*8 Dream Years ago*

  Cassian and Aria were sharing dinner at an inn in some backwater village. It was now four years since Aria had led Cassian out from House Moon. Under Aria’s Vessel-rank guidance, Cassian’s prodigious talent had been allowed to sprout with unprecedented speeds. At the tender age of 17, when most mages were still budding Newbounds, Cassian was already at the peak of Adept-rank.

  Once Aria had helped Cassian perform his binding ritual two years ago, the pair had fallen into a routine of touring the continent to find stronger and stronger beasts for him to fight. Tonight was one such night, and they were relaxing at the end of a long day spent fighting magic beasts called Veapers.

  As usual, they were bickering about how Cassian handled the fight. His display of innate talent for magic combat would have stunned most mages into awe, but that was nothing for a Vessel-rank mage like Aria.

  “You’re always rushing in head first without a plan, the only reason you haven’t died so far is because I’m there to bail you out.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point of having a Vessel as my mentor? So I can push my limits without worrying about dying?”

  “There’s still limits to things, Cas! Those veapers almost tore you apart today,” she said with increasing irritation.

  “But you were there to save me.”

  “And what about when I’m not here anymore, Cas?”

  The mood died down instantly. Cassian dropped his bite of bull steak and looked at her.

  “I’m sorry,” Aria said. “It’s just… everyday you’re getting closer and closer to the Cassian I saw in that vision all those years ago. There’s only so much time left until whatever that thing is tries to end the world, and… I don’t know.”

  “Is this about you being a Fulgent?”

  “You know it is,” she said with a shaking voice. “I don’t know how long I have left. For all we know, I’m already half-dead.”

  “Aria, we don’t know that for sure. We barely found anything concrete about them the past four years. Most recordings about them sound more like myths than fact.”

  “You don’t understand, Cas. I can feel it in my bones. Every night I have dreams that call out to me. They want me to cross some threshold that I can’t see, and I’m afraid that once I do, I won’t be able to come back anymore.”

  Cassian stayed silent. Prodigious with magic as he was, he would never be able to relate to Aria’s plight. She was a Fulgent, a one-in-a-billion mage born innately tied to an icon. These mages rose through ranks with unprecedented speed and gained world-staggering powers often before most mages had bonded to an icon. But like candles that burn too bright, all Fulgents seemed to burn out before full adulthood, dying in a great blaze.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  When they had first met, the two only had vague ideas about Fulgents. The reality was that they were so rare and so short-lived that there was little to no information about them. Travelling the continent had lifted the veil of blissful ignorance however, and they gradually pieced together clues from local legends and rare historical recordings. The grim reality had been sitting between them for the past year now, unspoken and unprobed.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful from now on. I promise.”

  Aria looked up at him with teary eyes. For all the reality-defying powers she wielded, she was just a 17 year old girl. “Thank you, Cas.”

  “You’re welcome, Queen of Dreams,” he replied with a weak smile.

  She laughed as the tears fell from her eyes. “Stop bringing that up!”

  For the moment, the two were able to reminisce about simpler times, when their circumstances still seemed a world away, just a vision of the future. As the conversation shifted back to less grim topics, Cassian overheard the conversations of folks from around the inn. They spoke in low-tongue, a dialect of kingdom standard spoken by commoners, especially those working in magic mines where workers tended to live in long periods of isolation from the outside world.

  “Did you hear tell about the House Moon whelp?”

  “Which one?”

  “Some old bastard’s brat. They caught him hawking out his own house for a poke between the legs!”

  The other miner had a sudden look of realisation. “Sil-fan or something like that, yeah?”

  “Right. Sylvan, they call him.”

  “Excuse me, folks. You’re talking about Sylvan of House Moon? The son of Elder Sxall?” Cassian turned around with intrigue. He could pick out parts of the low-tongue conversation from his travels, but it was Sylvan's name that piqued his interest.

  “Depends on who’s asking, pretty boy,” the miner said in kingdom standard.

  “I hail from House Moon parts, but I confess I haven’t been up to date on their goings. What exactly happened?”

  Aria sighed as the miners visibly tensed up and the other commoners at the inn went silent at Cassian’s implication.

  “Ignore him, he was raised for servantry in the house. He got exiled because he beat up one of the nobles’ brats,” she said in low-tongue.

  Immediately the tension in the inn broke to give way to uproarious laughter.

  “You're good in my book, pretty boy!” the miner said through tears.

  Cassian gave Aria a look which she shrugged off.

  “They say he’s been trading Moon secrets to another house’s lot. All to lay in some whore’s cot. Now it's to the gallow with him. Making a show of it, I reckon. Been years since we saw a noble hang. Got the folks riled up.”

  “You knew him?” Aria asked.

  “Only peripherally. We all heard unsavory rumours about him, but I never imagined he’d betray the House. Elder Sxall must be fuming.”

  “But to execute your own son?”

  “I suppose noble sensibilities must seem insane to commoners,” Cassian felt the divide between him and Aria. From the time they spent together, Cassian had lost the edges his noble upbringing had carved into him, but sometimes he still felt the scars. “Betrayal of your house in exchange for sexual favors, that violates the two parts of the noble creed the nobles value most: honor and power.”

  “I don’t understand nobles at all.”

  “Better that you don’t.”

  “Truer words have never been said. But we may be able to find out more about your uncle soon,” Aria said as she knifed a piece of steak. “A Jade Boa was found near your home, I want you to fight that next.”

  “Aren’t they incredibly dangerous?”

  “Yes. I need to know you’ll take your promise seriously and take this fight with a plan.”

  Cassian saw her pout and laughed. “Alright, your highness.”