Time passed in ripples, soft and sure, like water steadily shaping stone. Weeks blurred into each other as Lysira Valenheart and Kael Drevan walked parallel paths, unaware, yet irrevocably drawn forward by the gravity of what they once were, and what they had vowed to become.
In the palace, Lysira's routine had transformed into something meticulous, bordering on monastic. She awoke before the sun each day, often before the servants stirred, stretching in the quiet privacy of her chamber. Each movement flowed like remembered choreography, elegant, efficient, lethal. The muscle memory of her former life had returned slowly at first, then all at once.
The Virellian Flow gave way to the Seventeen Hidden Blades of the Duskwatch, and then the Twin Crescent Steps of the Eastern Fangs, styles no current master had taught in generations.
She'd once studied them to survive war. Now, she practiced them to feel alive.
Every day brought a new refinement. A discarded habit. A corrected stance. Her body remembered pain, but also excellence. And in every silent swing of her blade, every whispered breath of spellwork under her tongue, she sharpened herself not for fame or family, but for the ghost that lingered behind her ribs.
Even if the name was unknown to her lips now, her soul ached for something lost.
Master Elhar grew quieter in his praise. Less amazed, more watchful. Some part of him sensed that the girl before him was growing beyond the rules of the court and the expectations of royalty.
Meanwhile, in the colder, sterner halls of House Drevan, Kael's days were filled with silence and steel.
His morning began in the courtyard before sunrise, alone, shirtless beneath the chill wind. Each movement was surgical. Brutal. Efficient.
Unlike the decorative sword forms of noble sons, Kael's techniques were forged in memory, The Towerfall Riposte. The Black Hand's Shadow Lunge. And the Ghost Blade Spiral, which once turned ten men to ash in the trenches of a forgotten battlefield.
The Drevan guards dared not speak when he trained. The maids watched through cracks in the doors, whispering of his gaze, his silence, his growing strength.
His soul core thrummed with growing potency, darker and colder than his family expected.
His elder brother, Calder Drevan, had begun to take notice. Letters arrived from the Academy, thinly veiled challenges hidden in polite words.
"Father says you've grown," one note read. "I look forward to seeing if that's true... little brother."
Kael crumpled it and threw it into the fire.
Let him wait. Let them all wait. He was not training to impress. He was training for a promise he had once made to a dying girl.
Weeks turned to a month. Then two.
The day of the entrance exam loomed like a rising moon, distant, yet inevitable.
As the day drew nearer, the palace grounds shifted. Courtiers spoke in hushed tones about the Emperor's youngest daughter. Noble scions whispered about the silent ghost of House Drevan.
Kael and Lysira, never crossing paths. But never stepping away from their course.
They each began one final preparation: to reclaim their true selves.
In her chamber, Lysira unwrapped the scarf from her wrist and replaced it with thin training bands, weighted just enough to strain her arms. She practiced blindfolded. She forced her body to respond to sound, scent, instinct, just as she had when ambushed in alleyways long ago.
In the palace garden one morning, a servant stumbled upon her mid-duel with four royal guards. Not practice. Real combat.
They were bruised, panting, disarmed. She was calm, her blade resting against the last man's throat.
"Stand down," she said quietly.
They obeyed.
In the solitude of night, Kael practiced. Drawing blades without light. Dissolving his presence. Learning the death arts of the Spectres, killers who could silence a heartbeat mid-beat.
By the end of it, he no longer moved like a noble son. He moved like an executioner.
The night before the entrance exams, the world went quiet.
Lysira sat on the roof of the east tower, legs drawn close, her hair catching the wind. Below, the lights of the capital glittered like a sea of stars. In her hand, the velvet scarf, now frayed with age and memory.
She whispered into the night, voice soft.
"I don't know if you're out there. If this world even remembers us. But I will live, even if it feels like pretending. I'll smile. I'll pass. I'll rise. For you."
Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell.
"And if we ever meet again... I'll be strong enough not to lose you."
Kael stood at the edge of the Drevan cliffs, wind howling past him, his coat whipping against his frame. The city sprawled below, but his eyes weren't on it. They were on the stars.
He remembered her smile. Her refusal to give up. The way she'd once dragged him out of a fire by sheer will.
He clenched his fist.
"I don't believe in fate," he murmured. "But I do believe in choices. This time, I'll make the right ones. Even if I have to fake the smile. Even if the pain never fades."
He turned toward the mansion.
"Tomorrow, I begin again. Not as your shadow. But as someone who can still carry the light."
And so, as the stars wheeled overhead, two souls long torn by war readied themselves for a future shaped by silence, grief, and the burning will to keep going.
Not because it would be easy. But because the ones they loved had not been given that chance.
Tomorrow, the Imperial Academy would open its gates. And with it, destiny would stir.
But tonight...
They simply remembered. And promised. To live. Even if it hurts. Even if they must force it.