So, they prepare—packing breads, sharpening steels, weaving charms—as if readiness were a shield against what waits. It isn’t. Preparation is only armor for the heart—a ritual to soothe the terror of becoming.
And leaving… that is the cruelest paradox. Mortals call it freedom, yet once the gates close behind them, they feel the weight of change. What they sought was not adventure at all, but permission to stop pretending the old self still fits.
The boy, at thirteen, thought that becoming was carrying everything and adding. He'll soon realize that first comes losing. Everything.
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The Veil Remembers — 11 months before The Convergence
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Before darkness fell, Iakob and Montzy parted ways at the edge of the clearing, both watching as Ced's distant cousins wove their branches in the evening wind.
Montzy disappeared deeper into the trees toward his anthill, swallowed by shadow and green.
Iakob stood there for a moment.
Hush flapped her wings, circling the sky. Watching, as if leading Iakob to the Castle. It was getting dark. Iakob then drew a circle in the air, and light was conjured in his palm like a ball shimmering, guiding the path out of the woods.
The cedar forest closed around him gradually. He had walked this path a hundred times before. To the forest. To the castle. Tomorrow he would not walk it. Not for a while.
That night, before sleep claimed him, Iakob sat by the window with Hush perched on the sill. The castle had settled— distant footsteps in corridors, the occasional murmur of guards changing shift, then nothing. Just the dark and the cooling air coming through the glass.
"Montzy said you also need to eat," Iakob murmured.
He held out a crust of bread. Hush pecked at it once, then turned her head away—not hungry, or perhaps just particular. Iakob tried something else.
He lifted his hand and let his fingers trace the familiar pattern. A small spark flickered to life in his palm, the kind of harmless conjuring he'd done since childhood.
Hush's eyes brightened. The raven leaned forward, beak opening slightly, and the spark seemed to flow toward her—not consumed but absorbed. The light faded into her feathers. She ruffled her wings with satisfaction. "So that's what you like," Iakob said softly.
He conjured another. Then another. Feeding them to her one by one until his fingers tingled at the tips and his eyes grew heavy and Hush had settled into a contented stillness beside him, feathers puffed, eyes half-lidded.
He leaned his head against the window frame.
Outside, the moon was up. The same moon that had watched the Lake of the Still Moon for centuries. Iakob looked at it for a while without thinking anything particular. He just looked.
When sleep finally came, it took him gently. Boy and raven both resting by the window, the bond between them humming quietly under the full, cold, and distant moon.
Before the morning light even came, Iakob woke to the sound of wings.
He opened his eyes. The sill was empty.
For one disorienting moment, the night before felt distant— the cabin, the silver threads, Montzy's ritual voice, the name settling over the room like a seal. He sat up.
Then Hush landed on the sill.
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She had been out. She had come back.
"It wasn't a dream." He whispered.
"The ritual was real." He said as he looked Hush perched on the windowsill. He sat with her for a moment, not moving. Just feeling the edge of the bond.
Then the raven shifted, clearly wanting out. Hush flew into the pre-dawn darkness. Iakob wasn't worried. Somehow, instinctively, he knew she'd return.
He freshened up, dressed, and pulled on the pack prepared for him. On his drawer sat a small satchel filled with sweets, dried fruits, smoked meats, bundled herbs, and other provisions.
Beneath it lay parchment bearing Hortew's seal:
Strength for the road, when I cannot walk it with you. Walk steady, my boy. I will see you again when the moons permit.
Iakob folded the note carefully and tucked it into the satchel.
As he opened the door to leave, he found a box sitting outside. He almost stepped over it before noticing. It was plain, unadorned, tied with simple cord. Inside, new traveling shoes. Finely made. The leather soft and dark, the stitching close and even, the kind of craftsmanship that took time someone had chosen to spend.
A small note was folded beneath them. Safe travels. No name. No crest.
He turned them over in his hands, checking the sole, the heel, the way the leather had been shaped. They fit perfectly. Exactly his size, as if measured from his own feet without him knowing.
He tucked the note into his pack alongside Hortew's and put them on.
When he arrived at the courtyard, Grex was already there, standing beside an official carriage— dark lacquered wood, Wolfpit's crest on the door. Iakob looked at the carriage. He had ridden official carriages before on several occasions, but this one felt different. This one was pointed at the world outside Wolfpit's walls.
Grex looked up as Iakob approached and gave a small nod. "Can't use the Moon Gates," Grex said tapping the carriage. "Montzy doesn't have passage clearance. And you haven't learned the gates yet."
"Montzy?" Iakob asked.
"I'm coming to!"
A loud voice called out. Montzy emerged from the shadows of the courtyard, grinning.
Iakob's face broke open. He couldn't help it.
"Surprise!" Montzy spread his hands. "Wasn't sure until this morning when clearance came through from a raven."
Then footsteps descended from the castle steps, measured, unhurried, every stride with authority. Two castle guards flanked the stairway. Between them walked Lady Mathilda, Hortew's younger sister and Wolfpit's deputy in his absence.
Despite her years, Mathilda moved with the ease of someone half her age. No staff in hand, no hunched shoulders. Just sharp eyes, a fine robe that mirrored her brother's authority, and an old wolf at her side. The beast's fur had gone silver with time, but its gaze remained keen. Mathilda had the same quality—aged but undiminished, the kind of elder who could still chase down a fugitive if duty demanded it.
Shortly after, came Commander Krevir, Montzy's superior. The military officer's belly strained against his uniform. Iakob held himself from laughing at the sight of it.
Behind them, Commander Krevir descended. His uniform strained at the belly. He carried a rolled parchment of travel clearance in one hand— delivered at the last possible moment, as if to remind everyone who controlled such permissions.
His eyes moved from Montzy to Grex and back again, measuring a distance he could never close. He despised Montzy for receiving favors he didn't get, connections that he didn't have, and for standing next to Grex that he can only dream of.
Mathilda crossed to the carriage. Her silver wolf stayed at her heel, as natural as a shadow. Her eyes found Iakob and something in them softened — not much, but enough.
"Your grandfather wanted to see you off," she said. "Duty pulled him elsewhere." A pause — brief, deliberate. "Duty, as he always calls it. It is the Vos family's chain of iron. Remember that."
"I know," Iakob said. "He says it a lot." Iakob gave a light smile and a small nod.
Mathilda’s expression gentled. She reached to adjust the collar of his cloak. “Chains bind, yes. But they also hold things together." She pressed a kiss to his brow, quick and firm. “And we're all just a thread in a tapestry too wide to see.”
Grex gave her a nod of gratitude as he took his place at the reins.
“We’ll send word when we can.”
“Please do,” Mathilda replied, then turned her sharp gaze on Montzy. “And you—see that you all come back in one piece.”
Before Montzy could answer, Commander Krevir gave a derisive snort. "If the boy returns at all, it'll be by Grex's hand, not yours. Some of us still earn our place in this castle."
Montzy's grin widened. "You're right, Commander. Ravens are terribly selective." He gestured to the empty air above Krevir's shoulders.
Montzy was already swinging himself into the carriage before Krevir could process the insult.
"Safe travels to you too, Commander!" he called cheerfully, settling into his seat with exaggerated haste.
Krevir's face turned an impressive shade of purple, but Mathilda's wolf growled low, silencing him. And that was the end of it.
“Enough,” she said. “The road is long and the day is short. Let them go.”
Grex snapped the reins.
The carriage rolled forward.
The sound of the wheels against the cobblestones filled the carriage. Iakob's heart jumped. Not fear exactly. Something faster than fear, something that hadn't had a name until this moment. He was actually leaving. The decision made in a hidden library, the knuckles at the doorway, Hortew's note, the unnamed shoes — all of it had been pointing here and now it was actually happening.
Iakob turned in his seat, watching as the castle gates began to close—great, big, iron-bound doors swinging shut with finality.
Mathilda stood in the narrowing gap until the last moment, her silver wolf beside her, both figures growing smaller as the distance stretched between them.
Then the gates met with a hollow boom. Wolfpit disappeared behind stone and iron.
The boy moved forward.
The road had claimed him now.
A note before we continue.
Arc 1 was always meant to be brief — a prologue and sixteen chapters to understand who Iakob is before the road changes him. Cedar and moonlight and knuckles at a doorway. A boy learning what he carries before he learns where it takes him.
The gates have closed. The carriage is rolling.
Arc 2 follows — Magiting, its people, its children, and a decision that cannot wait. The Council has given Grex a window. The Voidcallers do not observe windows. What happens between those two pressures will determine more than anyone in the carriage yet understands.
And Arc 2 is not the last. What waits beyond it — the Academy, its halls, its politics, its secrets — is its own world entirely. These early arcs are only the road that leads there.
But first — a brief pause between arcs. Two bonus chapters for those who want to go deeper before the journey begins.
Something is watching from the other side.
Read on, if you dare.