The train hissed to a final stop, its glyph-lined engines exhaling a plume of greenish steam into the morning air. Hari Mikamo didn't stand. He sat still while the rest of the passengers gathered their luggage and drifted toward the open doors, their voices full of nerves or excitement.
A pair of Etis girls passed his row, chatting in quick, clipped whispers. One of them slowed, eyes flicking toward him tall, broad-shouldered, slouched slightly like someone used to cramped spaces. His clothes were plain: coarse, sun-faded cotton and an old scarf tied loosely around his wrist. Not a trace of Nous shimmered on him. Not a single glyph or emblem. No badge. No blade.
"Do you think he's lost?" the girl whispered.
"No. Look at his eyes," the other replied, already moving on. "He knows exactly where he is."
He waited until the car had mostly emptied, then stood.
Outside the station, the Academy District stretched wide and glittering, a different world from the one he'd left. Towering glyph-lamps swirled in soft geometric spirals, casting golden light on obsidian tile streets. Trees lined the walkways in symmetrical rows, their leaves humming faintly with embedded runes even the plants here were enchanted. Somewhere above, a Nouson passed overhead with a high shriek, its wings trailing ribbons of electric blue light.
Hari squinted. Too clean. Too quiet.
The Academy itself sat ahead, framed by twin pillars of etched crystal. They reached five stories high, buzzing softly with dormant spells. On the arch overhead, a line was carved in the Old Tongue:
THE WILL OF THE GODS IS ABSOLUTE.
He didn't slow as he approached.
Students gathered nearby, most in tailored uniforms or embroidered robes. They stood in little groups: laughing, whispering, watching others with thinly veiled curiosity. When Hari stepped into view, more than a few turned.
A Sika boy near the front stared too long. One of his friends elbowed him. "Don't. You'll get that look stuck on you."
Hari ignored them all. He kept walking slow, steady, deliberate like someone who had nothing to prove and no time to waste.
A soft glow pulsed at his waist. A borrowed belt, part of the travel kit they'd given him in the slums. The rune embedded in the buckle flashed blue, guiding him to a side arch away from the main procession of new students. Two Enforcers stood watch, their faces hard, uniforms pressed so tight they barely seemed real.
"Name," one barked as he approached.
"Hari Mikamo," he said, voice low but clear.
The older of the two tapped a crystal slate. His eyes narrowed. "Slum designation… Sector Thirteen?" He said it like it smelled bad.
Hari didn't blink.
A pause. The slate chimed once. A confirmation glyph bloomed over the screen, and the rune at Hari's belt shifted from blue to green.
The younger guard looked confused. "Wait, he's—?"
"Queen's direct summon," the older one muttered. "No escort. He goes alone."
They stepped aside, and the private gate creaked open.
Hari stepped through, leaving the murmurs and sideways glances behind.
No weapons. No formal training.
But something about the way he moved the quiet discipline, the stillness in his eyes made a few of the new students hesitate before laughing again.
The path curved uphill through a garden unlike anything Hari had seen.
White gravel crunched beneath his steps, bordered on both sides by rows of violet glass lilies not flowers, not quite. Their stems pulsed with embedded Nous, petals fluttering even without wind. In the slums, people lined their roofs with broken plates to keep rain from caving in. Here, they grew light just for beauty.
At the top of the path stood a modest structure, a glasshouse with sloped panes and living roots crawling along its sides like veins. A single Enforcer in silver-plated armor stood at the door, but he didn't move to stop Hari. Just nodded once, then turned away.
Hari stepped inside.
The air changed immediately. Humid, warm, and laced with scent of mint, jasmine, something older beneath it. Vines hung from the ceiling beams like sleeping serpents. There were no guards inside. No visible spells. Just a raised circular platform in the center where a woman sat cross-legged on a woven mat.
Queen Sophia Doyle.
She looked younger than he expected. Pale Etis skin, long Afrumi white hair that was braided back, glinting like brushed silver under the filtered sun. She wore no crown. No jewels. Just a robe of deep violet, embroidered at the sleeves with tiny golden leaves that shimmered when she moved.
Hari stopped a few paces short of the platform and waited.
She didn't look up.
Instead, she poured a cup of tea from a carved clay pot and set it gently beside her. "Sit, Mr. Mikamo."
He didn't. "This won't take long."
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She finally met his gaze; her eyes were almost translucent, like looking into frozen glass. "No, I suppose not. But you came. That already says more than you think."
Hari stayed standing.
Sophia reached for her tea and took a slow sip. "You were hard to find. After the riots, most people with your kind of presence vanish into the cracks."
"I didn't come to play games," he said.
"Good," she said calmly. "I don't enjoy wasting time, either."
The glasshouse creaked softly as the sun shifted overhead. Somewhere beyond the roots, Nouson wings fluttered in the air like paper caught in wind. Hari's hands remained at his sides, not clenched, not loose. Just waiting.
"You fought," she said. "In Sector Thirteen, when the food riot broke out. You saved a child. You carried her for three miles on foot through a burning district, then disappeared before medics arrived."
Her voice wasn't impressed. It was just… observant.
Hari's eyes narrowed slightly. "That wasn't your district."
"No. But nothing in Liv is untouched anymore."
He said nothing.
She set the teacup down. "You have no record of formal education. No known Nous potential. And yet you were seen by six different informants during the incident. Not for how you fought" she tilted her head slightly "but for how people moved around you. How they followed you without knowing why."
Hari didn't move.
"I invited you to the Academy not because you're gifted," she said. "But because you're needed. Whether you want that or not."
"And if I say no?"
Sophia exhaled through her nose, not quite a laugh. "You already know the answer. That daughter of yours Elori, isn't it?"
The name hit like a whisper in the chest. Soft. Direct.
Hari's eyes sharpened. Just a flicker. "Leave her out of this."
"I intend to," Sophia said, unbothered. "But the world won't. You've kept her safe so far, but how long will that last? The Nouson migration is worsening. The borderlines are unstable. There's talk of revolt in three sectors. If you think you can protect her with stubbornness alone"
"I'll do what I have to."
Sophia leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping in volume but not in weight. "Then do more. You have instinct, Mr. Mikamo. Will. But no reach. No allies. You can't fight what's coming by yourself. And make no mistake, it is coming."
Hari stared at her. For a long time.
Then: "You think sending me to school makes me a soldier?"
"No," she said. "It makes you a piece on the board. One that can move."
Silence hung in the air again, thicker this time.
Finally, Hari took a breath. "I'll think about it."
Sophia smiled without showing her teeth. "I already knew you would."
Hari didn't remember leaving the glasshouse.
He walked the path in reverse, eyes unfocused, barely hearing the crunch of gravel beneath his boots. The violet lilies blinked open and shut like sleeping eyes, casting flickers of colored light across his face, but he didn't look at them. Not this time.
The garden emptied into a small courtyard lined with obsidian benches and a dry fountain carved in the shape of a tree with no leaves. He sat. Slowly. The stone was cold through the thin fabric of his pants, but he didn't move to adjust. Stillness came easy to him.
His body ached. Not from exhaustion from the memory of tension.
Sophia's words echoed in the pit of his chest.
"Then do more."
"You can't fight what's coming by yourself."
Elori.
He exhaled through his nose, eyes drifting up to the sky. It was strange here. Clean. The clouds looked too perfect, the sun too gold. Back home, the sky was always a little sick gray or green, clogged with smoke and moisture. But that sky had felt real. This one felt like a lie painted to cover something rotting underneath.
A faint humming buzzed nearby a Nouson in the shape of a hummingbird hovered near one of the benches, inspecting him with clicking movements. It wasn't hostile. Just curious.
Hari turned his head slightly. "I'm not special."
The Nouson blinked once. Its eye glowed. Then it darted away.
He looked down and thumbed the ring strung around his wrist a bit of copper wire, twisted delicately, barely holding together the cobalt-blue bead at its center.
"For luck," she had said, handing it to him without ceremony, "in case gratitude doesn't come back."
His thumb brushed the bead once. It was warm from his skin.
There'd been a riot. A girl had fallen. He had picked her up. That was it. That was the whole story. He hadn't done it to be seen. He hadn't done it to inspire.
He'd done it because no one else did.
Now the Queen of Virelia wanted him to become something else, not a fighter, not a student. A piece. A man shaped by purpose that wasn't his own.
But Elori had known better. She'd known the world wouldn't always say thank you. Wouldn't always recognize what people like them gave up just to endure.
And still, she'd given him luck.
He turned the bead once more in silence. The wire was beginning to tarnish, but it held.
He imagined her face when he told her everyday before coming home late. Eyes wide. Lips pressed together, holding back what she really felt. She was small, but she understood more than most grown men he'd met. She'd listen. She'd nod. She'd say, "You have to go, right?"
And he'd lie and say, "Not for long."
Hari stood.
He looked toward the Academy tower rising in the distance at all angles and stone and polished history. He wasn't walking into a school. He was walking into a world that didn't want him, one that would chew him up if he wasn't careful.
But for Elori...
He'd walk anyway.
Later that night. Back at Kling's Hari was home. That home was Elori.
Elori didn't look at him when he stepped in.
She sat curled near the crash mats, blanket draped over her shoulders like armor. Her knees were pulled tight to her chest. The room was quiet, save for the soft hum of old lights and the muffled city outside.
Hari stood by the doorway a moment, unsure if he should speak. Then:
"You're still awake."
Elori's voice was flat. "You didn't say where you were going."
He crossed the room slowly and lowered himself beside her. She didn't scoot away, but she didn't lean in either.
"I went to see the person who sent the letter," he said.
"Queen Sophia?"
Hari nodded. "She asked me to come in person."
"You left without telling me anything."
"I didn't know what it was," he admitted. "Didn't want to promise something I might walk away from."
She stared straight ahead. "But you didn't walk away."
"No."
Elori was quiet for a while. "Why?"
Hari rested his forearms on his knees, voice low. "She saw the riot. Knew about the girl I carried. Knew about you."
Her head turned sharply. "What do you mean she knew about me?"
"She said your name."
Elori blinked, eyes hard. "Why would the Queen care about me?"
"She doesn't. Not really. She used you to make a point."
Her mouth tightened. "So you said yes because she threatened me?"
"No, because the world threatens you."
Elori pulled her blanket tighter, like the cold had found its way in. "And now what?"
Hari hesitated. "I'm going to the Academy."
She didn't react at first. Then: "The Enforcer Academy?"
He nodded.
"That's for people with power, with a wish." she said quietly. "You don't—"
"I know."
She paused, eyes scanning his face. "Then why send you?"
Hari looked down at the bead on his wrist, thumb brushing it slowly. "Because she thinks I make people move. Even if I don't mean to."
"That's not power," Elori muttered.
"It is to her."
"And to you?"
Hari exhaled through his nose. "I don't know what it is. But it's the only thing I've been offered that might keep you safe."
Elori looked away. "You think I'm just something to protect."
"No. I think you're everything I've got."
She flinched at that small, involuntary jerk of her head.
Then she said, without looking at him, "You should've told me first."
"I'm telling you now."
"Too late."
Hari didn't argue. He couldn't.
He waited.
Eventually, she spoke again. "So what now? You become some sword-waving hero and forget the rest of us?"
"I remember everything," he said. "Even when I don't want to."
She looked at the ring on his wrist, her voice softening. "You kept it."
"Couldn't lose it if I tried."
"I thought you would."
Hari gave her a faint smile. "You don't know me that well, then."
She looked him in the eye. "I know enough."
For the first time since he entered, she leaned toward him, her shoulder resting lightly against his arm.
"When you come back," she murmured, "I want to be strong enough that you don't worry about me anymore."
Hari closed his eyes for a moment. "Deal."
They stayed like that for a while, no more words. Just quiet.
Eventually, Hari stood. She didn't ask him not to. She didn't say goodbye.
And neither did he.
But she looked up once, just before he stepped through the door.
"I hope they're ready for you."
He didn't answer.
He just walked.
Hari pushed past the door without looking back. The air outside was colder now or maybe it just felt that way after being near Elori.
He didn't make it far.
"Leaving without saying anything to me?"
Ken Kling leaned against the rusted railing by the steps, arms crossed, a towel slung over one shoulder. His eyes sharp, shadowed didn't blink.
Hari stopped.
"I wasn't trying to be rude," he said quietly.
Ken nodded. "That's the problem with you. Always thinking courtesy is optional just because your heart's in the right place."
Hari didn't answer. He waited.
Ken studied him for a moment, then tilted his head. "So it's real? The Academy?"
Hari gave a slow nod.
Ken exhaled through his nose. "I figured. You don't walk like someone going back to bed."
"Did she say anything?"
"Elori?" Ken shook his head. "Not a word. She just curled up and waited. That girl's tougher than you think."
"I know how tough she is," Hari said.
Ken looked him over. "You look like a man walking into war."
Hari met his eyes. "Feels like it."
Ken tapped his knuckles on the railing. "You want advice?"
"No," Hari said. Then added, more quietly, "But I'll listen."
Ken smirked just a little. "Good. That's step one: knowing you don't know everything."
He pushed off the rail, walked closer.
"I've seen a lot of strong guys get ground down once they leave this side of the city," Ken said. "They don't fail because they're weak. They fail because they forget what made them strong in the first place."
Hari didn't blink. "I'm not trying to impress anyone."
"Doesn't matter. Liv doesn't care what you're trying. It just chews and swallows."
Hari looked past him toward the skyline. The edge of the Academy tower was just visible, silhouetted like a blade against the sky.
Ken followed his gaze.
"You gonna come back?" he asked.
Hari didn't answer right away. He looked down at the bead on his wrist.
"For her," he said. "Yeah."
Ken clapped a hand once on his shoulder firm, quick, gone just as fast. "Then go."
Hari nodded.
No more words.
He turned.
And this time, he didn't stop walking.