, but somewhere along the way he had decided his flame would be better used to help people rather than hurt them. Once, no one would have expected that scruffy, excitable kid to become far more skilled in his studies and care than in strength or swordplay.
Even the simple fact that Hariel wore glasses now still felt strangely surprising. It was such a small change, yet it altered the way people looked at him. The scruffy boy was still there beneath them, of course, but the glasses gave his face a calmer shape, something thoughtful and unexpectedly composed. For anyone who had known him before, it was difficult not to notice.
And then there was Anas. She had changed as well, though in a different way. Where Hariel's growth had settled him, hers had sharpened her presence. She carried herself with more confidence now, not loudly and not with any need to be noticed, but with the quiet certainty of someone who understood exactly where she stood. Her face had softened over the years, and her hair had grown longer, though she still kept it tied in the familiar bun Cur remembered from long ago. The fringe remained too, swept to the left and held in place by a clip. This one, however, seemed different from the others she had worn before; small, careful, and clearly chosen for a reason.
She had kept herself healthy as well, though not with the same stubborn dedication Calliarna put into training. Anas had never seemed interested in pushing her body beyond what was necessary. Her future would demand more from her mind than from her muscles, and she appeared to know that perfectly well. Still, there was a sense of discipline in the way she sat, in the steadiness of her hands, and in the sharpness of her attention. She had done enough to support herself, and that, for Anas, had always been the point.
For a while, Anas said nothing. Her eyes moved between Cur and Calliarna, not quickly, but carefully, as if she were measuring the distance between them without needing either of them to explain it. Then, at last, she leaned a little further over the table.
"What's this really about? Cur? Calli?"
Her hands came together on the table, fingers resting neatly against one another. She did not raise her voice, and she did not sound angry. If anything, that made the question harder to avoid. Anas had always been good at finding the centre of things and placing it directly in front of someone.
"From what I saw back there, you two clearly have an issue with each other. And if I'm going to put my finger on it, it's because you refuse to talk."
Calliarna scoffed softly. It was not loud, but it cut through the quiet all the same.
"Oh, he refuses to talk alright."
She crossed one leg over the other as she said it, the movement smooth and controlled. Even irritated, Calliarna somehow managed to keep that noble posture of hers, straight-backed and composed, as though anger itself had to follow etiquette when it passed through her.
Anas, Hariel, and Markus all turned their attention to Cur. None of them said anything immediately. They did not need to. Cur could feel the weight of their eyes settle on him, but he kept his gaze fixed on the table, staring at nothing in particular. The surface in front of him suddenly seemed easier to face than any of them.
"I'm sorr—"
The words had barely left Cur's mouth before Calliarna cut across them. She did not shout at first. Her voice came out sharp and low, carrying a bitter imitation of his own apology.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's all you ever say." Her hands tightened against the edge of the table. "What is so hard about explaining yourself to your friends? Why is that the only answer I ever get from you?"
The table went still around her. Even Markus, who had looked ready to step in, hesitated. Calliarna's breathing had changed, faster now, though she seemed not to notice it herself.
"You mope around most days. You never let go of that spear. You're always buried in those books like if you read enough, whatever this is will disappear." Her voice rose with each word, not quite uncontrolled, but close enough that the restraint itself seemed painful. "And still, all you give us is I'm sorry."
"Calli…"
Calliarna stopped. For a moment, it looked as though she had only just heard herself. Her fingers were curled into tight fists, the knuckles pale, and her eyes flickered from Cur to the others as the weight of what she had said caught up with her.
She pushed her chair back. The legs scraped loudly against the floor, too loud in the quiet cafeteria. No one moved quickly enough to stop her, and perhaps none of them knew whether they should. Calliarna turned away from the table and left with hurried, rigid steps, her posture still proud even as she fled from the conversation.
For a few seconds, Markus, Anas, and Hariel simply watched the space she had left behind. The chair remained slightly out from the table, angled awkwardly, as if it too had been caught in the middle of the argument.
Then Hariel sighed softly and stood.
"I'll bring her back."
He said it with that oh-so-familiar smile of his, small and easy, the kind he used when things were uncomfortable and someone needed to pretend, just for a moment, that they were manageable. Then he followed after her, leaving the remaining three at the table.
As Hariel disappeared from view, a strange sound broke the silence. Markus chuckled first, low and breathless. A moment later, Anas joined him. Cur looked up, startled. Laughing? After that?
Their laughter did not last long. It faded into small, tired smiles as they leaned back in their chairs, the sharpest edge of the moment easing into something neither entirely amused nor entirely serious.
"To think Calliarna could actually break face like that, huh?"
Markus said it lightly, though his eyes still followed the direction Calliarna had gone.
"Well, at least Cur is useful for something." Anas turned her eyes back to him, unable to keep the faint smile from her face. "Out of everyone in the school, you're the only one who can make her lose herself like that."
Outwardly, Cur remained still, caught somewhere between surprise and discomfort. Inwardly, the words twisted deeper than either Markus or Anas likely intended. He did not want to be the person who made Calliarna act that way. Not now, and not any of the times before. He had never wanted to pull that anger out of her, never wanted to become the reason her composure cracked in front of others.
The worst part was that she was right. Every word of it had been true, or close enough that denying it would have felt dishonest. He had changed. The shy but excited child he had once been felt distant now, buried somewhere beneath long days, quiet habits, and the weight of things he still could not say. The others did not know what he was carrying. They could not know. Cur had made sure of that.
But keeping it from them had not made it lighter. It had only placed distance where there should have been trust. He knew he was being unfair, not only to Calliarna, but to Markus, Hariel, and Anas as well. Still, telling them felt impossible. To explain would be to hand them part of the burden, and worse than that, part of the responsibility that came with knowing. Cur could not bring himself to do that. Not yet.
But.
Like so many times before, silence did not stay with him for long. Cur had thought, for one brief and foolish moment, that this would be another of those times when everyone finally stepped away and left him to carry things on his own. He had expected the quiet. Expected the distance. Expected to be left alone with the weight he had chosen not to share.
Then the chair beside the table shifted.
It was such a small sound, barely more than wood and metal moving against the floor, but Cur noticed it immediately. His eyes lifted before he meant them to. Calliarna had returned. She stood there for a heartbeat, not looking at him, not looking at anyone in particular, and yet her presence settled over the table as if she had never truly left.
Hariel came back with her, though he did not sit down this time. He moved behind Anas's chair and rested both hands on the back of it, letting some of his weight settle there. The casual posture almost worked. Almost made it seem as if he had simply stepped away for a moment and returned with nothing fragile in his hands.
"Welcome back."
Markus said it with a small smile, gentle enough that it asked for nothing in return.
Calliarna gave him nothing. She lowered herself into the chair with a stiff kind of grace, as if sitting there was not forgiveness, not surrender, and certainly not an apology. It was merely something she had agreed to do, for reasons she had not yet decided to explain.
She did not look at Cur. Instead, she turned her face toward the tall cafeteria windows, where the Academy gardens stretched beyond the glass in soft spring light. The view gave her somewhere to place her anger without having to hand it back to him.
Cur looked at her. The apology rose in him out of habit, immediate and familiar, but he stopped it before it reached his mouth. Apologies had brought them here. Another one would only prove Calliarna right.
So he breathed in slowly. Held it. Let it out just as carefully. If he was going to speak, every word had to matter. Every word had to give them something more than the same empty shape of regret.
"Look, guys." His fingers curled once against his knee beneath the table. "I'm thankful for everything you're doing. I mean that. And I'm fine, really. It's just… there are things going on. Things that, no matter what I do, I can't seem to fix."
His eyes moved to Calliarna then.
"If I could tell you, I would. Maker knows I want to. But I ca—"
The world stopped.
Not slowly. Not with any warning. One moment Cur was sitting at the table, Calliarna's face turned toward the window, the others waiting for him to finish. The next, all of it vanished.
White surrounded him.
It stretched in every direction, endless and silent, without walls or floor or ceiling that his eyes could properly understand. To anyone else, perhaps, it would have been terrifying. Impossible. Something to question, study, or fear.
To Cur, it was familiar.
Too familiar.
He turned, already searching for the presence he expected to find.
"Era?"
His voice disappeared into the empty brightness.
"Right here."
The voice came from behind him.
Cur turned. Era stood there, shaped like a person and yet never quite still enough to be one. White flame moved across the figure's body in slow, restless flickers, pulling apart at the edges before drawing itself back together again. He had been with Cur for as long as Cur had been aware enough to understand himself. Before memory had proper shape, before Cur had words for what he was, Era had already been there.
"What's going on?" Cur asked.
Era did not answer immediately. The flames along his shoulders lifted and sank, as if moved by a wind that did not exist.
"I am going against my own judgement here," he said at last. "But hear me out."
Era stepped closer. Each movement was quiet, almost weightless, though Cur still felt the distance between them shrink.
"Perhaps…" Era paused, as though the word itself had cost him something. "Perhaps we should tell them."
Cur froze.
Even here, in a place that belonged more to thought than body, the shock moved through him like a flinch.
"That's new," Cur said slowly. "Era, are you telling me to tell people about us?"
"No." Era's answer came quickly. "I am telling you to tell them. And them only."
Cur stared at him. "Why?"
Era looked past him for a moment, into the endless white. "I have had a long time to think about this. Hariel Dohus and Anas Lorkan may not always be with us, but they have proven themselves useful beyond question. Their trust in you is not something I doubt. Markus Heldew is attached to you so closely that calling him a friend almost feels insufficient. And Calliarna Uls…"
He paused there.
"Her reaction made one thing painfully obvious. She cares for you deeply."
Cur tilted his head slightly, still trying to follow the shape of what Era was building toward.
"Okay…?"
"They are connected," Era continued. "Powerful families. Knowledgeable relatives. Friends in places we cannot reach on our own. What I am saying is…"
He hesitated again, and this time Cur noticed it.
"We use that."
Cur's eyes narrowed. "You want to use them?"
Era gave a low sound, not quite agreement and not quite irritation.
"Not like that. Despite my attitude, I do cherish the friendships you have made. I have watched you grow up, after all." His voice softened, though only slightly. "What I am suggesting is that if we tell them, our mission may become easier. It would no longer be only two minds searching for the same answer."
Era looked back at him then. "They are your friends. If they know you are struggling, they will want to help. And we are struggling, Cur. So perhaps it is time we lessen the burden a little."
Cur's expression shifted as the meaning settled properly into place.
"Era…" he said, almost carefully. "Are you saying you want to depend on others?"
Era stared at him.
Then he turned away.
"Forget I said anyth—"
"No, wait." Cur moved quickly, stepping around him to block his path before Era could retreat any further into his pride. "I'm sorry. That one was on me."
He swallowed, then tried again.
"What I meant was… are you sure?"
Era stood still for a long moment.
We are getting nowhere.
It has been fifteen years since we have been together, and only half of that time has truly been useful. Our search has given us nothing. Not a path. Not an answer. Not even a proper direction.
But even if we have found nothing, I do not want him to lose what he already has.
At last, Era faced him again.
"Let's do it. If you cannot explain it, I will."
Cur watched him closely. For a moment, he said nothing. Then a small smile touched his mouth, brief but real.
"Alright."
The cafeteria returned all at once, but Cur did not move with it.
The white vanished. Sound came back in uneven pieces: the distant clink of cups, the low movement of staff behind the counter, the faint scrape of someone shifting in their seat. The table was there again beneath his hands. The others were still around him, still waiting, caught in the same unfinished breath he had left them in.
Cur did not finish the sentence he had started. He no longer wanted to. For the first time in longer than he cared to admit, the thought of speaking did not feel like stepping toward a cliff. It still frightened him. Of course it did. But beneath that fear was something else now, small and fragile and difficult to name.
He looked to Calliarna first. She was still turned partly away from him, her gaze lowered toward the table rather than the gardens now. Even so, Cur could tell she was listening. Her shoulders were too still. Her hands rested too carefully in her lap. She was trying not to look as though she cared, and failing just enough for him to notice.
Cur drew in a slow breath.
"Alright…"
It was only one word, quiet enough that it should not have changed anything. Yet it did.
Calliarna finally turned toward him. Not quickly, and not all at once, but with the careful slowness of someone afraid of what they might see if they moved too fast. Markus straightened in his chair so abruptly that one hand caught the edge of the table to steady himself. Anas's expression sharpened, her earlier teasing gone completely, while Hariel's fingers tightened around the back of her chair.
For a moment, none of them spoke. They only watched him, as if even breathing too loudly might make him change his mind.
Cur let the silence sit there. He needed it. Needed one last second in which the truth still belonged only to him and Era. Then he gave that second up.
"…I'll tell you what's going on."
----
Cur opened the wooden door to his dorm room and paused with his hand still on the handle.
For a moment, he did not step inside. The conversation from the cafeteria had followed them all the way here, not in words, but in the silence between them. Markus stood close behind him. Hariel and Anas waited a little further back. Calliarna said nothing at all. Cur could feel her presence without needing to turn around.
Eventually, Cur pushed the door open fully. The hinges gave a soft complaint, and the familiar smell of wood, paper, and old ink reached him before the room itself did. It should have been comforting. Usually, it was. His room had always been one of the few places where the noise of the Academy thinned into something manageable.
After second year, students in Cur's year had been given the option to live in the Academy dormitories instead of returning home every evening. Not everyone had taken it. Some could not, for one reason or another. Others simply had no desire to leave their families so completely, so suddenly. For Cur, however, the offer had felt almost impossible to refuse.
Living here meant freedom. More time in the training grounds. More hours in the library. More chances to search for answers in whatever scraps of old text, half-forgotten records, or strange theories he could find. Students who lived outside the Academy had to leave the premises by eight o'clock at night. Cur did not. He could enter most facilities whenever he wished, and for someone like him, that privilege had become more useful than comfort.
He had also been a little relieved, though he would never have said so aloud, to escape the daily chores waiting at home. He had never complained about them. Not once. Still, there was a quiet kind of relief in closing a door at the end of the day and knowing the space beyond it belonged only to him.
The five of them stepped inside slowly. Markus and Hariel had been here before, so their eyes passed over the room with the ease of familiarity. Anas and Calliarna, however, took it in more carefully. Neither of them said anything at first, and somehow that made Cur more aware of every object in the room than he had been in months.
By Academy standards, the room was generous. It was large enough for one person to live in without feeling trapped, but not so large that anyone would mistake it for a proper home. There was no kitchen, no private bathing room, nothing extravagant. Just a single room with dark wooden walls, a lighter shade of wood across the floor and ceiling, a round window set into the far wall, and a few warm light sources that softened the corners when evening came.
Everything else in it had been brought in over time, either by Cur himself or through the help of his parents. Nothing looked expensive. Nothing had been chosen to impress. The room was practical before it was personal, though the longer one looked, the harder it became to separate the two.
To the right of the entrance stood his bed. It was a simple single bed, made with white and grey bedding and one pillow. The sheets were pulled tight, the blanket folded cleanly, the pillow placed exactly where it should be. Cur had been taught to make it properly every morning, and he still did so before thinking of leaving the room. Even on the mornings when he barely slept. Even on the days when there were more important things waiting.
Near the bed were several bookshelves and a narrow wardrobe for clothes. The shelves had long since stopped holding only books. Notes were slipped between volumes. Loose papers leaned against stacked journals. A few bookmarks, scraps of ribbon, and folded lists stuck out at uneven angles, marking places Cur had meant to return to and had not yet found the courage to abandon.
Straight ahead, beneath the round window, sat the largest table in the room. The glass above it was clear and recently cleaned, offering a view down to the Academy grounds far below. From the third floor, the people outside looked smaller than they were, moving between paths and gardens as if they belonged to a quieter world.
The table itself was the opposite of quiet. Books lay open beside rolled scrolls, ink pots, loose quills, copied diagrams, and uneven stacks of documents. Some pages had been weighted down with small tools. Others had been marked again and again until the writing in the margins nearly swallowed the original text. Cur had tried to keep it organised. In a way, it was. Just not in a way anyone else could easily understand.
On the left side of the room was a small training area. Nothing elaborate, only enough open space to move, stretch, and repeat the same forms until his arms ached. A few pieces of simple armour rested nearby, along with tools and unfinished crafts Cur had slowly begun making in his spare time. Some were useful. Some were not. Most of them, he suspected, had started as an excuse to keep his hands busy when his mind would not rest.
All in all, it was a simple room. But standing there with the others behind him, Cur realised how much of himself it showed. The neat bed. The crowded table. The training space. The books, the tools, the quiet order fighting against quiet obsession. He had brought them here because there was no avoiding the truth anymore, but for a moment, letting them see the room felt almost as difficult as telling them what had brought them to it.
"I know it's not much," Cur said, stepping aside from the doorway, "but take a seat wherever you like."
He moved out of the way and let them pass. Markus was the first inside, as if the invitation had been meant for him alone. He crossed the room with familiar ease and dropped himself onto the bed. The mattress gave beneath him, bounced once, and then settled with a soft creak. Markus stayed where he was, stretched out and waiting, though even his attempt at comfort could not quite hide the attention in his eyes.
Hariel came in next. Out of habit, he reached for the small chair tucked beneath the table and pulled it back a little. Then he paused. His eyes moved from the chair, to Anas, to Calliarna, and he seemed to remember that this was not one of the usual evenings when it was only him, Markus, and Cur hiding away in here.
The girls entered after him, more slowly. Anas's gaze passed over the table first, then the bookshelves, then the notes and half-finished work spread across the room. Calliarna looked less openly curious, but Cur saw the way her attention caught on certain things all the same. After a brief silence, Anas took the chair Hariel had abandoned, while Calliarna sat at the foot of the bed, leaving enough space between herself and Markus to make the choice seem deliberate.
Anas glanced at the documents on the table, not for long, but long enough to show she was trying to understand them. Most of the diagrams and copied notes meant little to her at first glance. At least for now. Calliarna's attention drifted instead toward the armour Cur had been working on. She did not reach for it, and she did not comment, but her eyes lingered over the shape of the plates and the care in the joins. Whatever else she thought of him in that moment, she could recognise good work when she saw it.
Cur closed the door behind them. The click of the latch sounded louder than it should have. He stood with his back to it for a moment, feeling the room settle around him, then crossed to the open space on the left where there was enough room to stand without knocking into the table or the bed.
Everyone watched him. They tried not to make it feel like staring, and that somehow made their care more obvious. Markus kept one arm folded behind his head but said nothing. Hariel leaned lightly against the table. Anas sat very still. Calliarna's gaze remained steady, guarded, and waiting. None of them wanted to frighten him out of this. None of them wanted to be the reason he stopped.
Cur clasped his hands together once, then let them fall apart again. It was a useless gesture, but he needed something to do with them. He drew in a deep breath, held it until his chest began to ache, and finally forced himself to speak.
"Okay, so…" He swallowed. "Please don't be alarmed."
That, predictably, made all of them look more alarmed.
Cur closed his eyes. For a few seconds, nothing happened. The room remained as it was: the quiet bed, the crowded table, the smell of ink and paper, the four people waiting in front of him. Then the air beside him began to brighten.
White flame gathered in silence. It did not burn the floor, and it gave off no heat that Cur could feel, yet it filled the room with a pale, shifting light. The shape formed slowly at first, then all at once became familiar: tall, still, and unmistakably present. Era stood beside him, towering over Cur even now. Cur had grown plenty since childhood, but the figure still reached close to two metres, and for once he was grateful his room was larger than most.
When Cur opened his eyes, he did not look at Era first. He looked at his friends. None of them had moved far. No one had screamed. No one had run for the door. In that sense, they were doing exactly what he had asked. Their faces, however, told a far louder story. Shock, wonder, confusion, and something close to disbelief stared back at him from every corner of the room. Cur felt a strange, uneasy relief that their eyes were no longer fixed only on him. Somehow, that also made it worse.
"Cur…" Markus said first, slowly rising onto one elbow. "You have an Avatar?"
Hariel's eyes were just as bright. It had been years since Cur had seen that particular look on either of them, the old childhood wonder surfacing through all the weight of the moment.
Cur tried to smile. It came out small, thin, and not nearly as reassuring as he wanted it to be.
"Not exactly." He glanced up at Era, then back to them. "Unlike the Avatar of Stars that Calli possesses, or the Avatar of Fortune belonging to Anas… this is…"
Cur faltered there. The explanation tangled before it reached his tongue, heavy with too many years and too many secrets. Era seemed to notice.
"I am Era."
For one breath, the room did not react at all.
Then everyone moved at once.
Anas shot to her feet, the chair scraping hard against the floor. Calliarna stood almost as quickly, one hand half-raised as if unsure whether she should reach for a weapon that was not there. Markus sat upright with a look of pure, impossible delight, while Hariel stepped forward before remembering that surprise was not the same as permission.
"It talks!?"
The words came from more than one of them at once, overlapping in a rush that was much louder than Cur had hoped for.
Cur's hand snapped up before he could think better of it, one finger pressed quickly to his lips. His eyes darted to the door, listening for footsteps in the corridor, for voices, for any sign that someone outside had heard. The room held its breath with him.