Kaen opened his eyes with difficulty and woke up slowly, despite the rocking of the carriage. He began to take in his surroundings and realised he was using Solvane's thighs as a pillow. He He watched Solvane as she looked towards the window; he could sense and guess what she was thinking. He gently closed his eyes again for a moment.
"Hmmm," Kaen grunted, opening his eyes slightly. "Where am I?" he continued, murmuring.
"You're feeling better, big brother. You did faint, mind you, but to answer your question: we're in a carriage on our way to the academy," said Solvane, gently stroking his scalp, her eyes filled with concern.
"Yes, I'm much better… and you?" said Kaen, avoiding his sister's gaze.
"I'm sorry. If I'd been more careful, I could have taken them out on my own, but you got hurt because of me," said Solvane, avoiding her brother's gaze.
"Don't cry,I don't want your tears falling on my head," said Kaen with a wry smile
A silence. Then, faintly: "But..."
"No 'buts', Solvane. Everyone makes mistakes, and you wouldn't be Solvane if you weren't so naive."
And then she continued to cry in the carriage, trying to hold back her tears but clearly unable to do so.
Kaen stood there watching his sister.
'Solvane is one of the two people who will shape the future of this world; his death is inevitable.'
In the novel, Solvane will die.
He didn't often think about it, as he had plenty of other priorities, but this time, seeing Solvane so frail she could be shattered with a single blow of a hammer, the thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.
And with it came another dark thought he had tried to forget
He knew the novel from which this world sprang: *The Rise of the God Slayer* – a pretentious title for a story that began amidst the ruins of something readers never got to see; the true beginning, the beginning before the ruin, was observable only through the scars of broken characters, the silences of explanations, because they didn't need explaining.
Stellaris Academy. The entrance exam. Azriel.
He knew she would die during that exam. He knew her death would drive the Demon King mad. He would seek out enemies where there were none, innocent people he had deemed guilty, and Solvane, naive as she was, would reach out to save the Demon King where everyone else had failed.
What he didn't know was what happened next
How was Azriel going to die? Where was she going to die? Was it an accident or something premeditated? The novel never addressed this directly, leaving only hints and averted glances whenever her name was spoken, for fear that the Demon King might hear it and end up killing them.
Kaen had previously tried to decipher these hints, hoping to find something useful.
but he found nothing
The author had treated Azriel as a minor character, a disposable character, a character who was dead before the real story even began, and whose sole purpose was plot-driven—merely a device to justify the Demon King's wrath—not a scene meant to be told but forgotten, to make way for a mad Demon King.
At the time, Kaen thought this was lazy on the author's part.
Today, he finds it utterly disastrous.
Azriel was somewhere out there, drawing closer to her inevitable fate, and he had no information to go on to figure out how he was going to save her.
"Solvane"
She turned around, taken aback by his serious tone.
"Whatever happens during the academy, stay close to me," said Kaen, looking Solvane straight in the eye, whilst Solvane was still crying
Solvane blinked. "Why are you telling me this so suddenly?"
Kaen paused for a few moments, observing his sister.
"Because I'm telling you."
She, too, paused, searching his face for something, before finally nodding. "All right."
He was aware that a promise made in a carriage was worth nothing compared to the immensity of what lay ahead, but if Solvane could remember it when the time came, perhaps then Azriel's fate, his sister's fate, and with it the fate of this world, might be saved.
His future self laughs at this sentence as if it were ironic.
The gates of the academy came into view in the distance.
A few moments later, the carriage came to a halt.
Solvane stood up, placed her hand on the door, and was about to open it when she remembered something; she began to look him straight in the eye. "Whatever happens, we'll look out for each other, agreed?" she said, her gaze a mixture of confusion and self-assurance
"Right," he wanted to say more, but nothing came out of his mouth.
They got out of the carriage together.
The crowd was incredibly noisy, buzzing with the excitement and adrenaline of the opening day. As soon as Kaen stepped out of the carriage, he began observing everything that moved, perhaps searching for a clue as to what was happening to Azriel during the exams.
He saw someone who immediately recognised a boy who would have seemed ordinary to anyone looking at him now; they would describe him as just another person with black hair, black eyes, and a relaxed confidence.
It was Leon Vesper, the protagonist of the novel.
Naive today, tomorrow he would be a weapon to slaughter the gods—at least that's what the novel suggested; he'd only read half of it.
A noise caught his attention; a crowd parted to make way for someone who, just like him, had just stepped out of a carriage. She had magnificent, slit-like red eyes like those of a predator, hair as white as snow, and carried a black parasol; she had all the makings of the perfect noble lady.
Azriel
She saw him too, and approached him—not with a smile, not with any sign of displeasure; she simply approached.
Kaen did not approach; he thought.
'She's going to die during this exam.'
She stopped in front of him, "You look well."
"So do you!"
She paused to stare at him. "Why are you looking at me as if you don't know what to say?"
"I'm searching for the right words."
"You've never had to search for words with me before."
"People change," Kaen admitted.
Azriel didn't answer straight away and looked at him suspiciously, but she didn't really want to make a scene here, so she let it go.
She turned her head towards Solvane; she remained regal in her demeanour, but it was lighter, warmer – like the look you give a friend you haven't seen in ages.
"Solvane"
"Azriel"
A recognition between two friends who had just been reunited—a friendship that would ultimately kill her sister if he didn't save Azriel.