Levi was not late.
He was, however, the second to last to arrive at the departure point, which Mika treated as functionally the same thing. He said nothing about it. The expression was enough.
The departure point was a wide stone platform at the northern edge of Fraire—a structure Levi had passed a hundred times without ever registering its purpose. Open to the sky on all sides, no railing, no roof, its surface worn smooth by a very long history of use. Aldrek was already there, standing at the platform's edge with his back to them, looking up at something Levi couldn't see yet.
The morning was cold.
Levi set his pack down and looked up.
"That's our transport," Mika said.
It descended slowly from the cloud layer—a vessel with the general logic of a ship: a long hull of dark material, narrow enough to be fast, wide enough to carry a dozen people comfortably. Aether formations ran along its underside, visible as faint gold traces pulsing against the dark hull. It moved without sound. Something that size should have made noise.
It settled above the platform without landing, hovering at just enough height to require a step up.
"Aether-rigged," Soren said from behind them.
The other five were already aboard. A girl at the far rail with her arms crossed, slightly shorter than Levi, with two daggers at her hips. A boy cross-legged on his pack with a book open across his knees. Two others talking quietly in a language Levi didn't recognize. And one sprawled across a bench with his pack as a pillow, completely asleep.
Aldrek glanced at Levi and Mika, then at the vessel. "Right. Everyone's here. Let's go."
"You're not going to introduce us?" Mika asked.
"I'll do it in the air." Aldrek was already stepping aboard. "I'm not standing on this platform any longer than I have to. My feet are cold."
Levi stared at his back. 'The First Dragon of Caelum,' he thought, 'has cold feet.'
He picked up his pack and stepped aboard.
The vessel moved the moment Aldrek's foot left the platform. No announcement, no preparation—the platform simply fell away below them and Fraire spread out in every direction and the artificial sun poured gold across all of it. Levi stood at the rail and watched his city get smaller.
Aldrek appeared in the center of the vessel and clapped his hands once. "Introductions. Names, city, weapon.
"Levi. Fraire. Katana."
"Riveting. Next."
"Mika. Maesa. Greatsword."
"The prince graces us with two whole words. Next."
"Three words," Mika said.
"City, name, weapon," Aldrek said pleasantly. "That's the format." He moved along.
"Soren. Pilor. Longsword."
"Good. Concise." He pointed at Marcus.
"Marcus. Craile. Greatsword." A pause. "Big one."
"Noted. Next."
Eda looked at him. "Eda. Flure. Bow."
Levi filed that away. He hadn't known that.
Aldrek moved to the second group. The girl at the rail had already turned from the window. Up close she was sharper than the distance had suggested—quick eyes, a posture that could stop being relaxed very fast. Two daggers at her hips, worn with the ease of things that had been there long enough to feel like part of the body.
"Flavia," she said, before Aldrek could point at her. "Sereum. Daggers."
The boy with the book had closed it—marking his page with the precision of someone for whom an unmarked page represented a genuine moral failure—and was looking up at Aldrek.
"Kai. Xandria." He lifted a long staff with one hand. "Staff."
He looked twelve. He carried himself like someone considerably older.
"Xandria," Soren said quietly beside Levi. "City of scholars and warriors. They train both simultaneously."
"Is that unusual?" Levi asked.
"Everywhere else it's one or the other."
Aldrek had moved to the sleeping one. He knocked twice on the bench beside his head.
The boy's eyes opened immediately—not the slow surfacing of someone woken from deep sleep but instant clarity. Broad across the shoulders, twin katanas resting across his chest held by one loose arm.
He looked at Aldrek. Then at the ceiling.
"Ezekiel," he said. "Alficia. Twin katanas." He closed his eyes.
"You're not going back to sleep," Aldrek said.
"I'm resting my eyes."
"You were resting your eyes for the last two hours."
"They needed a lot of rest."
Marcus made a sound that was almost a laugh. Aldrek gave Ezekiel a look that promised this conversation wasn't finished, then moved to the twins.
They had stopped their conversation when the introductions began. Similar enough that Levi had to look twice to separate them—the same sharp features, the same straight-backed posture, a spear each resting against the vessel wall beside them. The girl spoke first.
"Rema." She gestured at her brother. "Jama. Eastern Caelum." A slight pause. "We have spears."
"Both of you?" Marcus asked.
"Both of us," N'joma confirmed.
Marcus nodded, filing it away.
Aldrek looked around at all ten of them and spread his hands. "There. Was that so difficult." He turned toward the front of the vessel. "Now I'm going to stand up here and enjoy the view. Try not to start any conflicts before we arrive."
"What if a conflict starts itself?" Marcus called after him.
"Finish it quickly," Aldrek said, without turning around. "And don't damage the vessel."
Some time later Mika appeared beside Levi at the rail.
"What do you make of them?" he asked.
"Flavia watches everything and wants you to know she's watching. Kai closes his book the moment introductions start—he was listening the whole time. Ezekiel opens his eyes the instant someone's close enough to matter."
"The twins?"
"Look strong enough"
Soren drifted over. "The staff."
Levi glanced at him. "Kai."
"A staff from Xandria isn't a blunt instrument. Aether formations embedded directly into the material during forging. Each one is effectively a different weapon depending on how the user channels through it."
"Of course you know that," Marcus said from behind them, still eating.
"It's useful information."
"Everything's useful information to you."
"Yes," Soren said. "That's the point."
Marcus considered this. "Fair enough."
Then Mika said: "There."
Shearer emerged from the sky the way very large things emerge—present before it was visible. A vast plateau of ancient stone suspended at altitude, its edges sheer and clean, its surface covered in structures that had been standing long enough to stop being new. It occupied more of the sky than Levi was prepared for.
He looked at it for a long time.
The vessel descended toward a wide receiving platform on Shearer's southern face—one of several, each occupied by vessels similar to theirs and others unlike anything he had a name for.
They landed. The aether formations along the hull dimmed.
Aldrek turned. The easy grin was gone.
"Shearer," he said. "Someone will meet you on the platform and take you through orientation. After that you're on your own." He looked across all ten faces. "What you did in that arena means nothing here. Everyone at Shearer has survived something. Start from zero. Earn it again." A beat. "Don't embarrass Caelum."
He stepped off before anyone could respond and the crowd absorbed him immediately.
Marcus stared at the space where he'd been. "I liked him better when he was complaining about cold feet."
"He was always serious," Soren said. "He was just also other things."
They stepped off onto the platform. The wind at this altitude had an edge to it. Levi stepped off and looked out at the sky in every direction—the world spread below, clouds drifting past at eye level.
Then, from behind them:
"Caelum's representatives."
A figure stood at the platform's inner edge, arms crossed, dressed in Shearer's grey faculty uniform. Levi's instincts completed their assessment before he finished looking. 'Strong. The kind that develops quietly over a long time.'
"Follow me," the figure said, pushing off the wall. "Orientation begins now. Try to keep up—I won't repeat myself."
Levi picked up his pack. Mika fell into step beside him. Around them Shearer pressed in from every direction—vast and old and wrong in a way Levi couldn't name yet.
He filed that away. For now he walked.