Rina, like most of the other students at Orus, had left her final class to participate in one of the many student-run organizations and afterschool clubs available. As she packed up her belongings—today, it was a bound copy of Aristedes' treatise The Cardinality of Species—she waited for her classmates to depart before making her own exit from the classroom. She checked the extra pockets she'd sewn into her jacket, then slung her bag over her shoulder.

  It was rare for other students to linger in the lecture hall after she had already departed. She was always among the last to leave, a habit that had become second nature to her.

  Most first-year students were encouraged to join clubs that complemented their daily lessons, such as fencing, archery, or one of the arcane clubs. For Rina's peers, these extracurricular activities served as much as a social outlet as they did an opportunity for further instruction.

  The club system at Orus mirrored the structured approach found in academies across the Guild Marches: part tradition, part necessity. Students were expected to dedicate themselves to at least one organization, whether it be one of the many chapters of the prestigious Aetheric Research Society, the intermural competitive Combat Arts League, or even a more casual literary circle. These weren't mere pastimes; they were stepping stones toward future guild membership, networking opportunities disguised as camaraderie.

  Rina, however, had few friends at the academy. She was cordial with some of her classmates, but their interactions were limited to superficial pleasantries. She lingered behind, in part, because she had nowhere to go and had no friends to go there with.

  But more than that, she found herself fundamentally at odds with the club culture that dominated Orus life. The fencing club members spent more time discussing their families' military connections than actually improving their technique. The arcane societies were mostly filled with students who treated magic as a parlor trick rather than the serious discipline it demanded. Even the engineering workshops, which should have appealed to her mechanical inclinations, were populated by students who saw machinery as a means to impress rather than understand.

  Rina had tried to fit in, initially. She had attended a few meetings of the Aetheric Systems & Combat Engineering Society, hoping to find kindred spirits among those who shared her fascination with mechanical innovation. Instead, she found herself surrounded by students who treated their projects as elaborate excuses to avoid real work. Their conversations revolved around which guild contracts their families had secured rather than the technical challenges that excited her.

  "Why bother perfecting the aetheric converter when Father's already arranged my position with the Merchant's Guild?"

  The words had made her blood boil. These weren't engineers. They were dilettantes playing at scholarship while their futures were already written in family ledgers and political alliances.

  Rina had learned early that struggle built character, that true skill came from having to fight for every scrap of knowledge and recognition. Her father had taught her that. Her brother, Stratos, had worked himself to the bone taking on dangerous jobs that paid well precisely because they were dangerous. She had watched him come home with burns from aetheric mishaps, cuts from faulty machinery, exhaustion from double shifts at the airship yards.

  That was what real dedication looked like. That was what it meant to earn your place in the world.

  The students at Orus, with their silk uniforms and inherited privileges, had never known that kind of determination. They moved through life with the casual confidence of those who had never had to prove their worth, never had to fight for their dreams. To them, success was a birthright, not an achievement. With their idle chatter about fashion and social connections, they didn't understand the kind of resilience necessary to build a life from nothing. They couldn't comprehend the drive that came from having nothing and still refusing to give up.

  So Rina lingered in empty classrooms, preferring solitude to the hollow camaraderie of clubs that existed more for social climbing than genuine improvement. She would build her own path, create her own opportunities, forge her own future.

  Even if it meant doing it alone.

  As the education system in Dahncrest and the broader Guild Marches expanded, even once-selective academies like Orus and Arclan began admitting students who would have historically been excluded. The city's push to provide education to all citizens created opportunities at these prestigious institutions. No longer were they exclusive to the privileged or those with connections. At least, that was how it was sold.

  She understood why the city pushed for it. Dahncrest was a machine built to move. Tramways threaded the boroughs together, the Bureau of City Affairs and Transportation tuning schedules so apprentices, clerks, and students could cross from Essengard's smokestacks to the libraries of Valenyard in a single afternoon, or from Ulster to the south all the way to Calbentown on the Elu river to the north seamlessly and easily. An aetheric grid hummed beneath it all, powering devices that made daily life effortless for all citizens, not just those who could afford it. Orus and its sister academies fed that machine with trained talent.

  On paper, the Guild System promised equity: rights and opportunities to any citizen who served in a recognized, chartered guild. In practice, Rina had learned, membership was a gate, and academies were the most direct path to the gatehouse. The city subsidized youth education, and private institutions wore their emblems and uniforms like banners in a quiet war for prestige. She had memorized acceptance rates, charter requirements, which clubs mapped cleanly to which apprenticeships. Tools, all of it. Maps for a world that had never been drawn with someone like her in mind.

  Dahncrest called itself a melting pot, and in the streets it often was: agar craftsmen haggling beside elw scholars, kit couriers darting between market stalls, dwarven craftsmen alongside human engineers in the factories, mist-born crews in Calbentown shouting over din of river docks. But the academies reflected a more careful sorting. Diversity thrived in brochures; in corridors like these, wealth, education, and upbringing did the real dividing. She noticed who could afford tutors, who arrived in chauffeured salon-coaches, who took the tram from the reclaimed boroughs and kept their heads down.

  She even tracked the calendar, because calendars had power. To Rina it wasn't months so much as phases. Tradis flipped the campus into motion: rosters were posted, practice blocks carved into the training fields, and library hours stretched later by decree. Lucent and Feide released pressure like a safety valve; then Eizh tightened it again. Between those breaks the Acadethalon rewired the city. The city added late trams to Essengard and along the river lines, vendors appeared on the quad, and instructors began speaking in times and splits instead of theories. Clubs shed their polite names and became squads with captains and cuts.

  Scoreboards mattered, but the postings on doorways mattered more. That was when recruits jumped teams, when the undecided learned their friends could not carry them. Those were the days she planned around, the small windows when choice briefly outweighed inheritance. That was when she could make a case for Cross Company that wasn't about pedigree but about work: extra drills, real field problems, salvage runs that turned into pay.

  And beneath it all, she never forgot the other maps: the rumors of Reformers, the whispers about a place called the Quietus that everyone knew and no one could find. Not because she romanticized it, but because it proved a truth she'd already learned: for some, the system's doors did not open, no matter how politely you knocked. That was why she studied, why she built Cross Company in miniature before it existed. If a door would not open, she would engineer a hinge.

  And yet, for all her fluency in the city's systems, in the structure of the academy, there remained a divide she could not bridge by study alone. She knew the schedules, the bylaws, the rituals of belonging, but knowledge sat in her hands like a key cut for a lock she had not been given. She was present in every corridor and absent from every circle. She did not belong here. Not yet.

  Her mind wandered back, momentarily, to a time before she had entered these halls. She had been perfectly content to study at Kiersatz Guild Academy, the academy both her brother and father attended. Her father, however, had always told her: "aim higher."

  So, instead of attending Kiersatz, Rina found herself here, at Orus Guild Academy.

  Rina's acceptance packet had come with a thin card stamped in blue wax: a grant authorization, renewable each term upon satisfactory progress. It covered fees, board, and a tram pass with limits printed in tiny script on the back. The instructions were precise: report to the bursar at the start of the first semester, sign the register, keep receipts. She kept the card in a separate sleeve from her student badge, an ever-present reminder that her place here wasn't inherited; it was accounted for.

  Most of her classmates never visited the bursar. They did not read the tiny script on the backs of cards or count transfers on the tramways. Their names appeared on acceptance lists before applications were even due, their uniforms tailored in the same private shops that dressed their families for banquets. When they talked about Orus, they talked in futures: where they would be placed, which contracts they would inherit, which captains already knew their names.

  Rina talked in terms and ledgers, in practice hours and materials lists. The difference was small in conversation and enormous in consequence. Where they saw an academy smoothed by tradition, she saw an intake manifold: measure, regulate, output. She respected the design. She refused to be processed.

  Aetherics, combat strategy, artifact retrieval. Those were the discussions Rina had hoped to hear. Instead, she had to endure drivel about the city's most influential celebrities or which wine vintages were currently in favor among the merchant guilds.

  Rina had no qualms expressing her disdain for such priorities.

  And that was why she often found herself alone, surrounded by people.

  Rina had tried. At first. She had attempted to participate in their discussions, to feign interest in the whispered intrigues of Dahncrest's high society. It was exhausting, pretending to care about which guilds were positioning themselves through careful alliances or by consolidating wealth and power through arranged marriages. Worse, it was disillusioning.

  The Guild Marches had been built on ideals of merit, of a society where those with talent could rise regardless of birth.

  And yet here she was, in an academy whose prestige had faded but not vanished, watching as students dismissed those ideals with carefree laughter. Her mere presence served as a reminder that, while others reveled in the privileges of legacy, she carried the heavier burden of constantly having to prove herself—and of loss.

  The moment she voiced her opinion too openly, the distance between her and the other students became glaringly clear.

  "Maybe, instead of arguing over whose father controls more trade routes, you could focus on actually earning your status."

  The words still echoed in her mind.

  They had come out sharper than she meant, but she didn't regret them. Not even when the room fell silent, or when the daughters of Dahncrest's elite fixed their cold, calculating stares on her.

  From that moment, she had been branded a pariah.

  Not that she minded. Let them talk. Let them whisper. She had more important things to concern herself with.

  Like building something of her own.

  Orus Guild Academy was changing. That much was undeniable. Its doors, once open only to the children of influential guild families, were now admitting more students from less privileged backgrounds. But integration was slow. Rina could see the unspoken divisions everywhere: at the dining halls, in the lecture halls, even during training exercises.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She had no illusions about her place here, in this hallowed institution. She wasn't one of them.

  And she didn't want to be.

  Her connection to Orus was tenuous at best. The grant that allowed her to study here was a leftover kindness, an acknowledgment of her father's contributions to aetheric engineering. Some viewed her presence as an obligation the academy had reluctantly taken on. Others viewed it as charity.

  Rina saw it differently.

  She wasn't here because of pity.

  She was here to prove that she belonged.

  And if Orus wouldn't recognize that, then she would carve out her own place on her own terms.

  The hallways connecting the classrooms were the arteries of Orus Guild Academy, and the students, its lifeblood. To prevent congestion, the hallways were kept sparse in their decoration. Despite the academy's efforts to maintain a minimalist atmosphere, students still gathered, gossiped, and lingered in the corridors between periods and after classes ended.

  As Rina made her way toward the stairs leading down to the academy quad, she caught fragments of whispered conversations from students who tarried on their way to their clubs. She recognized the voices of two first-years, their tones hushed yet excited.

  "Did you hear? Master Allston got into a fight with Arclan students this morning!"

  "I heard it wasn't just him. He was with that transfer student. You know?"

  Rina's stride slowed slightly.

  Lowell Brandt.

  That name had been circulating more and more as of late. A second-year, a recent transfer, and by all accounts, a troublemaker. She had only seen him in passing, but his reputation had grown faster than most students who had been here for years. Unlike Bart Allston, who came from a family of influence, Lowell had no such connections. And yet, he was already making waves.

  Her lips twitched into a smirk.

  Maybe there were still a few people at Orus worth paying attention to.

  As she turned the corner, she caught sight of two students descending one of the staircases leading from the upper floors of the academy. They were deep in conversation. Well, at least one of them was. One was talking animatedly while the other listened, his expression unreadable.

  Immediately she recognized them.

  Rina lingered, watching them from the shadow of an archway.

  Rina wasn't certain who had started the rumor about the confrontation between these two and Arclan students, but she harbored doubts about their accuracy.

  Bartholomew Allston was a familiar face to Rina, as well as every other student at Orus Guild Academy. The Allston family had a long history with the institution. He was, in her opinion, a bit of a coward. His swordsmanship was poor and, in mixed-grade instruction, she couldn't recall a single sparring match that didn't end in Bart's utter defeat. Not only that, he also apparently struggled with his magical studies, though she had never witnessed it personally.

  Lowell Brandt was an enigma. Beyond his strained relationship with the headmaster, little was known about him. Aloof and distant, he exuded an air of calm coolness that only deepened the mystery surrounding him.

  She was too far away to hear what Bart and Lowell were talking about as they walked, but she could hear everything the two girls standing in front of her were gossiping about. Rina's gaze lingered on the two first-year students, their giggles and whispers carrying over the campus grounds. Grating and annoying to Rina.

  "Why are they hanging out together?" As she observed Lowell and Bart, her mind began to wander back to her own situation. Lowell up until now seemed to have no friends on campus. Just like Rina.

  "No way! Master Allston is so much cuter than Master Jenus." The first-year with braided brown hair insisted to her shorter, blonde companion with the pixie cut.

  The short blonde girl shook her head. "But Master Jenus' family has contracts with the Cambridge Merchant Guild."

  The girl with braided-brown hair leaned forward, emphasizing the word. "Master Allston has pedigree." As if it were some currency.

  Rina snorted inwardly. In the Guild Marches, station and family heritage weren't supposed to count for anything. It was all about equal opportunity, after all. That was the promise, the ideal.

  And while that was technically true, ideals had a funny way of bending under the weight of reality. The Guild Marches were founded on the belief in equality for all its citizens, but over the years, a few notable families had figured out how to climb the system and stay at the top. Prestige, strategic alliances, generous donations, and, in some cases, well-placed bribes had a way of ensuring their influence didn't just survive. It thrived.

  As the conversation continued, Rina's attention drifted. She had never made an effort to learn her classmates' names. Instead, she designated them by their physical characteristics: Short-Blonde and Brown-Braids. It was easier that way, even if it wasn't exactly the most diplomatic approach, but it suited Rina just fine. The process sometimes backfired on her, however. When a classmate, Black-Bow, suddenly changed her hair style to no longer include bows of any color, let alone black, Rina had thought she died. Or at the very least transferred to another school. Her inquiry into the matter further alienated her from her peers.

  "Well, I still prefer Master Jenus. His freckles..."

  "Oh my god, he has the cutest freckles!" Brown-Braids nodded emphatically. "But," she hesitated a moment, "even if you like Master Jenus better, you have to agree with me that Master Allston is still cute!"

  The blonde first-year, Short-Blonde, eventually conceded that, yes, Master Allston was in fact cute. "What do you think of Lowell Brandt?" she asked.

  "Who?"

  Rina should have known Short-Blonde's name at least. They were in several classes together but the effort would have exhausted her, especially in hindsight as she watched Short-Blonde's conversation with Brown-Braids.

  "Oh, the second-year transfer student? The troublemaker?" Brown-Braids asked.

  This was, technically Brown-Braids the Third. There had been two others that had preceded her. She tried to remember if there was anything that set the three apart. She couldn't think of anything. Her gaze flicked to Lowell, who was standing next to Bart, his expression unreadable.

  Short-Blonde nodded. "Well?"

  "No way. He's too..." Brown-Braids was searching for the word she wanted to use when Short-Blonde suggested one for her.

  "Scary?" Short-Blonde offered.

  "Yeah."

  "I know, right! I mean, he's always in the headmaster's office." She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "I heard they even caught him carrying a weapon on campus grounds this morning!"

  "No way!?" Brown-Braids' reaction was over the top. Almost comical. She then leaned in to whisper something to Short-Blonde that Rina couldn't make out before they both suddenly froze.

  She reveled in the sudden bout of paralysis that afflicted Short-Blonde and Brown-Braids. Looking past them, she immediately noticed why they had frozen. Lowell Brandt was pointing in their direction. They were frozen, and she imagined their eyes darting back and forth between each other before hastily bidding one another farewell. Like field mice fleeing from an avian predator, they scurried off to their respective clubs, leaving her once again alone.

  As she watched them disappear into the distance, Lowell and Bart continued on their way, oblivious to the commotion they had caused. She smiled wryly to herself, feeling a sense of satisfaction at having witnessed the drama unfold. She liked being the one who knew the secrets, even if it was just for a fleeting moment.

  With the excitement over, Rina made her way to an empty classroom. She collapsed onto one of the chairs near a window overlooking the courtyard below, letting out a deep sigh. As she settled into the seat, she absently thumbed a small grease stain on her sleeve. She could have scrubbed it out or swapped jackets like the others. Instead, she wore it the way they wore crests: proof of work done, of problems solved.

  Her club—no, her guild—had no members in it.

  She opened her bag and pulled out a worn, yellowing envelope, her fingers tracing the delicate edges as if it might crumble under the press of time. As she did, her hand went, out of habit, to the tool loops at her belt where a single compact spanner hung, the one her father had given her. She didn't always need it. She liked knowing it was there.

  The warm glow of the afternoon sun that hung low in the sky filtered through the academy's tall, arched windows, drawing dark lines across the empty classroom. Dust particles drifted lazily in the golden light, caught between movement and stillness, much like her, trapped between the present and the past.

  The weight of her father's disappearance settled over her like a shroud, heavy and suffocating in its familiarity. The letter inside, its paper soft and worn from years of unfolding and refolding, felt heavier than it had any right to.

  Every crease was a scar, a silent reminder of questions left unanswered and years spent searching for meaning. For many, establishing a guild came from personal ambition or a desire for recognition, but for Rina, it was something more. Building Cross Company was a step toward finding her father, a way to carve out the freedom and resources she needed to uncover the truth and, if he was still out there, maybe, just maybe, bring him home.

  A gust of wind rattled the classroom's wooden shutters, a hollow sound that made the silence around her feel even deeper. She exhaled, pressing the envelope between her palms. She didn't need to open it. The words inside were etched into her memory, seared into her thoughts like the schematics her father used to draft late into the night. Missing. That one word had unraveled her world.

  Roland Cross had always been larger than life: a brilliant airship engineer and artificer, a visionary whose ideas stretched beyond the boundaries of what the Known World believed possible. He had disappeared while testing a prototype airship, one he had promised would change everything. A revolution in sky travel, he had said, his excitement infectious, his belief unwavering. And then, one day, he was simply gone.

  The academy outside her window bustled with life. Students laughing as they made their way to afterschool clubs, the distant chime of the bell tower marking another hour passed. Yet, for Rina, time felt frozen. While the world moved forward, she remained anchored to that day, to the moment they received this letter.

  She clenched the envelope tighter. People don't just disappear. There had to be more to it than a failed test flight. She had made a promise to herself: If the world had moved on without answers, then it was up to her to find them.

  And if that meant taking control of her own fate, then so be it. Cross Company wasn't just a student club, it was a guild.

  There were no regulations against students forming guilds, only that student activities such as clubs and guilds were strictly governed by the academies themselves. There was no formal recognition of Cross Company, and with no members it wasn't much of a guild, student-run or otherwise. Most students were more interested in the social aspect of the other clubs, and those students that didn't already have promising opportunities with a guild after graduation didn't see any point in joining an unchartered student guild. And so, Rina sat alone.

  She allowed her mind to explore the what-ifs and the possibilities. What if more students were interested in her club? What if she had members? What would she do if the guild were officially recognized?

  She was transported to a world where her guild was thriving, her reputation as a mercenary captain was legendary, and she was flying high above the Guild Marches on the wings of her trusty airship. The airship her father built. Her thoughts returned to the past: What if she found her father? What then? A melancholy filled her, not because of the prospect of finding her father, but because it was a fantasy.

  She couldn't remember how long she sat there in reverie, staring at the envelope, flipping it over in her hands, and thinking. The afternoon light had shifted, casting longer shadows across the empty classroom floor. Dust motes danced in the golden beams, and for a moment, everything felt suspended in time.

  Then the world shattered.

  A sound like thunder split the air. Not the distant rumble of a storm, but something closer, sharper, more immediate. The crash echoed through the academy's stone corridors, followed by a silence that felt wrong. Too heavy. Too complete.

  Rina sat up straight, her heart hammering against her ribs. The envelope slipped from her fingers, forgotten. That sound hadn't been mechanical failure or construction work. It carried a weight that made her skin prickle with foreboding.

  She moved to the window without thinking, drawn by instinct rather than curiosity. The courtyard below was usually alive with students heading to clubs, instructors crossing between buildings, the normal rhythm of academy life. But now...

  Now it was empty.

  No, not empty. Her focus sharpened, and she saw Helena Oxford.

  The usually composed student was stumbling backward across the flagstones, her movements jerky and panicked. Her staff lay discarded several feet away, its aetheric crystal cracked and dark. Helena's mouth was open in a scream that Rina couldn't hear through the glass, but she could see the terror etched in every line of the girl's face.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Helena was dragging herself away from something, something that moved in the shadows near the academy's main entrance. The creature's form was indistinct at first, a mass of shifting darkness that appeared to swallow the light around it.

  Then it stepped into view.

  The thing was wrong. Its proportions defied logic, its movements too fluid for something so massive. It moved like liquid shadow given malignant purpose, and as it advanced on Helena, she felt something cold settle in her chest.

  This wasn't supposed to be possible. Dahncrest was protected. The academy had wards. Creatures like this didn't simply appear in the heart of the city.

  But there it was, undeniable and horrifying.

  Helena's scream finally reached her ears, a sound of pure terror that cut through the glass and sent ice down her spine. The creature was closing the distance between them, and Helena was running out of ground to retreat.

  Her mind screamed a single, terrible thought:

  Helena's going to die...