*10 dreams years and 2 real years ago*

  13 year old Cassian had just finished his daily Starling training at the arena and was plodding along home. As usual, he’d done well. His Adept rank instructors were again impressed by his fast growth, but he knew he still had ways to go as a Starling. Since he was selected as one, his parents had drilled that into him. Everyday was the same hellish routine. Wake up in the middle of the night to eat dried magic beast jerky, train like a dog till afternoon, another meal of magic beast jerky and then lessons in all types of subjects until the evening. After all of that, he would head home, be given a square meal and sent off to bed.

  His only solace these days was a detour to the flowerbeds he took on his way home. It cost him an extra 20 minutes of walking, but he loved the flowers and made the detour every time. Unfortunately his parents were beginning to zero in on the fact that he was always coming home late, so he had to do it quickly if he wanted to avoid any further admonishments.

  Today was no different, except for the young girl standing in front of him. She was about his age and stuck out like a sore thumb. Where all the Moons wore loose dark clothes to reflect their worship and affinity for the moon, this girl wore a loose white dress with tight purple fabrics wrapped around it in chaotic patterns.

  A sister of the dream. He’d heard about them in his religious history lessons, zealous worshippers of the Dream icon. They were a covenant of women with prophetic powers. Their prophecies were popular amongst young nobles as a sort of gossip material, but nothing much more than that. The Sisterhood of Dreams often made wrong predictions, largely thanks to the difficulty of binding to the Dream icon.

  Every mage above Unbound rank had to choose an icon to bind to in their binding ritual. This allowed them to draw from the natural pool of mana from their icon to cast spells. Virtually anything could be chosen as an icon. But the more abstract and unspecific an icon was, the more difficult it was to bind to in the ritual. Being that each failed binding ritual permanently weakens the mage’s magic, very little attempted to bind to an abstract icon.

  As a result, sisters of the dream often bonded to icons in proximity to dreams, and worked to cast spells together to approximate true dream spells. Though, these spells often were not accurate.

  The Moon estate was a large sprawling thing, more akin to a small town, and it wasn’t rare for the occasional straggler to wander into the place and get lost. Cassian wouldn’t have batted an eye at the girl any other day, but her defiant, almost challenging look told him she wasn’t a straggler. That, and her dark purple eyes. Twinkling stars churned deep inside them, swirling like a galaxy.

  This was either some form of magical cosmetic item, or a rank manifestation. He doubted the former, considering they were prohibitively expensive items almost entirely restricted to nobles. The sisterhood of dreams was known for being… scrappy, which would mean the latter. But that would have been just as impossible. Rank manifestations were a side effect of a mage ranking up, often entirely personal to each mage. They appeared as unnatural growths or changes to the mage’s body. Different eye colors were a very common rank manifestation, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that people only became mages after the binding ritual, usually done at age 15.

  This girl was no older than him but already had a rank manifestation. Something was off.

  “Hello, Cassian Moon.”

  “Buzz off.”

  After what seemed like a forever of silence, the mystery girl finally spoke again.

  “Cassian Moon. You are the saviour of the world, renounce your lineage and embark on a journey with me to defeat the threat that will end the world!” she loudly proclaimed.

  Any and all intrigue Cassian had was wiped from his mind as he realised she was just another zealot.

  “Get out of my way, you crazy zealot.” Cassian made to move past her, giving her a wide berth.

  “How dare you! I am the Queen of Dreams and I won’t stand for being called that!”

  Cassian ignored her and kept up his pace. Seeing him ignore her, the young girl grew irate, and the cloud bracelets around her wrists floated off to ensnare Cassian’s limbs. Tired and caught off guard, Cassian started yelling and writhing about wildly as the clouds easily carried him into the air.

  “What are you doing!?”

  “I told you, the world is in danger and you’re the only one who can save it. We, the sisters of the dream, saw it in a prophecy. If you won’t follow me willingly, I’m going to have to take you with me.”

  Cassian had regained his composure and his mind kicked into fight mode. Clearly, the girl was not Unbound like him. He didn’t know what rank of mage she was yet, but it was enough to cast spells, and that meant he was outclassed. Each rank up gave a mage not only better magical powers, but also fundamentally changed their physical bodies to make them stronger. If he ran, she’d likely catch up to him in no time. He would have to fight.

  With a sudden movement, he released a localised burst of raw mana around his limbs, temporarily dispersing the clouds. As soon as he hit the floor, Cassian kicked off the ground and sent a fist launching at the young girl’s face.

  The young girl gave a surprised look. “Aren’t you Unbound?” she said as she casually directed another cloud to intercept his punch.

  Unbeknownst to her, Cassian had discretely cast a magic missile to the side when he hit the ground, and it was now rounding back to hit her in the head. Magic missiles were one of the few things close to a spell that an Unbound could cast. It took a lot of practice to cast one, but Cassian had mastered them and even learned to curve his missiles after his first week of training.

  As predicted, the cloud easily blocked his punch, but also drew the girl’s attention. To make extra sure she didn’t notice the missile closing in on her head, he sent another rush of mana into his fist. Much to his surprise however, the cloud barely moved an inch.

  “I didn’t know you could do that before, so I wasn’t using a lot of force, but that’s not happening again.” the young girl said as the cloud began to envelope his entire arm with a mounting pressure.

  Cassian almost panicked but saw his magic missile coming in, and watched as it landed squarely on the back of her head with a violent thud. In his training, his magic missiles were strong enough to break wooden targets. Even his Adept rank instructors would get bruises if they took too many of his missiles. A direct hit to the head with one of them would undoubtedly stagger the girl long enough for him to attack again.

  Except it didn’t, and the girl casually brushed the back of her head. “You did that?”

  He was speechless, she seemed almost happy.

  “You really are the prophecy mage then,” she said.

  In an instant, the cloud around his arm wrapped his entire body and before he knew it, he was lulled into a deep sleep. He dreamt of magic beast jerky that wasn’t dry and chalky.

  ***

  When he woke up, it was a pleasant feeling. The long days of training had worn him out so much he hadn’t even realised it until he had a truly deep rest. He was lying on a field of lush grass on a hill he’d never seen before. The air here seemed clearer and fresher, the wind was more gentle and the setting sun looked warmer.

  “You awake?” came the girl’s voice from behind him.

  Immediately Cassian was startled into panic mode again and sprung off the grass. Turning around, he saw the girl lazing casually with her back to a tree. Her galaxy purple eyes stared at him, and the clouds she used to apprehend were back to being bracelets again. That likely meant it was another rank manifestation. Two rank manifestations placed her at Adept rank, which explained how strong she was.

  However, he was struggling to piece things together. Cloud magic and a spell to make him sleep didn’t seem to match any common icons from the sisterhood of the dreams. They usually bonded to the cot icon, the dream catcher icon, or the candle icon. All low-level specific icons that were relatively related to dreams but could still be bonded to easily. A sleep spell could have come from the cot icon, but the clouds didn’t match anything.

  “Who are you?” he asked while eyeing the surroundings, it was a foreign landscape to him. He even felt different here. “Where are we?”

  “I told you, I’m the Queen of Dreams.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything. And where are we?”

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  “You’re seriously ruining my whole mystique.”

  “I don’t care!” Cassian was getting more and more irate. “I was going to go see the flowerbeds, and now you’ve brought me out to god knows where! For all I know, this might as well be a different continent! And all you care about after kidnapping me here is that I’m ruining your mystique?” he yelled out in an angrier voice than he wanted to.

  “First of all, you’re the one who told me to buzz off before I even said anything!” the girl screamed back. “Second of all, if you want to see the flowers so badly, look around you!” She gestured wildly at her surroundings.

  Finally, Cassian realised the hill they were on was surrounded by a seemingly endless ocean of flowers. Waves of color assaulted his senses, and the scent he’d been picking up on finally made sense, it was the stray pollen in the air. Compared to the flowerbeds, this was a different ball game.

  “Third of all! What do you mean by ‘different continent’? This is an hour's walk away from your giant maze of a house, bozo! It took me longer to find where you live in that maze than it took for me to carry you here.”

  Oh. Cassian thought. It was only then he realised he’d never left the Moon estate his entire life. He had no idea what the world outside even looked like.

  “Okay, so what do you want from me?” he managed to calm down after seeing the flowers, and after seeing that she wasn’t aiming to harm him.

  “I already told you, bozo! The sisterhood of the dream prophesied that the world would come to a gruesome end, and the only one who could stop it was you.”

  “Me?”

  She gestured wildly. “Who else?” She paused as if in thought. “You are Cassian Moon, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes, it’s you.”

  “I don’t know if I believe the veracity of your claims. The sisterhood of the dreams hasn’t been the most accurate in terms of predictions.”

  “That’s because they’ve been casting prophecy spells with hodge-podge combinations of low-level icons. That issue went away when I showed up.”

  “How so?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? Queen of Dreams?” she gestured at herself.

  Cassian raised his eyebrows.

  She sighed and undid the fabrics around her right arm, she bore the bare skin for him to see. After a second, a swirling mess of dark purple with stars in them swam out onto her forearm. The material seemed similar to her eyes, a third rank manifestation.

  “You’re a Master rank?” he exclaimed. “How? You’re too young.”

  “I’ll give you another hint,” she said. “The first rank manifestation of the Dreams icon is purple eyes. The stars inside them come later at Vessel rank.”

  Cassian felt the world fall away from him. The revelation that he was standing before a Vessel of an abstract icon rendered him immobile. Mages were categorised by ranks. After the binding ritual, a mage would be Newbound rank, then as they grew stronger would evolve to Adept, Master and then end at Vessel.

  The difference in power between each rank grew exponentially. Cassian’s instructor, Jorian, had told him one Adept was worth five Newbounds, a Master 50 Adepts and a Vessel 100 Masters. Most high ranking mages of the world were Masters, all the elders of House Moon for instance, were Masters.

  “Vessels are altogether a different thing“ Jorian had said. “There’s only a handful of them in the world, and they’re so powerful they almost break reality.”

  “Do you know any?” he had asked.

  “Personally? No way. But I did catch a glimpse of the Vessel of the Fire icon on a mission. He was so powerful that just us being near him gave some of us burn marks. Heard they’re basically immortal.”

  That was the frame of reference with which Cassian viewed the Vessel rankers. Inhuman monsters completely beyond the mortal realm. And yet, here was a Vessel ranker right in front of him, fuddling about with her clothes.

  “Are you actually super old and you just look like you’re a little girl?” Cassian found himself asking.

  “Excuse you! I am actually 13. I know it’s hard to believe someone so young is the Queen of Dreams, but you’ve got to deal with it.”

  “How is it possible?”

  The girl sat down and patted down her dress. “I don’t really know. Apparently I’m something called a Fulgent. It just means I rank up way faster than most people.”

  “And how do I trust you? For all I know, you’re a Newbound or Adept using magical cosmetic items for all those rank manifestations.”

  “But that would still mean I’m a 13 year old Newbound or Adept.”

  “Or you’re a 1000 year old Vessel who’s making me think you look like a 13 year old.”

  She groaned in annoyance. “Whatever you want to believe. The fact is, in either of those situations you made up, I’m still not normal.”

  Cassian realised she was right. Either she was a magic prodigy binding to an abstract icon at 12, which was already hard to believe, or she was an immortal Vessel rank using advanced magic to appear in front of him as a young girl, even more unbelievable. After a moment of thinking, Cassian gave up and slumped to the ground.

  “Assuming I believe you are Vessel rank, what is this prophecy you’re talking about?”

  “That’s easy enough to answer. I’ll just show you,” she beckoned him to her spot under the tree.

  Under the shadow cast by the tree, she placed both hands onto his temples and chanted a spell. “Mind as one: Unfurl the clouds of this mind, reveal the revelations.”

  A wave of magic washed over Cassian’s mind, it felt soft and wispy like a cloud passing through him. He began to feel drowsy but stayed conscious with ease. Then the horror came. Blood curdling screams; buildings crumbling to ashes; grotesque monsters howling in agony; a man’s head fell from his body. The visions and sounds appeared in his mind like knowledge he’d always known. As the horrors subsided and fell to the wayside, his vision became clearer.

  He was no longer sitting atop the hill, instead he saw scenes play out from the perspective of the girl. In the vision, her arms were still slender, but longer and they moved with more precision. She cast spell after spell, controlling hundreds of magic clouds at once to shield people from debris, rescue falling children, kill monsters and so many more things at once.

  Then she blinked and the vision changed again. Now, she was watching as a man in the distance seemed to fly effortlessly in the air, a great orbit of giant rocks floating around him. The man operated with the same precision and speed he saw the girl use earlier. Boulders the size of buildings flew wildly about at his command as he fought off a looming threat in the distance.

  Suddenly a meteor was falling from the sky, striking at whatever it was the man was fighting. Ever so slightly, another man in shining armour could be made out riding on the meteor. His sword flashed and the world seemed to break right as the vision cut off again.

  The final vision cut to something different this time. There were no screaming children, no massive scale battles, and nothing at all. It was a dark, pitch black vision where nothing lived. Cassian felt a chill just looking at it.

  When he emerged from the final vision, he was gasping for breath and sweating bullets. Starlings were a sheltered bunch, Cassian doubly so. He’d never so much as seen a serious injury, much less so many people dying so horribly. It shook him to his core that the world could be so terrible. The incomprehensible scale of the events also made it hard for him to understand what happened. He fought with martial arts and magic missiles the size of his fist, not meteor riding world-breakers and mountain throwers.

  But it was that final vision which shook him the most. It lacked the visceral cruelty of the first vision, and the incomprehensible powers of the second. Comparatively, the final vision wasn’t even much, just dark nothingness. And yet, it had a spine chilling sense of existential horror to it. It seemed to spell out a complete end, a finality that couldn’t be argued. The most surprising thing though, was how seductive it had felt.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “My spell, Mind as One. It lets me show others my memories. That was what I saw when I cast my spell to see the future.”

  “That was… horrible.”

  “You’re taking it better than I did. I threw up the first time I saw it.”

  Right as she said that, Cassian vomited onto the ground.

  “Nevermind.”

  “What was that last thing? It was horrifying.” he said as he wiped bile from his mouth.

  “I’m not exactly sure myself, my powers let me see the future in chunks like this, but there’s no guarantee I know what I’m seeing. If I had to guess, it’s what’ll happen if whatever you were fighting in the second vision wins. Just a complete end of the world.”

  “Me? Where was I in that vision?”

  “Buff guy, floating around with the giant rocks? Isn’t that you guys? Icon of the Moon lets you do all sorts of spells with rocks and gravity right?”

  “Right, but that could be anyone in House Moon.”

  “Trust me, I’ve seen other visions. It’s you.”

  “Let me see them then.”

  “Nope.” The answer came faster and more decisive than Cassian expected.

  “Seriously? You want me to stake my whole life and future with you, and you won’t even confirm you have the right guy?”

  “I have the right guy! I just don’t need to show you the visions.”

  “Why are you being so difficult about this?”

  “Oh my god, just drop it. Please.”

  “Fine. But it’s gonna be hard for me to believe you. I don’t even know if your vision powers work correctly, what if it’s all wrong?”

  She sighed. “One, a blood moon eclipse will happen in two weeks from now. Two, one of your elders will die in his sleep on that same night. Three, you’ll leave House Moon the following day.”

  She stood up and brushed the grass off her rear. “I’ll be back for you by then, Cassian Moon. Find out for yourself how true my visions are.”

  “Wait-” Cassian tried to protest, but before he could finish, she’d already cast another sleep spell, and he was dozing off again. “... I didn’t… get your name…”

  “I’m Aria. Aria of Dreams,” he heard her say as he drifted into unconsciousness.

  When he’d fully collapsed, Aria felt a grin come upon her face. “Queen of Dreams!”