The field was bright and dry, a patch of green stretching forever. Emi ran ahead of him, bare feet kicking up dust, laughing like she hadn’t in years.

  “Come on, slowpoke!”

  Raizō chased after her, pretending to trip so she’d laugh harder. For once, there was no work, no pressure, no noise, just the wind and her voice. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it until now. They stopped by a shallow stream. Emi crouched and splashed water toward him; he dodged and flicked some back. She laughed again, breathless, alive. Everything felt too perfect, colors too sharp, the air too still, but he didn’t care.

  Then thunder rolled across the sky.

  Raizō looked up. Thick, dark clouds swallowed the sun. Drizzle turned to cold rain within seconds. Emi stepped closer. Water streaked her hair, her smile softening into something sad and knowing.

  “This was fun,” she whispered, “but I think it’s time for you to wake up, Raizō.”

  He tried to answer, but the rain hit harder.

  Light, not the kind that warms or comforts, but the kind that erases. Cold slammed his face. Raizō woke up, inhaled sharply and sat upright. Rain poured onto him through a shattered glass dome high above, a ceiling painted with suns and constellations, now fractured into jagged ribs of stone and metal. Pieces of colored glass littered the marble floor, glowing whenever the sun hit them. He wasn’t outside. They laid scattered on a floor of glasslike marble, inside what looked like a cathedral sculpted from light. The ceiling arched so high it disappeared into clouds. And through a lattice of radiant glass shone not one sun, but three. Each burned a different hue: gold, white, and pale blue. Together, they painted the room in a living fire.

  Raizō didn’t move at first. He simply stared, the light reflecting in his dark eyes. His chest rose and fell in controlled rhythm. He had trained himself not to panic long ago. His parents’ deaths had burned that lesson into him. This was a throne room. The throne itself stood at the far end. Two seats next to one another. Both bright, beautiful, but also a feeling of danger invaded his thoughts.

  The six were already awake, and panicking. Reina was pressed against a column, arms wrapped around herself, mumbling, “This isn’t real… this isn’t real…”

  Daisuke staggered in circles, wiping rain from his face, shouting curses at no one. Hiro knelt beside a broken chunk of marble, head down, breathing like every inhale hurt. Ayane clutched her cross so tightly her knuckles turned white, whispering rapid prayers that soon turned into sobs. Kaito was near an archway, staring at the shattered dome, silent and pale. Only Arin was composed. He sat calmly, rain from the sun shower running down his face, watching the others with a strange, unreadable focus. Like the chaos didn’t touch him at all. Raizō swallowed and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Everyone—”

  Reina spun toward him, eyes wide and frantic. “Where are we? Raizō—what did you do? What is this?!”

  Then came the sound of armor. A dozen guards surrounded them in a flash, halberds raised, runes carved into their silver breastplates pulsing faintly with light. The weapons hummed, alive, like the air itself.

  “Stand down!” one shouted. “Kneel before the light of Eryndor! King Arathen and Queen Lysandra!”

  Daisuke snarled. “The hell is this—”

  Arin’s voice cut through the chaos like a calm wind. “Do as they say.”

  It wasn’t the words that froze them. It was the tone, soft, assured, but carrying something weightier than authority. Even the guards hesitated for half a heartbeat. The great doors at the end of the hall opened with a resonant chime. And then, he appeared. King Arathen of Eryndor was not what Raizō expected of royalty. His face was lined not from age but from restraint. His crown was plain crystal, his robes simple white trimmed in gold. Yet when he spoke, his voice filled the space like thunder wrapped in silk.

  “You stand within the Palace of Light, in the city of Lumeris,” he said, each word deliberate. “You are not prisoners. You are guests, summoned by will beyond mine or yours.”

  Behind him sat a woman with the stillness of water, Queen Lysandra. A younger woman whose eyes didn’t waver even when the others flinched under the weight of three suns stood beside her. Her copper hair caught the light, bringing out a deeper, steadier red. Raizō noticed her watching him, not with fear, but curiosity.

  “You must be confused,” Arathen continued, his tone even. “Rest. Eat. My people will see to your comfort. In time, you will learn why you are here, and what that entails.”

  Guards lowered their weapons, but none turned their backs. As they were led down golden halls, Raizō’s mind worked through the shock, trying to find logic in the impossible. His thoughts drifted to Emi. She would be waiting. She’d ask if he’d eaten. She’d scold him for leaving dishes in the sink. And now… she was alone. He pressed his thumb to his knuckle three times. A silent tic. The only thing keeping him from falling apart.

  The palace was a living monument. From its corridors radiated a faint hum that matched the pulse of the world outside, as though the entire structure breathed air through its walls. Light did not simply fill the Palace of Light, it flowed, shifting in subtle waves, reflected by veins of translucent crystal embedded in the marble. As they walked, guards trailed them, not hostile, but alert, like a pack escorting prey too curious to run.

  Reina’s eyes darted from pillar to pillar, trying to memorize every rune etched into the stone. “This… this has to be a simulation,” she muttered. “A virtual light-space anomaly, or—”

  “None of this is fake,” Daisuke snapped, his voice cracking from the strain. “Feel the air. It’s thick.”

  He clenched his hand, grimacing. “Like it’s alive.”

  “It is,” said a voice beside them.

  They turned to find a woman dressed in white and silver robes walking gracefully alongside. Her expression was unreadable, eyes a pale blue that held neither warmth nor disdain.

  “Mana,” she said. “It is the lifeblood of Eryndor and this entire world. Every breath you take is touched by it.”

  She gave a curt nod. “I am Lady Miren, attendant to Queen Lysandra. His Majesty requests that you rest. The ceremony of introduction will come in due time.”

  Arin inclined his head slightly, a movement so practiced, it might have been instinct. “We’re honored,” he said evenly. Reina flinched at the word “we”. She wasn’t sure when he had started speaking for all of them, but somehow, no one objected. Raizō kept silent, his gaze drifting to the high windows where three suns burned in strange harmony. He noticed how the others’ skin gleamed faintly, their eyes reflecting light differently now. He felt nothing. No hum. No pulse. Just the faint chill of being left out of something everyone else seemed to sense.

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  Their quarters were arranged in a crescent hall overlooking the city. From Raizō’s balcony, the horizon stretched endlessly, the architecture cascading downward into a sea of luminous rivers. Bridges of crystal curved through the air, connecting towers that shimmered like frozen lightning. It was beautiful, unbearably so. But beauty had never comforted him. That first night, he sat at his desk, staring at the parchment and quills provided for writing. He didn’t touch them. He simply stared at the reflection of the three suns in the glass until their light faded, and three moons took their place.

  The next morning, servants arrived with food and garments. They were elegant robes threaded with golden filaments that faintly vibrated when held. Reina examined hers curiously, but Daisuke refused to wear his. Ayane clasped hers as if it were holy. Arin wore his without question. And somehow, when he entered the dining hall, everyone followed his lead. Raizō noticed it again, that unspoken pull. The air seemed to bend around Arin, softening tempers, focusing eyes. Even the guards stiffened a little straighter when he spoke.

  “Think we’re dead?” Daisuke muttered, stabbing his food with his fork.

  “Dead men don’t eat,” Hiro said quietly.

  Reina sighed. “Then maybe we’re… rewritten.”

  Raizō exhaled through his nose and stared into his untouched plate. “Maybe we’re just in the wrong place,” he murmured.

  Arin’s head turned toward him, just slightly. The faintest smile curved his lips. “Then we’ll make it the right one.”

  The words sounded inspiring. But something in Raizō’s gut twisted, a pressure, faint yet insistent, that made him want to step back even as everyone else leaned forward. That night, as the three moons rose again, Raizō wandered the halls alone. The corridors were vast and silent, filled with faint glows that rippled across the floor like living veins. He passed through a courtyard bathed in silver light. Someone was already there, the princess from before, seated on the stone railing, her copper hair catching moonlight. She didn’t turn when he stopped a few meters away.

  “You’re quieter than the others,” she said.

  “I don’t have anything worth saying,” he replied.

  A faint smile. “That makes two of us.”

  Silence stretched between them, long and strangely comfortable.

  “Your name?” she asked at last.

  “Raizō.”

  “Lyra,” she said, though her tone carried no formality. “Welcome to Eryndor, Raizō.”

  He inclined his head slightly, not in reverence, but acknowledgment.

  She studied him for a moment longer, then said softly, “Most people panic when they arrive here. You seem… steady.”

  He looked past her to the endless city below, rivers of light weaving through streets that pulsed like arteries. “Steady doesn’t mean calm,” he said.

  Something in his voice made her turn. The honesty there surprised her. He looked like a man holding himself together with will alone. When she left, she didn’t notice his hand twitch, thumb tapping his knuckle three times before going still again.

  Days bled into weeks, and the shock of their arrival dulled, not through understanding, but repetition. Even confusion becomes bearable if it lasts long enough. The palace routines became familiar: dawn meals beneath the triple suns, etiquette lessons led by attendants in silver robes, audiences with the king, and endless, polite silence. Everything in Lumeris shimmered. Even shadows seemed reluctant to exist too long under its glow. But the light didn’t soothe everyone the same way.

  Reina buried herself in the study of runes. She devoured scrolls and manuscripts brought by attendants, insisting that everything, even mana, had a formula. She recorded symbols late into the night, her candle burning until the wick drowned in its own wax. When Raizō passed her room one evening, he heard her whispering equations under her breath, a mantra to fight back chaos. Her voice cracked halfway through.

  Daisuke trained until his hands bled. The palace courtyard had become his refuge and his prison. He attacked wooden dummies with reckless force, his sweat hissing when it hit the sunlit tiles. Once, when a guard offered advice, Daisuke broke the man’s spear in half. Arin stepped in before it escalated. He didn’t shout. He simply looked at Daisuke, and the rage drained out of him like water through a cracked jar. Daisuke bowed his head, breathing hard, ashamed. Raizō saw it from the balcony above. He didn’t know if he’d just witnessed authority… or something worse. Ayane turned to faith. She asked for a temple, and the queen herself arranged a small shrine within the palace gardens. Every morning, she prayed, not for escape, but for purpose.

  “Maybe this is where we were meant to be,” she said once, her smile thin but genuine. “Maybe god chose us to fix what’s broken here.”

  Raizō didn’t argue. He simply nodded. After the accident, Raizō’s faith diminished. He used to admire people who could believe without proof. Now, he envied them.

  Hiro kept his strength quiet. He trained beside Daisuke but never shouted, never challenged. His movements were efficient, controlled, more meditation than combat. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, his words carried reason. The palace guards began to respect him, calling him the steady one. But even he wasn’t immune. One night, Raizō saw him staring out his window, eyes unfocused, whispering something too soft to hear.

  Kaito tried to stay out of everyone’s way. The once-loud computer major barely spoke now. He followed orders, copied Arin’s gestures, and laughed when the others did. Sometimes Raizō caught him glancing his way, that old look of familiarity in his eyes, a ghost of their past friendship, but it always vanished before Raizō could speak.

  And Arin…

  Arin thrived. He moved through the palace like he belonged there. Guards listened when he spoke. Attendants smiled without realizing why. Even King Arathen himself seemed to weigh his opinions seriously. The others began referring to him as their leader. Raizō never heard him claim the title, but he didn’t have to. Arin carried leadership like a scent, invisible, inevitable. When Raizō was near him, a pressure built in his chest. Not fear exactly, but something that made him want to step back, to breathe air that hadn’t touched Arin first. And yet, the others leaned closer.

  Raizō didn’t adapt. He observed. He noticed the shift in how the attendants spoke, from “guests” to “chosen.” The difference was small but sharp. He noticed the glances, pity from some, unease from others. He noticed the way King Arathen’s eyes lingered on him during audiences, thoughtful, searching. He couldn’t sense mana like the others did. Reina described it as warmth in her veins. Hiro said it was like static before lightning. Raizō felt nothing. The air to him was just air, cold, dry, ordinary. So, he focused on what he could control. He memorized palace patterns: the changing guard shifts, the resonance of bells marking each hour, the faint clicks of mana mechanisms in the walls. His engineering mind, though limited, catalogued it all. But at night, when silence returned, his thoughts went to Emi. He pictured her face in the glow of their tiny apartment’s TV. The half-smile she gave when pretending not to worry. He wondered how long before she realized he wasn’t coming home. He tapped his thumb against his knuckle. Once. Twice. Three times.

  Lyra Ashen, the princess of Eryndor and the Captain of the Royal Guard, watched all of this from the periphery. She had been raised to see people as pieces, soldiers, servants, nobles, pawns, but this group defied categorization. They were too fractured to be united yet to bound by circumstance to break apart. Arin unsettled her. His voice was calm, but there was something beneath it, a pull she could feel even through discipline. It wasn’t charm. It was corrosion disguised as composure.

  The others orbited him, their individuality slowly eroding. All except Raizō. He remained separate, quiet, self-contained. He spoke to no one unless spoken to, but when he did, his words carried a gravity that lingered. There was no bitterness in him, only distance. She found that remarkable. Most people broke under isolation. He simply endured it. She didn’t admire him. Admiration was reserved for extraordinary individuals. But she respected him, perhaps more than anyone else in the palace. By the third week, the palace no longer whispered about the seven strangers. They had names, routines, and expectations. But one night, as Raizō crossed a balcony lit by three moons, he overheard servants speaking in hushed tones near the gardens.

  “…the prophecy said there would be seven,” one murmured. “Seven heroes to restore the world’s balance. But one would fall, cursed to bring ruin…”

  Raizō stopped walking.

  “Then why summon all seven again?”

  another whispered. “You can't just summon the six, the summoning requires seven. That's why King Arathen is observing all of them. To see which one it is. You know, the anomaly.”

  A chill ran down his spine. He didn’t know it yet, but they were talking about him.