Wings Of Reverie

After the short confrontation, the students are ushered into classrooms for their written exams, while parents and guardians wait elsewhere.

Camillia paces quietly around the building as Minato writes inside, worry etched across her face. Onlookers exchange puzzled glances at her unease.

Ahh… is he going to be okay? He seemed so confident. Celis and Percival both said he was ready. Then why am I worrying like this? Get a hold of yourself, Camillia.

The bell finally rings, signalling the end of the test. Camillia hurries to the hall, relief flooding her when she sees Minato emerge, shoulders relaxed, a faint smile tugging at his lips. He turns and spots her, her concern poorly hidden despite her best effort. He chuckles softly, walking over, and she lets out a long sigh.

They sit together on a bench in the academy gardens, the rustle of leaves and faint chatter surrounding them.

“So, Minato,” Camillia asks gently, “how are you feeling about the practical exam?”

“From what you told me, they’ll throw us onto some field in front of the nobles. Then they announce our Archana and we show off our best moves, right?”

“Well… more or less.”

Minato leans back, staring at the pale sky above. “You know… you’re incredible. The way people talk about you the pressure you carry anyone else would’ve cracked by now. But you just keep pushing forward.”

Camillia blinks in surprise, then smiles warmly. She reaches out and pats his head. “I have people to look after. And people who watch over me. That’s what gives me strength.”

Minato’s expression softens. “…Can you if it’s not too much tell me about your husband and child? And… how they died?”

Camillia hesitates, then exhales. Her voice trembles at first, but steadies as she continues.

“My husband, Alden, was a commoner. He manifested the Martial Archana Celis must have taught you about it?”

“Mhm. The Archana most knights use. Boosts martial ability. Celis calls them battle maniacs all they think about is training, weapons, and fighting.”

Camillia chuckles faintly. “Alden wasn’t exactly a maniac, but he loved sparring as naturally as breathing. His Archana helped him rise from guard to knight of my family. After we married, we had a son Julian. But…” her smile fades, “…the nobles never let us forget. ‘A commoner husband. A commoner child.’ The scorn was endless. Eventually, we had to withdraw Julian from school for his safety.”

Her gaze grows distant, haunted.

“One day, Alden and I were ordered to clear monsters from a distant forest. I questioned it why us, when another family was closer? But the only reply was: our role is to obey, not question imperial orders. So we went. I asked our guards to watch Julian, praying it was just paranoia.”

Her mind replays it vividly the ruin deep in the forest, the surging tide of monsters.

“Inside that ruin was the outbreak’s source. We weren’t prepared. I wanted to retreat for reinforcements, but before we could, one of the imperial mages” her hands tremble, “he detonated himself against the barrier. The horde poured out. We fought until our numbers collapsed. Alden stayed behind with a few knights, forcing me and the others to retreat. I begged to remain, but he only smiled and told me to run. By the time reinforcements arrived, it was too late. He and his men had slain nearly everything, but none survived.”

Her hands clench tightly.

“When I returned home, Julian asked where his father was. I lied told him Alden had gone to the king. He didn’t believe me, but he pretended anyway. The next day, the imperial court blamed us for everything, even though it was their mage who caused it. And then…” her voice cracks, “…I came home to find Julian standing over Alden’s body. He was crying. And then his Archana awakened.”

Minato frowns, confused. “Wait Celis never mentioned that Archana before.”

“Of course she didn’t.” Camillia’s voice hardens. “It’s forbidden. The Entropy Archana that which unravels. Not creation. Not destruction. Just the end. Wood rots. Stone crumbles. Bodies decay. Even time itself frays. And in rare, terrible moments it unravels magic itself. Reducing the grandest spell to nothing.”

She looks upward, as if praying. “Julian probably wished to undo his father’s death. But he was too young, and no one can control entropy without being consumed. His own body… decayed before my eyes. That day, I swore I’d fight to change this land, so no more children like Julian, no more men like Alden, would suffer this cruelty.”

The bell tolls again, pulling them back. Minato rises, fire in his eyes.

“Come on. I’ve got a bone to pick with this country. I’ll show them not to look down on House Evergreen.”

Camillia smiles faintly and follows him.

Later, in the arena, nobles and commoners gather. Nobles bask in applause and family pride. Commoners are mocked, sneered at, dismissed.

Archana are displayed Accord users heal enchanted puppets, Atlas users reshape the earth, Pragma users cast simple spells. A few stand out among the commoners: Accord, Martial, Resonance. But then… one girl steps forward.

“Rowan,” the instructor announces, “a commoner with the Ruin Archana and metal element.”

Gasps ripple. A commoner? With Ruin? Impossible.

Rowan, dark-skinned with silver hair gleaming, ignores their scorn. Grey circles bloom behind her, conjuring serpents of metal that coil and strike, shattering the targets in a single surge.

The nobles erupt in disbelief until Darian Vulkaris, smirking, steps forward.

“Commendable for a commoner. But your snakes barely struck half the targets. Amusing, really.”

Rowan bristles, but the instructor cuts her off. “That will do, Rowan.”

She storms back, glancing at Minato. He offers her a quiet smile and a small, encouraging clap.

Then Darian raises his hand. “Twenty targets, instructor. Ten is too few for Vulkaris flames.”

A red sigil ignites, flames swelling into a black sun. The crowd erupts in awe as he hurls it down. Targets vanish in a roar of fire but sparks scatter toward the stands, toward the children.

Camillia’s heart freezes. Too far. Too fast.

But then

A radiant wing of shadow-feathers unfurls, vast and gleaming, wrapping the children in shelter. Each feather burns with iridescent shimmer, shadows flowing like liquid starlight. The flames strike the barrier, curling harmlessly away. Gasps spread through the crowd.

When the smoke clears, the wing retracts slowly, revealing Minato kneeling, shielding a young Accord user in his arms. Her ocean-blue hair gleams, her eyes wide in awe.

“I hope you’re unharmed, miss,” he says softly, offering his hand to help her rise.

She stares at him, speechless. Nobles whisper in shock some sneer still, but others murmur grudging respect.

The instructor’s voice rang out.
“Minato Caelestis, from House Evergreen. Shadows alongside his Reverie Archana.”

Minato stepped forward, calm but burning with resolve.
“Instructor, please twenty moving targets, if you will.”

Gasps murmured through the crowd, but the instructor complied. Shadows shifted across the field as wooden dummies sparked to life, darting and weaving in unpredictable patterns.

A flicker of memory tugged at Minato’s mind as the instructor’s voice faded into the background. He saw Celis again, her curious gaze fixed on him during one of their late-night training sessions.

“Young master, the weapons you create are quite peculiar, I must say.”

Minato gave a small, teasing smile, brushing stray hair from his face. “These are weapons from my old country. I could barely imagine the inner workings, though, so I made… minor adjustments.”

To prove his point, he shaped a pistol from shadow, its sleek frame glimmering faintly as if it belonged to another age. He aimed and fired. The first round struck a training target, leaving a deep dent. The second shot cracked through another, splintering the wood in two.

Celis blinked. “W-Woah… what happened there?”

“I subconsciously switch between lethal and non-lethal rounds,” Minato explained, lowering the weapon. “I use pressurized mana spheres as bullets. Mana on its own can’t really kill, at best it just rattles the system. But if I lace it with shadow mana… then it destabilizes on impact. That’s when it pierces.”

From the sidelines, Camellia had been watching, her arms folded yet eyes sparkling with interest. She finally spoke up. “Aunty told me you used different forms of these weapons before. Here’s my question: can you make two different objects at once?”

Minato hesitated, then tried. He summoned two different guns, one a pistol and the other a rifle, but their shapes quivered and collapsed into liquid shadows. Undeterred, he forced a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, but this time the gun sagged into formless sludge, while the blade dissolved in his grip.

His chest rose and fell sharply as sweat beaded on his forehead.

Celis tilted her head, thoughtful. “I think Her Grace is right. You can’t make multiple different objects. At best, you can manage several of the same.”

Camellia stepped closer, her tone gentle yet sharp with insight. “The Reverie Archana feeds on your memories and understanding of what you shape. Unless you’ve got two brains thinking through two designs at once, you’re… well, stuck.”

They tested his limits further, failure after failure teaching him more than success. At last, Minato dropped to the grass, shadows fading around him.

“So basically,” he sighed, staring up at the night sky, “I can’t create two different objects, and everything I make has to stay close to me. Talk about a pain.”

Camellia knelt beside him, her hand settling lightly on his head. Her smile was soft, almost motherly. “Still, it’s an incredible power. I can’t wait to see how it grows.”

The memory dissolved. Minato blinked back into the present, the murmuring crowd and blazing sun returning to him. His fists clenched.

Watch me, he thought, a fire igniting in his chest. This is the power you and Celis helped me shape.

And with that, shadows rippled outward his wings unfurling, feathers spreading like a storm-touched sky. Each feather shimmered like obsidian threaded with starlight, both elegant and terrifying. He rose into the air, the wings beating once, lifting him above the noise of the crowd.

His eyes sharpened. A single gesture and feathers burst free, arcing through the air like homing blades. They curved and darted, each finding its mark with merciless precision, slicing cleanly through ten targets before fading into sparks.

The crowd hushed. But Minato wasn’t finished.

He spread his wings wide, their span vast and radiant, then dove. With every pass, the feathers hardened to steel slicing through the remaining dummies as if they were paper. One by one they shattered beneath his flight, the dance equal parts beautiful and brutal, destruction painted in strokes of grace.

As silence fell, Minato landed lightly, wings folding behind him in a slow cascade of fading light and shadow. He bowed low toward the stands.

“This is for you, Mother Evergreen.”