Solan woke with a dragon still in his head. Black wings spreading across the sky. The sun vanishing behind them. For a moment the world had belonged to it. Then the silence reached him.
No hallway footsteps. No pipes rattling somewhere above the ceiling. No Matt rolling over in the bunk and making the whole frame complain like an old ship.
He opened his eyes.
Ceiling beams. Dark wood, cleanly sanded, running in parallel lines overhead. The light was low and warm, as if it had been pressed into the grain and was only now leaking back out.
He stared for two seconds before his mind caught up. Big. Too big.
He shifted on instinct and met empty mattress with his arm. Not a narrow dorm bed. Not a bunk. The bed was wide enough to be stupid, the mattress thick enough to swallow him and pretend it was kindness.
He sat up slowly.
The room was bigger than any student space had a right to be. Dark hardwood underfoot. A single heavy rug spanning most of it. Walls paneled in deep, seamless wood—no posters, no cheap paint, no mess to prove a person lived here. A desk and a leather chair sat at a distance, a sofa beyond that, and an entire run of shelves like the room expected you to have opinions.
Solan’s second thought was simpler. This is expensive.
Wood. Leather. Thick carpet. Even the air had a faint scent to it—cedar and old leather mixed together. Not perfume. Just the slow breath of materials that had been there a long time.
He didn’t even know what kind of wood it was. But his instincts told him one thing. Very expensive.
He noticed the window next. Not a normal dorm window. The frame was stone, the wall thick enough that the glass looked embedded. The sill was wide enough to sit on. Outside, a small balcony—iron railing, plain to the point of industrial.
“You’re awake.”
The voice came from his right and almost gave him a heart attack. Solan’s brain stalled for half a beat. He turned and realized someone was sitting in a chair a few feet from the bed. And Solan knew him.
Solan’s mind produced exactly one coherent instruction: Don’t be weird.
Damien’s posture was upright, calm, like he’d been waiting for a kettle to boil.
“First,” Damien said, “do you know why you’re here?”
Solan’s mouth opened and produced a sound that would have embarrassed him if he’d been anyone else.
“Uh—where is this? Am I in trouble?”
“My room,” Damien said.
Solan blinked. “Why am I in your room? Did Herman knock me out?”
Damien didn’t answer immediately. “What do you remember?”
Solan swallowed. “I dueled Herman. And then…” He searched for words and found only heat. “It felt like something lit up inside me for no reason. I tried to take the ring off. It wouldn’t come off. And then—nothing.” He scratched his head. “Please don’t tell me I passed out because I got so mad I couldn’t take the ring off.”
“…No.”
Solan exhaled, shoulders loosening. “Okay. Good.”
Then the real fear returned. “Did I make a scene?”
“You fainted,” Damien said.
Great.
Perfect.
Fantastic.
Solan stared at the ceiling like it might offer mercy. He checked his left hand. The Black Blade mark was still there. Relief. Then his eyes slid to his pinky. The ring was gone.
“You looking for something?” Damien asked.
Solan’s mouth moved faster than his brain.“Uh—nothing.”
Tell him.
Just tell him.
Confess the whole ring story before this gets worse.
The thought sat there, pressing against his throat.
But before Solan could decide whether to tell Damien everything—or nothing at all—Damien continued.
“Relics are unstable,” he said. “Especially that kind. Almost nobody understands the mechanism. It probably drew too much from you. You’re lucky you’re intact. It gave you power you couldn’t carry.”
Solan’s throat tightened. “You knew about the ring?”
“That’s why you’re here.”
“So I am in trouble.”
Damien didn’t take the bait. “The Chairman wants to see you.”
“Chairman of what? Why would he want to see me?”
“Just come,” Damien said.
Solan hesitated, then tried a different question. “Should I… shower first or something?”
Damien glanced at him once. “No. You smell alright.”
Solan looked down and sniffed his shirt. Honestly… yeah. No sweat. No blood. Nothing. Wait. Something was off.
“These aren’t my clothes.”
“They’re mine,” Damien said, already standing. “Let’s go.”
Damien’s dorm wing closed behind them with almost no sound. The carpet ate their footsteps. The lights were kept low. Solan walked a step behind, fingers unconsciously brushing his pinky. The ring wasn’t there. But the skin remembered the pressure.
He tried to break the silence. “So… what do you do for fun?”
No response. Solan decided to let it die.
Then Damien said, without turning, “Cars.”
“Cool.”
Solan had absolutely no idea how to continue that conversation.
They stepped into an elevator. It ascended quietly. When the doors opened, the air felt cooler. Stone walls trimmed the echoes down to almost nothing.
Ahead of them hung a small brass plaque: THE FOUNDRY
Solan knew what that meant. Almost everyone at the academy did.
“The Foundry is like a college Illuminati,” Matt had told him once.
“Secret society. Invite only. No applications, no website, no second chances. They pick you. And you better be smart, terrifying, or both.”
Solan had never bothered digging into it. Things like that usually had nothing to do with him.
Still. Looking at the building around him, he couldn’t help thinking the same thing again. These people are insanely rich.
They moved through a long corridor. Portraits lined the walls, heavy frames edged with gold leaf that caught the dim light with the cold sheen of old money. Every face stared forward with the same stiff expression, like judges waiting for a verdict.
Solan wanted to ask whose place this was. The question rolled to his tongue and died there.
At the end of the hallway stood a door so ordinary it almost looked wrong. No crest. No plaque. The handle was plain black metal. It felt as if the entire corridor existed only to deliver you to an entrance that refused to be labeled.
Damien stopped a few steps before it. “Go ahead.”
Solan’s fingers settled on the handle. He hesitated, then looked back. “You’re not coming?”
“He asked for you alone.”
Damien leaned against the wall, unreadable, like this was just another quiet morning.
Solan took a breath and opened the door. Inside, there was no study. No fireplace. Nothing that immediately explained what the room was meant to be.
The air smelled faintly of damp plants, mixed with wood wax and the dry scent of old paper. The space was far larger than he expected.
He stepped forward, instinctively searching for a person—any person—but found none. Only shadows stretching outward into open space. Dark wood covered the floor, the sound of his steps absorbed by carpet and timber.
The door closed behind him. The outside world lost another layer of sound.
Solan couldn’t see the end of the room yet. He kept walking.
The smell of plants grew stronger, damp and green against the dry paper scent of books. Tall shelves rose from the shadows on either side of him like walls. Between them stood large potted plants, their branches climbing thin metal supports as if they had taken root here years ago.
He followed a gentle curve. Then the space opened. Only then did he realize he had been moving along the edge of a circle. The center was ahead of him. In the light. A wall of windows stood before him.
Outside, the sky after rain glowed pale gray. The first thread of sunlight slipped through the clouds like blood through a wound. Above him, a glass dome gathered that light and lowered it into the hall, a narrow crack where brightness had been allowed to exist.
The light fell across the center of the room. And suddenly the scale revealed itself. Circular. Open. Almost too empty.
There was only one table in the entire hall.
But it had been placed closer to the windows, as if someone had deliberately shifted the “center” toward the cleanest light. The table was large, dark wood worn smooth along the edges by long use. No grand decorations—just a few lamps, several open books, and a plant beneath a glass dome, its leaves glowing almost translucent in the sunlight.
And then Solan saw him.
Solan had expected the Chairman to be someone heavy enough to bend the air around him—tall, severe, carved out of authority.
The person in front of him looked almost the same age. His shirt collar was open by one button. His hair fell naturally across his forehead. His face was pale and strangely untouched, like the world had never had a chance to press its fingers into it.
The boy lifted his eyes. For no clear reason, Solan suddenly felt his throat tighten.
“Sorry,” the boy said gently. “You’d just woken up, and we called you here right away. Would you like something to eat?”
He stepped forward. No sound from his shoes. For a split second, Solan felt something odd—an almost-recognition. Not a real memory. Just the faint flicker of familiarity behind the boy’s eyes, like a dream he had once tried to remember and abandoned halfway through.
He pushed the thought aside. Stupid. The guy was just… unusually friendly.
“It’s okay, I’m not hun—”
His stomach betrayed him with a loud growl. Solan froze. He wasn’t sure if the boy smiled, but Solan definitely felt the embarrassment.
“…anything is good,” he muttered.
He heard someone approach. A second figure entered from a side passage: a woman in a black uniform, cleanly cut, hand on the handle of a metal cart. The wheels were small and nearly silent.
“This is Marin Tsai,” the boy said. “She runs everything in the Foundry.”
Marin gave a small nod, a motion as small as a stamp.
Then the boy seemed to remember something. “Oh.” He looked back at Solan. “My name is Yun.”
Of course Solan already knew. Yun Granville. Everyone at the academy knew that name. Most of the city did.
The name itself was unusual, but the surname mattered more. Granville. Rumor had it the first stabilin prototype in the world had come from that family’s labs. The formula had long since become public knowledge, and the Granvilles had stepped away from the spotlight decades ago.
But in New Elysion, their fingerprints were everywhere. Banks. Hospitals. Real estate. Even the Enforcement Bureau maintained quiet ties to several Granville foundations.
Marin approached the table and placed the silver cloche down.
“That’s fine, Marin,” Yun said softly.
She didn’t ask questions. She simply parked the cart beside the table and exited through a different passage than the one Solan had entered.
When the door sealed again, the hall belonged to two people.
Yun walked to the table and lifted the silver lid. Inside was the simplest possible breakfast. Toast. Butter.
Solan’s stomach made a second, humiliating argument.
“The Foundry kitchen is a little different from the academy’s,” Yun said while pushing the cart closer. “I hope it suits your taste.” He began preparing tea with slow, practiced movements.
Solan lasted about three seconds before giving up and reaching for the toast.
It was absurdly good. Possibly the best toast he had ever eaten in his life.
“So… why did you want to see me?” Solan asked.
Yun didn’t answer. Instead he glanced at the toast. “How is it?”
Solan nodded while chewing. “Good,” Solan admitted. “Too good.”
“Damien likes it prepared at that temperature,” Yun said. “This should be close to what he prefers.” He poured water into the teapot.
“He’s the sort of person who takes temperature very seriously.”
Solan kept nodding, although he had absolutely no idea why Yun had suddenly started talking about Damien. For a moment he wondered if he was supposed to call Damien in.
Then Yun looked up.
“What do you think of Damien?”
The question sounded casual. Almost careless.
Solan nearly choked on the toast. What do I think? His mind produced fragments instead of answers.
Truthfully, Solan barely knew Damien at all. They’d eaten together once. And now he’d woken up in the guy’s bed—
Wait. That sounded worse when phrased like that.
Solan tried to assemble something respectable.
“He’s strong.”
“He’s cool.”
“Nice silver hair.”
Every answer felt like copying homework from someone else. He stayed silent too long. Long enough to hear faint droplets of water somewhere above the glass dome. “I mean,” Solan started, throat suddenly dry, “he’s… uh…”
Yun didn’t rush him. He simply watched Solan with a clean, patient expression, as if waiting for a perfectly normal opinion rather than a confession.
And then Solan’s brain slipped. “He has a pretty sister.”
Silence snapped tight. Solan felt his stomach drop. He could practically feel the sentence leave his mouth, drift around the room once, and come back to land squarely on his own face.
He wanted to shove the toast back into his mouth and choke himself with it. “…I didn’t—” he blurted, scrambling. “I mean I didn’t—no, I mean—”
Yun blinked. Then he laughed. It was brief, almost accidental, like something that had been held down too long and slipped out before it could be stopped.
Solan stared at him. Was it really that funny? He hadn’t thought it was.
“I’m sorry,” Yun said, recovering quickly. “That was rude of me.”
Solan blinked. He hadn’t expected someone like Yun to apologize for laughing.
Yun had already turned back to the tea set, measuring out tea leaves with quiet focus. “What did Damien tell you?” he asked.
Solan swallowed. “Basically nothing.”
Yun nodded as if that confirmed something.
“Do you know what the Foundry is?”
Solan glanced around the room, at the glass dome, the old books, the plants that looked like they’d outlived people. “A rich kids’ social club?”
Yun smiled faintly. “That’s not entirely wrong. Most people assume it’s something mysterious. In reality it’s just a foundation-funded research enclave.”
He paused, watching the tea darken. “It exists mostly to avoid the academy’s more conservative faculty. Meaning students here can explore things that might otherwise get shut down.”
He glanced back at Solan. “Of course, members still have to follow academy rules.” A small beat. “Especially GPA.”
Solan chewed the last of the toast. “…and this involves me how?”
Yun reached into his pocket. When he placed the ring on the table, Solan’s heartbeat jumped. “Damien found this when he located you in the training dome.”
Yun rotated the ring gently between his fingers. “A few of our members examined it. Interesting relic.”
He looked up. “Where did you get it?”
“Aurichen,” Solan said. Then he hesitated. “…it’s a long story.”
“I see.” Yun nodded lightly. “When you tried to remove the ring, it triggered a reaction.”
“…what?”
“At the same time,” Yun continued, “the Training Dome was already in poor condition. A section gave way. A limited collapse.”
“Did anyone get hurt?”
“Herman went down from the impact. One of our members was injured while moving in to pull him out—he happened to be nearby. Fortunately, both are fine. Damien extracted you.”
Solan swallowed. Great. So I triggered a relic reaction inside a building that was already one bad sneeze away from collapse. Academy quality control: outstanding. “…so do I need to report to the EB? Or a police station?”
“In a sensible world, yes.”
Solan felt his stomach drop.
Yun went on, calm as ever. “We are not a law-enforcement body. Damien is—technically—but that is his personal career choice. He has already spoken with Herman, and Herman is willing to let it go.”
“And as for the Foundry member, Julius,” Yun added, “he spent most of the night experimenting with the ring.” A small smile. “After that, he decided escalation was unnecessary. Very generous of him.”
Solan had no idea who Julius was, but he guessed that was the injured one. “So…” Solan said slowly. “We can just pretend nothing happened?”
“You can,” Yun said. “As far as the Academy is concerned, nothing happened.”
“And the ring?”
Yun slid it across the table. “What you do with it afterward is entirely your decision.”
Yun poured two cups. One for Solan. One for himself. His fingers curled lightly around his cup. “Hojicha,” he said, almost conversational. “It’s from Kyoto.
The roasted aroma was faint—nothing like coffee, nothing like spices. More like wood that had briefly touched fire.
Solan looked down at the tea. The color was lighter than black tea, somewhere closer to sun-warmed wood.
He took a sip. It tasted exactly like he expected tea to taste. Warm. Mild. A little bitter. Not unpleasant. Just…tea. He smacked his lips once. After a couple seconds of silence, his eyes drifted toward the small milk pitcher on the cart.
Finally he found a safe question. “…can you put milk in this?”
“If you need it.”
Solan shrugged and pulled it closer. He poured a little into the cup. The tea lightened at once. He added a bit more—then stopped. The color had drifted somewhere… suspicious. Solan stared at the cup for a moment. “Whatever,” he murmured. “Might as well commit.”
He grabbed the sugar jar and dropped in a spoonful. The spoon touched the porcelain.
Clink.
Solan took a sip. It no longer tasted like tea. Sweet, milky, vaguely chaotic—but undeniably better.
He looked up at Yun. “You want to try?”
Yun didn’t answer immediately. He studied Solan for a moment, then set his own cup aside and picked up Solan’s instead. He took a small sip.
Solan waited. Yun considered it.
“This is not tea,” he said at last. “But I see why you did it.”
The room went quiet again.
Somewhere in that pause, Solan realized Yun didn’t resemble anyone else he knew. Not that he knew many people to begin with. Still.
There was no distance in him. No sense of weight or rank pressing down on the room. Not trustworthy , exactly—that wasn’t the word. And friendly felt too simple.
It was closer to a strange kind of familiarity—like the room had been arranged long before Solan walked into it.
“Congratulations, Rank thirty-nine.”
The words snapped Solan back. For a moment he almost said it was the ring. That none of it really counted. But the explanation stalled somewhere behind his teeth. Instead he flattened the compliment with a shrug. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a list. A student game.”
“A game?” Yun repeated, still gentle. “In the oldest human stories, there are no games.”
Solan had no idea where the conversation was going.
Yun continued, unhurried. “The first thing every civilization learns to narrate isn’t fairness. It isn’t meaning.”
He glanced down at the tea. “It’s force. Gods killing gods. Brothers killing brothers. Floods swallowing the losing side.”
“The winner comes first,” he said quietly. “Only afterward do people begin asking who deserved to win.”
“The Scratchlist simply places the scoreboard in the open.”
Solan sat there for a moment, thinking. Humans really have it rough.