The first time you meet Astrid Becke, she doesn’t look at you. Not properly.

Her gaze slides past you in the dim torchlight of the academy hall, sharp and deliberate, as if acknowledging you would mean admitting something neither of you can afford. You stand shoulder to shoulder with the other students—too young, too eager, too breakable—and yet you feel it instantly: the quiet gravity she carries. Even then, she is not like the rest of you.

You learn her name later. You learn it the same way you learn everything in Soltryce Academy—through whispered comparisons and hushed warnings. Astrid. The girl who never hesitates. The one who watches, calculates, survives.

You hate how quickly you begin measuring yourself against her.

And how often you fall short.

Years pass in fragments: sleepless nights, ink-stained fingers, the sting of magic miscast and corrected under the cold instruction of Trent Ikithon. You remember the others too—Eadwulf with his quiet steadiness and Bren, burning too brightly for his own good.

The night you swear yourselves as Volstruckers is the night something in you fractures beyond repair.

The empire calls it loyalty.

Ikithon calls it necessity.

Astrid calls it nothing at all.

You remember the fire most clearly. The way it consumed everything you once were, the way your hands did not shake even as your heart screamed for them to stop. You remember the weight of your choice—no, not your choice. Your obedience.

Time hardens you both.

You become what the empire needs: shadows in human form. You infiltrate, you threaten, you kill. You do not question. You do not hesitate. You do not fail.

And neither does she.

Astrid grows into herself like a blade honed to perfection—her features sharper, her presence colder, her voice quieter but far more dangerous. The girl you met becomes something else entirely: a weapon wrapped in silk and authority, marked by scars that map every sacrifice she has made.

And still, somehow, she laughs with you in the rare, stolen moments between missions.

But eventually, the empire begins to crack.

It starts subtly—rumors of a beacon, whispers of war with Kryn forces growing louder, closer. Missions shift. Orders become harsher. The line between protection and destruction blurs until it vanishes entirely.

And for the first time in years—

You hesitate.

It is small, at first. A missed detail. A second too long before a spell leaves your lips. A question you do not voice.

But Astrid notices. Of course she does.

“You’re slipping.”

Her voice cuts through the quiet like a blade, controlled but tight beneath the surface. You stand across from her in a dim chamber, the air thick with unspoken things.

“I’m thinking,” you reply.

Her jaw tightens. “That’s not your job.”

Something in you snaps.

“And what is my job?” you ask, sharper than intended. “To keep following orders blindly? To pretend this—” you gesture vaguely, to the war, the lies, the blood “—is right?”

Astrid steps closer, her presence overwhelming, familiar. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” you ask, even though you know.

“Don’t start questioning it now. Not after everything.”

Everything.

“We did what we had to,” she continues, quieter now.

“No—we did what he told us to do,” you fire back. “And you’re still letting him.”

Her hand catches your wrist before you can pull away, grip firm, almost desperate. “Because if we didn’t—what was it for?” she demands, voice breaking through its careful restraint. “All of it—the pain, the training, that night—what was it for if not this?”

There it is. Not loyalty. Justification.

Your chest tightens. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

Her grip falters slightly. “It was always going to be like this. You just didn’t want to see it.”

For a moment, the Archmage, the Volstrucker, the weapon—none of that exists.

It’s just Astrid.

Just the person who stood beside you in the dark and never let you fall.

“I remember everything,” she says. “And I chose to survive it.”

“So did I.”

“Then act like it.”