"Love not the war's end, but its children," the Princess said, as soon as she came back from the Wasteland. "They need it more."

And as per royal decree, so it was.

In the first full moon, they bled the earth. In the second, the mages erected walls. In the third, a school was set up.

By the fourth, they opened. And the blood children entered to learn of gods and magic.

On the fifth, the Princess was murdered.

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“Do you think it came from the inside?”

Lage looked up from his book. “Hmm?”

“The Princess,” Gim clarified. “Who in this wild world did it, yo? My bet’s on nobles.”

Sabah, beside him, sighed. “Right. Your bet’s always on nobles. Get real, dude.”

Gim scowled and turned to argue with her, while Lage hummed. Being real, not only did he not know, he also really, really couldn’t care less to find who did it.

But it was great to pretend he wanted to.

The three of them, Lage, Gim, and Sabah, were seated in the only row of the canoe. Lage had his hoodie up, and felt the rough black fabric of the school's uniform from head to toe. It was itchy, especially where the texture changed, like in the white stripes at the sleeves.

It somehow smelled both new and of dust.

By his right side, were Gim and Sabah. The boy was a spiky blond, somehow dirtier than himself, and smelled of ashes. The girl was on the other side of the canoe, red hair down and eyes glinting in the dark.

Ahead of them was only the driver.

It was an adult mage, with a pointy hat, pondering his orb as he rowed. He scried a rune that perfectly told him which direction to go in, even though the lake was covered in thick mist. Quiet the entire trip.

Also during the entire trip, Lage had pretended to read the history book, trying to see if the driver was watching them.

Precautions. Just in case.

“Anyway.” Gim cleared his throat, ending the discussion by gracefully flipping Sabah the bird. “Who d’ya think done it, Lage?”

All eyes on him. Lage sighed.

Figures. It was the talk of town, after all, to debate who had - or even would have wanted to - kill the Princess. None of them had really cared much, not for her. It was just drama and gossip of a people who'd rather be entertained dying in wars. It was stupid.

It was perfect time to make a bet.

“A beastkin,” Lage said and turned away.

Silence fell on the boat, as he watched the lake past the canoe’s edge, trying to peer through the mist. Or at least, pretending to.

By the corner of his eye, he saw the driver stop pondering his orb.

“Yo, a beastkin?” He couldn’t see Gim’s face, but he could imagine it. “Um, why?”

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“They said it was a slash to her throat. Every time it’s something like that, they scry for the blade used and warn the people for anyone using its kind,” Lage recited from a speech already prepared. “This time they didn’t. The best mages in the Empire could fail to identify a high murder’s blade, sure, but something else is far more likely.”

He paused, and on cue Gim thankfully asked, “And, uh, that is?”

“T’was no blade what tore open the pretty lady’s throat last week. T’was claws.”

The three of them looked at the driver.

“T’was damn claws,” the driver repeated. “Who else the Princess got all close to for ‘integration measures’, eh? Who else then got the damn bark to bite the hands that feeds? No one, I says. No one but feral fecking animals. Beastkin, ya? Bah, call ‘em what they really are. Damn fur—”

“Enough!” Sabah shouted.

Silence fell on the boat again. Sure enough, she’d gone suspiciously quiet when Lage had started on his rant.

A suspect.

Lage kept on staring out towards the mist, only catching on his periphery the driver scoffing, something about special snowflakes, and turning back to drive.

Otherwise, it was quiet again.

“Um,” Gim started. “Yo, that was—”

“Quiet up, ya?” the driver interrupted. “Breaching the mist, we is. Recall. Don’t look up, lest ye fall. And if ye do, t’was a nice ride, I says. Now, beware the moon.”

They breached the mist, instantly locking up their necks. No one looked up.

The waters finally expanded more than a few meters beyond his face. But nowhere, from there to the horizon, the moon could be seen reflected.

Though it certainly could be felt.

At first, the rays of moonshine pierced little, then they became fierce as holoforts.

Huh, Lage thought, feeling a shiver run down his spine as the light intensified. I know what a holofort is now. Neat.

He’d been briefed on the many effects of the Moon Knight hanging around, but that didn’t make it any less strange. If it didn’t get lethal past a certain duration, he’d have loved to experiment a little more.

“T’was damn fecking claws, I says,” the driver muttered once, and that was the last thing anyone said for the rest of the trip.

But not the last thing communicated.

As soon as the driver focused on the orb, fully focused by now, Lage turned around.

You couldn’t look up: the moon was there and bad things would happen if you looked up while still in the water. But nothing said anything about looking around. It was just risky, since you moved your neck around.

Slowly, he considered his next move. It would be even riskier, but for what he had to do, he needed to start somewhere.

So he reached to poke Gim and Sabah.

Both of them, somehow, stiffened even more than they already were stiff. But eventually, they did turn. Him confused, and her practically fuming with anger.

Then, Lage pulled down his hoodie, wagged his furry ears, and winked.

Sabah almost shouted again, he could tell by the way her eyes widened in shock and her jaw fell like a guillotine. Gim was also wide-eyed and nearly jumped, but somehow now looked… excited?

A little too excited. Two suspects, then.

Thankfully, they stayed quiet, eyeing the driver every now and then, though they were clearly also restless, eyeing Lage and briefly trying to do hand signs before giving up since none of them knew any.

Before they breached the shore, Lage pulled his hoodie back up. He hadn’t yet arrived at the school, but he’d already seen the alignment of at least one faculty member, and revealed it to two possible acquaintances, who now might be sympathetic, having seen the discourse.

It was good enough. As they neared the end, another strange concept suddenly popped into his head from the ether, filling an empty spot in his mind with something alien: linked-fate solidarity. Huh.

Yeah. Beware the moon, indeed.

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The narrative, for a while, wrote only to the fifth moon, when the Princess was killed. However, this story goes on a while more.

It would be many moons before anyone realized that the school had not been an act of kindness, but of great cunning. It was a refuge, an education center, a research lab.

But most of all, it was filled with war orphans. Those who would bond, form parties, and with bloody enough backstories to their names, have the will to become heroes for the Empire — on a level that only teenagers trying to defeat evil seem to achieve. T’was the power, ‘course, of fate.

Weaponized and capitalized upon, slowly the course of the world changed, and the balance between kingdoms began to shift.