After the long harsh weeks of training came her mothers anniversary.
The date had been circling her calendar like a storm cloud she could not outrun.
And so, Freya left to travel back home for the weekend.
Funnily enough, the train ride home felt longer than she remembered.
The capital unraveled into countryside in slow strokes of green and gold. Fields rolled past the window in quiet succession. Villages flickered by like half-forgotten memories. Freya sat rigid in her seat, hands folded around her sketchbook, watching the world peel backward toward a place she had not visited in six months.
Inky slept on the empty seat beside her.
Or pretended to.
The closer they drew to her home city, the tighter something wound in her chest. Anticipation braided with dread. She had imagined this visit a hundred times during sleepless nights at the academy. Each version ended differently. None of them prepared her for the simple reality of stepping off the train onto a familiar platform.
The air smelled the same.
Stone and river water. Bread from the bakery down the street. Life continuing with indifferent grace.
Freya did not go to the cemetery first.
When the train doors slid open and her home city breathed against her skin, her feet carried her in a different direction. Past the market square. Past the bakery that still smelled like warm sugar and bread. Past streets that tugged at her memory like loose threads.
She stopped in front of her old house.
It looked smaller.
The paint had faded a shade. The window shutters bore scratches she did not remember. For a moment she simply stood there, her reflection ghosted faintly in the glass.
Inky sat on the low stone wall, tail curled neatly around his paws. Watching.
Freya pushed open the gate. It creaked in the same familiar way. The sound echoed strangely in her chest.
Her father answered the door.
For a heartbeat they only stared at each other. Then his face softened in a way that hurt to see.
"You're taller," he said.
"You're still terrible at greetings," she replied, her voice catching.
He laughed, and the tension snapped. He pulled her into a tight embrace. She stiffened for a split second, surprise flaring through her. Then she returned it, burying her face in his shoulder.
He smelled like soap and old paper. Like home.
Inside, the house was both unchanged and irrevocably different. Her mother's absence hummed in the spaces between furniture. The air felt thinner.
They sat at the kitchen table. Her father poured tea with hands that trembled only slightly.
"You look… stronger," he observed.
"I am," Freya said. The words felt solid.
She told him about the academy. The training. The early victories. She skipped around the maze at first, circling it like a wound she did not want to touch.
He listened with quiet intensity, pride flickering in his eyes.
"And the competition?" he asked gently.
The question settled between them.
Freya's gaze dropped to the steam curling from her cup. The memory rose, sharp and unyielding.
"We almost won," she said. "I… froze. At the end."
The confession scraped raw on her tongue.
Her father did not flinch. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
"You're still there," he said softly. "That's what matters."
The simplicity of it stole her breath.
"I thought you sent me away to be… unbreakable," she whispered.
"I sent you away to live," he replied. "Strength isn't the absence of breaking. It's what you build afterward."
The words settled deep in her chest. She had been carrying her failure like a verdict. Hearing it reframed as part of the path loosened something tight and aching inside her.
They spoke for hours. Of small things. Of neighbors and weather and the quiet persistence of daily life. When she finally stood to leave, the sun had dipped low in the sky.
Her father walked her to the door.
"She'd be proud of you," he said.
Freya's throat tightened. She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
Outside, Inky rose from his perch and fell into step beside her. The cemetery waited at the edge of the district, a silent punctuation mark on the horizon.
This time, she was ready to face it.
She walked the route to the cemetery on instinct. Her boots traced paths worn deep by childhood repetition. Houses rose around her like ghosts of another life. At the edge of the district, the cemetery gates stood open, ironwork cool beneath her fingers.
It was quiet inside.
Gravel crunched softly underfoot. Names etched in stone passed in solemn rows. Freya found her mother's grave without searching. She could have walked to it blind.
The stone was clean. Someone had been tending it. Papa, most likely.
Freya knelt.
For a moment, words refused to come. The weight of six months pressed against her ribs, heavy and unwieldy. She placed her sketchbook at the base of the stone and rested her hands on her thighs.
"Hi, Mom," she whispered.
Her voice sounded small in the open air, thinner than she expected. The silence that followed felt vast. When she was younger, she used to imagine her mother answering back, teasing her for whispering in a place like this. The memory pressed sharp against her chest.
"I made it into the academy. I told you I would."
A fragile smile flickered and died. She could almost see her mother leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, smiling that proud, knowing smile. Of course you did, she would have said. You always do the things you decide to do.
"I wish you could see it," Freya murmured. "It's… huge. Bigger than anything I imagined. There are towers that touch the clouds, and bridges that glow at night. Sometimes I stand on the rooftops and think about how much you would've loved the view."
Her fingers tightened in the grass.
"I keep thinking about the day I'd come home and tell you everything. Every class. Every stupid mistake. You'd sit at the table and pretend not to understand half of it, but you'd listen anyway."
Her throat tightened.
"I still talk to you in my head," she admitted. "When something good happens, you're the first person I want to tell. And when something goes wrong…"
Her voice faltered. The memory of the maze surged up, vivid and merciless. The crystal shattering. The silence afterward.
"We had a big competition," she said softly. "Inter-house. We almost won."
Her chest ached.
"But I froze," she whispered.
The confession cracked something open inside her. Tears blurred the stone's edges, turning her mother's name into a smear of gray.
"I promised I wouldn't do that again. I promised you. I promised myself. And I did. I just… stood there while everything fell apart."
Her shoulders shook. The words tumbled out faster, tripping over one another.
"They trusted me," she choked. "My team trusted me, and I failed them. I saw it in their faces after. The disappointment. They didn't even have to say it. I carry it around with me every day."
She pressed her palm flat against the cold stone.
"They look at me differently now. Like I'm a risk. Like I'm a broken puzzle they have to work around. The prefects said I'm talented, but unreliable. Do you know how much that hurts? To be almost enough?"
A bitter laugh escaped her.
"I keep thinking if you were there, you'd tell me it's okay. That people fail. That I'm still… me. But you're not here, and I don't know how to forgive myself."
Inky sat a few paces away, a dark shape against the pale gravel.
Freya's gaze snapped to him, anger flaring through the grief.
"And you," she said, her voice rising. "You did nothing. Again."
The words tore free, raw and jagged.
"You watched me fail. You always watch. That's all you ever do."
Her hands curled into fists. Tears streaked her cheeks unchecked.
"I needed you," she whispered. "I still need you. And you just sit there like it doesn't matter. Like I don't matter."
Silence answered her.
The cemetery held its breath. Even the wind seemed to pause, leaves suspended in mid-rustle.
Something inside her snapped.
"I hate you," she said.
The words rang brittle in the air. The instant they left her mouth, regret coiled in her stomach. But the anger was already burning, feeding on months of swallowed resentment.
"You're supposed to be my partner," she said hoarsely. "Everyone else has someone who talks to them. Guides them. And I have—"
Her voice broke.
"Nothing."
The word echoed, small and terrible.
Inky moved.
It was a small motion. A step forward. But the air shifted around it. Pressure unfurled from him in a silent wave, ancient and immense. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
Freya's breath hitched.
For the first time since she had known him, Inky spoke.
His voice did not pass through her ears. It settled directly into her mind, smooth and deep and impossibly old.
You have never had nothing.
The words vibrated through her bones.
Freya stared at him. Her heart pounded a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
"You…" Her voice trembled. "You can talk."
The cemetery blurred at the edges. The weight of his presence filled the space between them, vast and terrible and strangely gentle.
His gaze held hers, unflinching.
You measure yourself against absence. Against what you believe I withhold. And still you rise.
The words cut cleanly through her turmoil. She felt them settle in the fractures of her doubt.
"I don't want to rise alone," she whispered, her voice small and tired. "I'm so tired of feeling like I'm fighting the world by myself."
For a heartbeat, silence stretched. Then something in his expression shifted. A subtle softening that felt like the echo of pity.
Or perhaps recognition.
You are not alone, he said.
Power stirred around him.
The air thickened, humming with restrained force. Shadows pooled at his feet, coiling like living ink. Freya's breath caught as the darkness gathered, folding in on itself with impossible precision.
A shape emerged.
Steel drank the light.
A katana materialized in the space between them, its blade a seamless ribbon of black that reflected nothing. The hilt was wrapped in dark leather, cool and immaculate. It hovered for a moment, suspended in the charged air.
A fragment, Inky said. Of what I am.
The sword settled gently into her outstretched hands.
The instant her fingers closed around the hilt, power thrummed up her arms. It was not overwhelming. It was focused. A razor-thin edge of his vastness, tempered and contained.
Her breath shuddered out.
"For me?" she whispered.
For the path ahead, he replied. You face trials that will not yield to will alone. Take this.
The blade felt impossibly light. Perfectly balanced. It hummed in quiet harmony with her pulse.
"Why now?" she asked softly.
His gaze drifted to the gravestone behind her. To the name carved in stone.
Because you have crossed a threshold, he said. And so you do not further embarrass yourself as easily.
A wet laugh broke through her tears. Even now, he could not resist the barb. It grounded her in a way gentle words never could.
Tears spilled over again, but they felt different. Lighter. Cleansed of the bitterness that had weighed them down.
Freya bowed her head, clutching the katana to her chest. The metal was cool against her skin.
"Thank you," she whispered. "For… not leaving me alone, Inky."
The words felt inadequate. Too small for the gift he had placed in her hands. But they were all she had.
Inky stepped closer. His presence pressed warm and solid against her side.
Do not mistake this for rescue, he said. You will still walk your path. I will not carry you.
"I know," she murmured. "But… it helps. Knowing you're there."
The blade at her side was not a crutch. It was an acknowledgment. A bridge between the silence that had defined their partnership and the possibility of something more.
Freya looked up at her mother's grave. The wind stirred softly through the cemetery, carrying the scent of distant flowers.
"I'm still trying," she said aloud, her voice steadier now. "I'm still going. And I think… I think you'd be proud of me. Even when I mess up."
The katana hummed faintly in her grasp. Inky's presence steadied her, a dark star at the edge of her orbit.
For the first time since the maze, the knot in her chest loosened completely.
She rose to her feet, the sword a sleek line against her side. The path back to the academy stretched before her, uncertain and demanding.
Freya squared her shoulders.
This time, she would not walk it empty-handed.
And beside her, the fallen sovereign watched with quiet approval as his stubborn contractor picked herself up once again, carrying a fragment of himself into the light.