Raina Serin was having a decidedly strange week.

The days leading up to the third-wave Mageblade Initiation ceremony had seen herself and Jair staying up late into the night, studying things he already knew by heart, because he was so stressed out about the possibility of missing it this time too.

This was not at all strange.

He’d been unable to advance in the second-wave initiation with her since he failed to stabilize his soulspace sufficiently. In subsequent months, he'd become so obsessed with completing that requirement that he’d barely even looked at the written test information.

When he noticed the imbalance, he'd promptly overcorrected.

The night before the third-wave initiation ceremony would be the written exams, which Raina didn’t for a moment doubt her friend could complete with perfection. The papers were turned in, the soulspace examination completed, and Jair was sent away to pace and stress and worry until the morning.

“It’s going to be alright,” she’d assured him, more times than she could count. “You’d have to be trying to fail that.”

Arguments and logic did no good to calm her anxious friend, and they ended up staying awake all night going back over his answers one by one.

Even after the ceremony began, as the pair of them sat expectantly in the audience for the initiation of the first-wave initiates of the class behind them, Jair couldn’t stop twitching.

When the third-wave initiations began and his name was finally called, he scurried up to the platform as though worried he’d be noticed and evicted if he didn’t move fast and inconspicuously—which was the opposite of inconspicuous.

Raina leaned forward to smile encouragingly at him. Finally, she’d be able to start sparring with him properly, maybe help him learn enough to stand up for himself when she wasn’t around to protect him.

Jair reached out to accept his soulsword, timid and uncertain, and that was when things went crazy.

Light flared, blinding and sudden. The entire stage was blanked out by the glare. Raina turned away and covered her eyes.

When the flare receded, Jair stood with unnatural stillness, no hint of his usual unease. He and the headmaster stared at one another, then shuffled about awkwardly for a moment without either one releasing the sword.

Raina did her best to smile, though it was tainted by uncertainty.

After that brief hiccup the ceremony continued with the exchange of traditional greeting. Jair walked offstage with a calm casualness that was so unlike him she couldn’t help staring. He took his place among the other students, folded his arms over his chest, and stood that way without so much as shuffling his feet for the whole rest of the ceremony.

Then there were more students to clap for, faculty speeches to try and stay awake through, and by the time the ceremony concluded her brief concerns over the change in poise were forgotten.

Jair turned, smiling in her direction, but he seemed distracted still. She ran over to congratulate him, and that's when things took another even stranger turn. Instead of coming back to the apartment to talk through things, jump around excitedly over his new sword, and maybe practice some basic forms before spending their free afternoon catching up on some much needed sleep…

“I’ll see you at the exhibition later.” His attention was flickering around the crowd, to the various wealthy and powerful people. Not with any sort of calculation, but he had that particular smile he got when interested in something unexpected. “Opportunities like this don’t come every day.”

Raina wished him luck and wandered over to the food tables, feeling strangely dissatisfied. He was going out and taking initiative, everything she’d always been urging him to do. So why did it feel so wrong?

She stood for a time, nibbling at the various offerings without tasting much of it, and watched Jair move flawlessly through conversation after conversation. His mannerisms shifted ever so subtly depending on who he was talking to. How he carried himself, the ways he moved his hands, even the style of his nod of greeting changed from person to person.

Raina felt oddly unsettled the whole afternoon, and when Jair was indeed announced as one of the contenders in Lord Veshin’s student exhibition, it only got worse from there.

“Just be sure you bet on me,” Jair told her with a wink, and then he was off to prepare for the fight.

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War-front level simulacrums fell before the flashing blade, and instead of being cowed by the attention Jair played to the crowd like an expert gladiator with his adoring fans.

The flurry of gambling made Raina’s bet look downright small, though it more than doubled her spending allowance for the season.

She could hardly believe what she was witnessing, half convinced that she was delusional from lack of sleep, or perhaps this was all some far-too-involved dream. Unfortunately for her sanity, everything felt far too real for either to be the case.

Then, of course, after his record-shattering performance, Jair disappeared with yet another of his sudden collection of contacts.

It wasn’t until hours later that Denor informed Raina that Jair had gone out into the oasis to meditate.

Raina wandered between the buildings for a time, taking in the nighttime ambiance of the oasis she’d grown up in. She and Denor had run shamelessly through the mana-saturated grasses, fought one another with fallen branches, and generally been carefree children.

She didn’t remember much of what they’d played at in those days. She had vague recollections of defending a ‘castle’ and hours spent trying to make things float with her untrained mana.

She did remember there being some secret competition among the noble children, but not the specifics. She hadn’t won, or even come close.

Denor had done better. She recalled that with startling clarity.

Was that when they’d started drifting apart?

Was now when she and Jair would do the same?

She was in an uncharacteristically melancholic mood when she finally found her closest friend sitting on a saturation vault’s roof. It wasn’t hard to find him. His sword hadn’t stopped glowing, its flickering pulse visible from across the oasis.

“Mind if I join you?”

He laughed and invited her up, as though nothing had changed, as though he hadn’t just… done all that.

Are you alright? She couldn’t quite bring herself to say it outright, danced around the question, but there was no way to hide her concern. “Jair, what happened?”

“Nothing. Everything.” He started talking about his sword, about integrity and travel, and passed the violently glowing weapon to her as casually as though they were trading textbooks. “There’s a man in the Oriad who can help. I want to find him, as quickly as possible. And I want you to come with me.”

At that, she tore her eyes away from the pulsing glow of the sword. “I know we’ve talked about exploring the world, but isn’t this a bit sudden?”

“You’ve got your class, I’ve got mine. Call it your Reforging Quest, if that’ll make things easier.”

She tried to protest, to make some kind of reasonable plan, but he only grinned at her.

“Did you look?”

“Of course not, I would never do that without—”

“I trust you, Rai. Go ahead.”

She looked at him, questioning. The sword’s glow danced across his face, lighting up his dark sleek hair, his eyes turned to sharp silver by the reflection. He only smiled encouragingly, eyes dancing with mischief as though he knew something she didn’t.

If he was sure, she wouldn’t deny the chance to satisfy her curiosity. “Inspect.”

─ Maelstrom

─ Type: Ascended Soulsword (3rd Form)

─ Rank: Legendary (Integrity: 10%)

Imbued with the pure energy of Mount Sanctum and the lifeblood of its creator, this blade has transcended its humble origins and become a weapon of *****?

─ Class Requirement: Mageblade

─ Bound to Jair Welburne

“We don’t need to stay here,” Jair said softly. “We have everything we need.”

Raina couldn’t speak. Jair, her Jair, had a legendary weapon?

“L-Legendary?” She couldn’t think straight. “Ascended?”

They couldn’t have this. No one could know they had this. Everything she knew about the Veori nobility flooded her thoughts, extrapolating the potential disaster. Too many. Countless paths that led to death, slavery, ruin.

Evacuate their families. Move somewhere far away. He’d mentioned the Oriad? That would be perfect. Far away from anyone, from any society who could relay information back.

“So you’ll come?”

“Of course I’ll come. I’m not going to send you into exile alone. Jair, this changes everything.”

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“Not quite everything. There is still one complication left to deal with before we start packing.”

“Oh? And what is that?” Her mind was already days into the future, planning exactly how much of their estate they could fit, how quickly her father could hire an eelship, who they could put in charge of managing Serin affairs during her ‘Reforging Quest’...

Jair’s words shattered everything. “Your mother has upset a very powerful dragon matriarch, who wants to eat you.”

Raina's line of thoughts crashed to a stop.

“Oh.”

What could she possibly say to that? That was like hearing that your region was about to be flooded. Unsurvivable disaster on a scale she couldn’t even comprehend.

Jair, though, carried on as blithely as though they were discussing a brief morning fog. “So I’m going to need your help with some preparation.”

What preparation could possibly be sufficient? This wasn’t an angry sandshark they were talking about, this was an aelir-cursed dragon! Where could they run? How could they hide? What had her mother been doing to upset a dragon?

Jair bumped her arm with his elbow, grinning. “If all goes well, we’ll be dragonslayers by the end of the week.”

Oddly enough, that didn’t make her feel any better.

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Raina Serin’s second day of dealing with the whirlwind of chaos that her best friend had become didn’t go any better than the first.

“You promised him what?!”

“A little under three million. Don’t worry, I already gave him half up front, and I won’t need more than a small investment from you to get things started. But I will need to borrow some for today’s shopping. We have some rather important items to pick up.”

At this point, Raina was almost convinced her friend had been possessed by a vampire or something. It was enough of a stretch to go from ‘can’t speak up to save his life’ to ‘casually hobnobbing with anyone regardless of rank.’ The performance at the exhibition could be explained away by the presence of a legendary weapon.

But completely reversing his financial policies and going purchase-crazy—to the tune of over two million nirei no less, with who knew how much more to be added—was a bit too far for Raina to accept.

“If we’re going out shopping, then I’m taking you to a healer.”

“I’m already as recovered as magic can make me.” Jair flexed, showing off his bare arms with no imprints and barely anything in the way of muscle. “Nothing to worry about. My head is in flawless condition.”

“Then you won’t mind if we verify that.”

He seemed to notice his hands then, frowned faintly, and started drawing a manapath.

“What are you doing? Freehand?” She didn’t quite lunge forward to grab his hand, since that would risk ruining the spell entirely, but only because she hadn't recognized what he was doing in time to prevent it.

“I know what I’m doing.” He said it absently, watching as his hands moved, drawing unseen patterns with one finger.

“For someone who put off deciding for so long, you seem to be rushing ahead awfully recklessly.” She shook her head, helpless.

“I’ve got a dragon to slay, Rai. No time for being cautious.” Jair looked up at her seriously, eyes staring into her soul, then back down as he switched hands and started tracing another pattern. “I know you’re concerned. I appreciate the thought. But I am fine and visiting a healer will waste time we don’t have to spare.”

“This dragon plan you’re so obsessed with? Care to share any of the details?”

He finished the second tracing and tapped his forehead to summon his soulsword. “Find a way to keep you from dying. So we’ll be stopping by Veshin’s workshop on the way out to get your measurements and drop off my designs.” He started doing practice lunges and slow katas, alternating between sets.

Ordinarily, she’d have joined in, but today she had a deep-seated headache that refused to go away, and she was so overwhelmed and drained that all she wanted to do was flop onto their sofa and not move for a few years. Instead of doing either, she stood and watched, trying to think of any argument that he couldn’t overrule with ‘but dragon.’

Nothing came to mind.

‘But, dragon,’ was a very convincing argument. Assuming it was true. A thousand objections swarmed her mind, everything from ‘but my mother’s been gone for almost twenty years’ to ‘shouldn’t I just go out into the desert and let it be over with?’

But Jair would hear none of it. He was determined that they would do the impossible instead.

And the first step of that, apparently, was to… buy exotic foods?

“Wait, repeat that?” She must have misheard, distracted by her thoughts.

“Star-pepper cakes. I’m telling you, it’s an undiscovered market. We can offer the owner various investment options, scout a few new locations, start a global marketing campaign…”

“Jair, we’re supposed to be avoiding attention. You already made a spectacle of yourself in the exhibition, but with any luck people will assume it’s your soulspell. We can’t let word about your sword’s actual strength get to anyone—”

He snorted and muttered under his breath what very much sounded like, “Too late for that now,” in an all too cheerful tone.

She glared at him. “And now we have a dragon to fight, so your solution is to advertise pepper cakes?”

He set his sword aside and walked over to her. He put his hands on her shoulders, tamping down his mischief and happiness to regard her with absolute seriousness.

Something in that look made her shiver, as though it were an ancient warrior staring back at her instead of the boy she knew.

“It’ll be alright, Rai. I know what I’m doing.”

He’d been saying it for days, but for the first time, she found she actually believed it.

And… promptly broke down sobbing onto his chest while he hugged her with a gentleness she’d never imagined possible.

Yeah…

The less said about that morning, the better. Eventually they got their shopping, investing, and measuring done, and Raina managed to regulate her chaotic emotions back to something resembling normalcy.

The fact that her friend just happened to have investment contracts and advertising plans already written up in his soulspace was just one more insane thing that hardly registered any more by now. She was rather numb to it all by now.

Frostvine nets? She didn’t see the point, but nothing too strange. Frost was technically a weakness of poison dragons, even if they’d generally be too big and too agile to be snared in any net. Sword ballista? A little expensive, but why not! Blackmailing half her neighbors to be able to afford a sword ballista after investing everything her father had been willing to loan them in various businesses? Yep, sounds about right.

Most of the items they collected were pieces or components rather than finished items. Custom jobs were more expensive and cutting in line wasn’t cheap either. Jair insisted he had time to put all the various constructs together, carve additional protective spells into the Institute’s outer walls, and still be able to spend hours training with his sword and imprinting his spells.

Raina would normally have pointed out all the flaws in that timeline, but today was not a day for making sense of the world. Every time she spoke to Jair, she just ended up more confused than before. She followed him in relative silence, handed over money when prompted, shoved items into her soulspace when they were handed to her, and smiled as though she weren’t quietly losing her mind.

She only broke down crying twice more before they returned to the Institute with their purchases that evening, which was better than she’d have expected given how the day started out. But, of course, they couldn’t just go to the apartment and finally get some space and quiet to process any of this insanity.

The headmaster himself was waiting to meet them, and immediately dragged Jair off to a private interrogation.

Raina paced outside the administrative building, worry over her friend’s sanity, her own sanity, and the looming threat of what did the headmaster know, and what was he prepared to do about it merging into a deep anxiety that threw her balance even more than the whole preceding day had.

She wasn’t normally the fretting and pacing type. Her general solution was to punch a problem rather than worry over it. When had she and Jair switched roles? Wasn’t she the one to be proactive?

But he moved with such confidence now, and it wasn’t even bluster. He genuinely knew so much about so many people and places. She couldn’t explain it, even to herself.

When he finally emerged, calm and unbothered as though he’d just been for a casual stroll, she all but exploded.

“Jair! You survived! What did the headmaster want?”

He grinned and tapped his forehead. “Nothing he’s going to be getting.”

“You didn’t— he hasn’t—?”

“He demanded I show him, but he doesn’t know enough to be actually serious about it. He thought he could intimidate me.”

Raina regarded him uncertainly. Two days ago, she’d have bet a lot of money on Jair being thoroughly intimidated by Larenok. But now… “And he let you walk out?”

“I’d love to see him try and stop me.” Jair’s smile was downright sadistic. “Alas, no excuses for excessive violence today.” His stomach growled, and his expression softened. “Let’s get some dinner.”

And that should have been the end of it, but Kili Eldren and approximately the entire student body were paying so much attention to Jair that Raina suddenly felt like an insignificant hanger-on rather than friend and protector.

They ate quietly, hastily, and Jair firmly rejected every attempt to draw him into conversation. He did open one letter from Calisi Hasti, scanned it, and scribbled a polite refusal on the bottom before they headed back to the apartment for the evening.

When Denor came to invite them to sparring practice, it was an absolute relief. Someone relatively sane, doing something normal. Trying to hit one another with deadly weapons made so much more sense than anything else since the initiation.

Jair begged off, leaving her and Denor to walk in the purple- and brown-lit tunnel of calm air through the storm to the distant dome.

But even then, it wasn’t long before her friend’s chaotic existence became the focus of conversation. If not for how extremely serious everything had become, she’d have loved to let loose and confide everything in Denor. A lifetime of training held her back, and the conversation remained withdrawn and polite.

Thankfully, that wasn’t what they were here for. They emerged into the cool interior of the dome, surrounded by fragrant greenery, and proceeded to try and stab one another with deadly weapons.

Exactly what she needed.

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Jair was lying in the middle of the floor sound asleep when she reached home, and didn’t wake as she moved about putting away her things and unpacking the many components and trinkets they’d stored in her soulspace.

She laughed softly as she looked down at him, tears gathering unbidden in the corners of her eyes. How hard did he plan on pushing himself to see this through?

But dragon.

As hard as he possibly could, she expected. She’d always loved his stubborn streak, that glint of determination whenever they started a new project together, but this was different. This was what she’d expect to see if everything else had been burned away, leaving that stubborn determination as the only thing that mattered.

She shook away the thought. That was silly. It was just Jair. He’d gotten a sword way too strong for him, done a ridiculous amount of research on everyone in the city, and changed his entire personality and behavior overnight. That was all. Nothing nearly so dramatic as whatever she was imagining.

But the look on his face, lying here asleep, shouldn’t have been so hard. He should have been relaxed and peaceful. Instead he looked like even in sleep he was scowling at an impossible equation, one which he wouldn’t rest until he had solved.

Raina silently walked into his room to retrieve a soft white blanket with black patterns, which she carefully tucked around him. The desert got cold at night, and she could already feel the chill in the air.

She was still worried, still confused, yet oddly comforted by the chance to do even so small a thing to help him. She’d almost started to think of herself as unneeded, with how forcefully he’d taken charge of his own affairs. But even if the power and responsibility of having a legendary sword had given him new confidence and focused his determination, he was still the same boy she’d been looking out for all these years.

Though ‘boy’ didn’t seem a fitting description any longer, no matter how she looked at it.

Perhaps even men needed a little help now and then.

She laughed a little at herself, thinking into circles, and headed to bed.

Unfortunately, there was no way she could properly relax with that quiet countdown at the back of her head.

Two days until dragon.

She could disbelieve it as hard as she wanted, and the nagging concern refused to be shaken.

Raina Serin did not sleep very much that night.

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