Our eyes meet, and in his gaze I see reflected memories that feel like watching through frosted glass—there but distorted, real but removed.
"Elena."
The name lands like a stone in still water, sending ripples through consciousness that transform everything they touch.
The world shifts.
Not physically—we don't move. But suddenly we're not just on the boat. We're in the boat and alsoelsewhere, witnesses to moments that happened before we became we.
We're running.
Smaller even than our current child-forms—maybe four years old. Our legs pump desperately, trying to keep up with parents who move with urgency that transforms them from the gods of our small world into something frightened. Human. Fallible.
Behind us, the Academy crumbles.
Not slowly, not with the dignity of aged architecture accepting its time.
This is violent destruction—towers falling like severed limbs, bridges of moonlight shattering into fragments that rain down like deadly stars.
The sound is overwhelming:stone screaming, magic dying, the particular silence that follows when something ancient finally ends.
"Mommy!" I hear myself cry—voice even higher than my current child-tone, piping with fear that has no defense. "Where will we be?"
Mother turns without stopping, her face a mask of controlled terror that she's trying to hide for our sake.
The crown of fire above her head flickers erratically, responding to emotions she can't quite suppress.
"We'll be safe, little flame," she says, but the words taste like lies even to a six-year-old ears. "Father and I will take as many students to the Fae realms further below!"
Father's voice joins hers, deeper but no less strained.
"The water will guide you to the gates. Follow the current, trust the flow. It knows where those of royal blood must go."
Even in memory, even through the filter of age and trauma, I can feel the magic in his words. Not metaphor but instruction, each syllable carrying weight of prophecy or curse.
"Protect the chalice at all costs!" Mother's scream cuts through the sound of destruction, her usual composure completely shattered.
Gabriel—my Gabriel, not the one sitting beside me but the one in memory—tries to stop running. His small form plants itself with stubbornness that will later become legendary.
"But we're not strong enough to protect it!"
The statement is logical.We're six.We can barely dress ourselves, let alone protect artifacts of power. But Mother and Father exchange a look that carries entire conversations in a glance.
Mother drops to her knees before us, her hands cupping both our faces with gentleness that contrasts the chaos around us. When she speaks, her voice carries the particular tone of truth that demands recording.
"This Academy was built not by our inspiration, but the both of yours."
The words don't make sense. We're six. We didn't build anything except tower blocks and mud pies. But she continues, urgency making her speak faster.
"The chalice may be the key to its domination, but the rulers are the creators of its memorizing halls. Without its creators, the Academy will remain lost until they return."
Father's hand joins hers, his touch on our heads feeling like blessing and burden combined.
"Do what is necessary to live, our heirs. Whatever that means, whatever that costs.Live."
Mother's crown flares with sudden intensity, and her next words carry the weight of true curse—the kind that reshapes reality through sheer force of will.
"Whoever has forsaken us will be plagued with sickness when they least expect it. Their betrayal will rot them from within, slow enough to suffer, fast enough that no cure can catch it."
