Between Book One and Book Two

One week after Avian begins his three years of training with Aedric

"THE PROTAGONIST DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM THE UNIVERSE!"

Leontis's declaration echoed through the Golden Griffin's common room, causing the lone drunk in the corner to fall off his stool. Morning light streamed through grimy windows, illuminating dust motes that danced like tiny, judgmental spirits.

Kai didn't look up from sharpening his knives. "The universe is closed. Come back during business hours."

"The universe doesn't have business hours!" Leontis swept across the room, his cape — somehow pristine despite their recent poverty — billowing dramatically. "That's the whole point of being the universe!"

"Then why are you yelling at it?"

"Because!" Leontis struck a pose, one foot on a chair, fist raised to the heavens. "The protagonist has realized a terrible truth!"

"You're out of hair pomade again?"

"Worse!" Leontis spun, finger pointing accusingly at Kai. "We're SIDE CHARACTERS!"

The knife slipped. Kai cursed, sucking on his nicked finger. "What?"

"Think about it!" Leontis began pacing, each step perfectly choreographed for maximum dramatic impact. "The warehouse incident! The death mancers! The legendary Elder in the forest! What was our role in these epic confrontations?"

"We helped—"

"We were COMEDY RELIEF!" Leontis clutched his chest as if mortally wounded. "The protagonist provided witty banter while the REAL hero saved the day! A twelve-year-old boy out-protagonisted the protagonist!"

Kai set down his knife carefully. Leontis's dramatics usually masked something deeper, and this felt different. "You've been thinking about this all night, haven't you?"

"The protagonist doesn't need sleep when existential dread provides such excellent company!" But then Leontis's voice dropped, just slightly. "Do you know what the worst part is?"

"What?"

"He never treated us like side characters." Leontis slumped into a chair with theatrical despair. "Avian looked at us and saw... potential. Real potential. And what did we do with it? Nothing! We're still the same broke Silver ranks living in the same roach-infested inn!"

Kai pushed a letter across the table — gilt-edged, bearing the palace seal. "Speaking of which, invitation to the commemorative celebration. They want to give us medals."

"Medals!" Leontis snatched the letter, read it, then tossed it aside with disgust. "Participation trophies! 'Thank you for not dying while the real hero worked!' The protagonist refuses to be relegated to the footnotes of history!"

"So what do you propose we do about it?"

Leontis was quiet for a moment — not silent, because he was still humming dramatically under his breath — but thoughtful. Then he stood, moved to the window, and gazed out at the city with the kind of intensity usually reserved for soliloquies about vengeance.

"The protagonist," he announced, "requires a training montage."

"A training montage."

"Not just any training montage!" Leontis spun back, eyes alight with manic determination. "A TRUE training montage! The kind where the comic relief discovers hidden depths! Where the seemingly weak become mighty! Where—"

"Where we actually get strong enough to matter?"

"Exactly!" Leontis pulled out a pouch and upended it on the table. Gold coins scattered across the wood — their reward from the death mancer incident. "Behold! Our transformation fund!"

Kai counted quickly. "That's enough for maybe six months of decent training. If we're frugal."

"The Shadowmere Academy accepts—"

"No."

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, cutting through the air like a blade made of shadow. Both Kai and Leontis jumped, weapons appearing in their hands by instinct.

"Who—" Kai started, then stopped. He knew that feeling. The cold presence that had followed them through the death mancer incident. The Veritas ghosts.

The shadow in the corner deepened, and a figure stepped out. Not stepped — materialized, as if the darkness had decided to wear a human shape. He was lean, average height, with features so forgettable they seemed to slide off the memory even while looking at them. Perfect for someone who killed from shadows.

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"The Shadowmere Academy," the ghost said, voice like silk over steel, "is where talentless nobles go to play at being dangerous. You'd learn more from a street thug with a rusty knife."

"The protagonist demands you reveal yourself, specter!" Leontis brandished his lute like a weapon, which would have been more impressive if his hands weren't shaking slightly.

The ghost's lips twitched — might have been amusement. "Raymond Blackwood. Former Shadow Blade of House Veritas, Third Generation." He looked directly at Kai. "And I've been watching you."

"That's... not creepy at all," Kai muttered, though he hadn't lowered his knife.

"You have potential. Barely." Raymond circled them, and neither could track his movement properly — he seemed to exist between moments. "Quick hands, quicker mind, and most importantly, you understand that honor is a luxury corpses can't afford."

"And what do you want?" Kai asked, already calculating angles, exits, the likelihood of surviving if this went bad.

"What all family ghosts want. A worthy inheritor." Raymond stopped directly in front of him. "We're bound to serve and strengthen House Veritas, but our standards are specific. You're the first in three decades who might be worth teaching."

"Teaching?"

"The real shadow arts. Not the watered-down philosophy they peddle at academies. The techniques that kept Veritas enemies awake at night, wondering if their own shadows might turn against them." Raymond's form solidified slightly, revealing eyes like chips of midnight ice. "Three years under my guidance, and you'll make those Shadowmere graduates look like children playing with butter knives."

"What about me?" Leontis interjected, stepping forward. "The protagonist also seeks power! Dramatic power!"

Raymond looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head. "You have the reflexes of a concussed peacock and the subtlety of a burning building. I'd have better luck teaching stealth to a brass band."

Leontis deflated like a punctured bladder. "Oh."

"But," Raymond continued, and there was something almost like sympathy in his voice, "you're not meant for shadows anyway. Too much light in you. Too much... noise."

"The protagonist is not noisy! The protagonist is dramatically resonant!"

"Exactly." Raymond turned back to Kai. "My offer stands. But know this — my training will break you down to nothing before building you back. You'll curse my name every night and beg for death every morning. And that's just the first month."

Kai glanced at Leontis, whose theatrical despair was shifting into something more real. Three years apart. Three years of different paths.

"I—"

"Wait!" Leontis suddenly straightened, eyes bright with manic inspiration. "The Resonance Codex!"

"The what now?" Kai asked.

"The protagonist just remembered! When we were ransacking the death mancer warehouse, one of those cultists was babbling about a spell book! The Resonance Codex — a grimoire of pure sound magic! The kind that turns words into weapons and songs into sorcery!"

"That sounds made up."

"Everything sounds made up until it tries to kill you!" Leontis was pacing again, energy restored. "Think about it! What's more protagonist-worthy than seeking out a legendary tome? A quest! A true hero's journey!"

"Where would you even start looking?"

"The babbling cultist mentioned something about the Singing Ruins in the Westreach Mountains. Ancient bardic college, collapsed centuries ago but supposedly still humming with residual magic!" Leontis spun to face them both. "The protagonist shall seek this power! Transform theatrical prowess into actual magical might!"

Raymond made a sound that might have been approval. "Not the worst plan I've heard. Sound magic pairs well with your... particular nature. Few can make it work, but those who do become legends."

"Really?" Leontis beamed.

"Or they blow their own eardrums out and die screaming. One of the two."

"The protagonist accepts these odds!"

Kai felt something ease in his chest. They'd still be apart, but they'd both be growing. Different paths, same destination — becoming worthy of standing beside Avian when he returned.

"So," he said, turning back to Raymond, "when do we start?"

"Now." The ghost's smile was sharp as midnight. "First lesson — never trust anything that steps out of shadows. Could have killed you both seventeen times during this conversation."

"But you didn't."

"Because you're more useful alive. For now." Raymond's form began to fade. "Meet me in the old Veritas cemetery, midnight. Bring bandages. You'll need them."

He vanished between one blink and the next, leaving only the faint scent of iron and old blood.

"Well," Leontis said after a moment, "the protagonist's path is clear! Also terrifying! But mostly clear!"

"Three years," Kai said quietly. "Think we'll survive?"

"The protagonist always survives! It's everyone around him who should worry!" Leontis grabbed his friend's shoulders. "We're going to become LEGENDARY, Kai! You'll be the shadow that makes assassins check under their beds! I'll be the voice that makes the mountains themselves dance!"

"Or we'll die horribly."

"The protagonist prefers optimism!"

They laughed, and it felt like a promise. Three years to transform. Three years to become more than comic relief.

Kai started gathering his things — knives, clothes, the few possessions worth keeping. "When will you leave for the mountains?"

"Tomorrow! The protagonist requires no lengthy preparation! Only dramatic departure!" Leontis paused. "Also I need to buy climbing gear. And rations. And probably a map."

"Definitely a map."

"The protagonist's sense of direction is guided by narrative destiny!"

"You got lost in a straight hallway last week."

"That hallway was deceptively straight!"

They separated, both grinning despite the weight of what lay ahead. Tomorrow, everything would change. Tomorrow, they'd begin the transformation from comic relief to something more.

But tonight, they were still just two friends facing an uncertain future with nothing but determination and each other.

It was enough.

It had to be.

In another part of the city, Seren Lyselle received her own visitor — a Veritas family ghost who had once been the keeper of forbidden archives. Three years to uncover truths that five centuries had tried to bury.

The game was changing.

And the side characters were finally joining it properly.

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