The dragon flew steady and smooth, without a single jolt. The wind was gentle enough that the four women could stand close together without effort,as if this weren't the back of a legendary beast, but some familiar place you returned to after years away.
"I can't believe we're standing together again," Valerys said, her red hair snapping lightly in the breeze, amusement in her voice like the whole idea was ridiculous. "Remember the last time he gathered us 'for a moment,' and it turned into two years apart?"
"It was three," Seris corrected calmly, stroking her long violet hair. "And you weren't that brave back then. You complained the entire first week."
Valerys snorted.
"I complained because he sent me north. You got forests and silence."
"And people who cried when I demanded anything of them," Seris replied without malice. "We all had our share."
One of the twins, Iria,small and fair-haired,smiled briefly.
"You only cried once," she said to Seris. "At night. You thought we were asleep."
Seris lifted a brow.
"That was fatigue."
"Of course," the other twin, Lune, cut in instantly, wearing the same bright, innocent smile as always. "Just like when Valerys burned down the whole courtyard and said it 'had to be done.'"
"That was a wall endurance test," Valerys muttered. "The wall failed."
Iria gave a quiet, breathy laugh.
"The Master said if you 'test the wall' again, you'll rebuild it with your own hands."
"And I did," Valerys shrugged. "Better than it was."
"Still crooked," Lune added, face perfectly guileless.
Valerys shot her a sharp look,then, after a beat, only smiled.
"I missed this," she admitted at last. "You. Even Iria counting everything three times, and Lune believing the world can be fixed with a conversation."
Lune lit up even more.
"Because it can," she said with complete conviction. "At least sometimes."
"And that's exactly why someone has to stop you from trying to talk to bandits who already set a village on fire," Seris said.
"Or elites who think they're immortal," Iria added, voice flat.
For a moment, all four of them laughed softly, and the wind carried the sound out over the sea,as if the world forgot, just for a heartbeat, who they really were, and what they'd been raised to become.
Then Aurelian's voice,calm, not demanding silence,cut through them.
"We're here."
The dragon hovered, perfectly still. And when the wind faded for a breath, it became painfully obvious there was nothing beneath them but water,stretching in every direction, heavy and serene. No islands. No ruins. Nothing you could call a destination.
Valerys narrowed her eyes and looked again, like the world might correct itself if she stared hard enough.
"That's… it?" she said at last, half amused, half irritated. "Sea. Water. Nothing else. You said Academy, not a sightseeing trip."
"Maybe it's underwater?" Lune offered cheerfully, leaning forward,before Iria caught her by the waist and tugged her back without a word. "Or… it's just not visible yet?"
"Or he didn't tell us everything again," Iria said coolly, staring ahead now, her smile gone. "Which would be… extremely on brand."
Seris, who'd been quiet until then, stopped playing with her hair. Her hand fell to her side as her gaze hardened, the violet of her eyes brightening like someone had lit a lamp behind them.
"Wait," she said, slower.
The other three looked at her almost in unison.
Seris wasn't watching the surface anymore. She was looking deeper,into the place where ordinary sight only saw darker water. Her breathing caught.
"Do you feel that…" she began, then finished more quietly. "This isn't normal sea."
Valerys swore under her breath and focused too. A sharp, aggressive red spread into her eyes as her smile vanished.
"Damn it," she muttered.
Iria and Lune traded a split-second glance, then their eyes brightened as well,each in a different way, one red and one violet,like pure instinct, no need to coordinate.
"A dungeon," Iria said matter-of-factly. "And not a small one."
"A catastrophe," Lune added, softer, without her usual enthusiasm.
For a moment none of them looked at each other. All four stared at the same point beneath the surface, feeling pressure that had no right to be this clear from this far away.
Valerys turned first, looking at Aurelian with disbelief that sharpened into something harsher.
"We were supposed to go to the Academy," she said, hard. "To your grand vision. Not to a Catastrophe-rank dungeon."
"That wasn't the plan," Seris added more evenly, but her voice was tight. "At least not in this order."
"So why are we here?" Iria asked. "Because if this is some test, I'm telling you now,it's spectacularly badly announced."
Aurelian didn't answer right away.
He stood on the dragon's back like the weight of the place beneath them was a curiosity, not something that could bend the world out of shape. Then he smiled,slight, familiar, the kind of smile that always meant he was about to do something everyone else would call a terrible idea.
He raised a hand and pointed down, dead center in the calm sheet of water.
"Right here," he said, calmly. "Exactly here, the Academy will be built."
Silence fell.
Lune opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
"You're… joking," she said finally, without much conviction.
"Right?" Valerys added, even though she already knew what the answer would be. "Because if you're not, then even for you this is absurd."
Seris stared at him for a long moment, trying to assemble it into a whole that made sense.
"The Academy," she repeated slowly. "Over… that."
Iria let out a short laugh, not amused.
Aurelian watched their faces for a while, as if he genuinely enjoyed the disbelief,this moment where they still searched for a version of reality where what he'd said wasn't fully serious. Then he laughed, loud and brief and unrestrained, like someone who knew exactly what he'd just dropped them into,and felt perfectly comfortable there.
"Relax," he said, waving a hand, amused. "If it were truly impossible, I wouldn't be standing here with you."
But his laughter faded, and his voice took on that second tone they all knew too well,calm, heavy, the one that meant the situation was worse than it looked.
"The dungeon appeared about seven days ago," he added matter-of-factly. "And it's close to overload. If it's left alone, sooner or later there'll be a catastrophe that wipes everything off the sea for days of sailing in every direction."
Valerys clenched her jaw. Seris looked down again with new focus. Iria's shoulders tightened, like she was already calculating consequences.
Aurelian crooked a smile.
"So I'll do what I always do," he said lightly. "I'll go have a talk with this dungeon's boss and let it know that if it wants to keep existing, it'll have to help me with a few things."
Like he was discussing an annoying clerk, not walking into a Catastrophe-rank dungeon.
"While I'm doing that, you'll create the foundation the Academy can stand on," Aurelian added, a small smile still on his face.
Before any of them could protest,or even ask what, exactly, he meant,Aurelian had already stepped off the dragon's back.
His figure dropped with terrifying speed, slicing through the air. A heartbeat later he hit the water with a crash that rippled across the sea like an explosion. Two seconds after that, where there had only been calm surface, the dungeon's portal flared,his silhouette flickering before it for an instant, then vanishing completely.
Silence settled over the dragon.
Lune broke it first, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, hands clenched in excitement.
"Did you see that?!" she burst out, practically squealing. "He just, jumped alone, into a Catastrophe-rank dungeon. He's incredible. He really is. He's…"
"Divine?" Iria smacked the back of her head, not hard, but enough to stop the flood of worship. "Stop. He's just an idiot with a savior complex."
Lune rubbed her head, not even looking offended.
"But an effective idiot," she muttered.
Valerys huffed quietly, shaking her head.
"There isn't a second person in the world who'd do that without a moment of hesitation," she said. "And that might be the most unsettling part."
Seris nodded slowly.
"And the most… consistent."
For a moment, all four stared down at the spot where he'd disappeared, all of them aware that whatever happened below, they had no control over it.
"Alright," Iria said at last, straightening. "He left us with a job."
Valerys looked at her and said in a voice trying to imitate their master.
"'Create a foundation the Academy can be built on,'" she repeated slowly. "Knowing him, he doesn't mean symbolism."
"Or metaphor," Seris added.
Lune swallowed and looked down at the sea again.
"So… what exactly are we supposed to do?"
The silence that followed was heavier than wind and water.
And none of them yet had the nerve to say the answer out loud.