If someone had told me when I died in a car crash back in India that I’d be studying magical battle theory, beast summoner protocols, and etiquette in some medieval magic academy while my summon was evolving like a Pokémon on steroids, I would have assumed they were high on street-grade hallucinations.

  And yet—here I was.

  Second year. Squad 7. Known infamously across campus as the “Disaster Battalion,” “Princess’s Babysitting Assignment,” and, my personal favorite, “Those Idiots Who Fought a Lich on Floor Ten.”

  But now… now came the most dangerous test of all.

  Theory Exams.

  “Why the hell do I need to know the four stages of diplomatic magical negotiations?!” Rielle bellowed from across the dorm common room.

  “Because,” I said, without looking up from the tome in my p, “if you blow someone’s head off during a border dispute, that’s not considered polite.”

  She hurled a rolled parchment at me.

  It missed. Ember caught it mid-air and incinerated it in her jaws, like the dutiful fire lizard she was.

  “Also,” I added helpfully, “that was your exam notes.”

  “…I hate you.”

  “Mutual.”

  Rielle had been spiraling for the st three days. Eli was barely functioning, curled into a bnket cocoon muttering about battle formations and duel etiquette, which no one cared about unless you were about to get challenged by a noble.

  Which, given our track record, was a solid fifty-fifty.

  Meanwhile, Gram had locked himself in his half of the shared b space, only coming out to demand rare herbs, more ink, or to throw up from some noxious experiment.

  It was chaos. Beautiful, painful, brain-destroying chaos.

  Rielle’s Descent into Academic Madness“I swear to every elemental deity that exists, if I see another theorem on mana particle compression, I’m going to choke someone.”

  Rielle hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours. Her notes looked like a battlefield. Her eyes were bloodshot. And yet she had somehow rewritten all eight volumes of “Combat Mana Theory for Civilized Warriors” into one frenzied mess of diagrams, flowcharts, and something that might have been a curse in ancient draconic.

  “I just want to swing a sword,” she moaned, face down on the desk.

  “That’s not going to save you when the exam asks for the history of spell-dueling regutions in post-cataclysm empires,” Eli said, voice hollow.

  “WHY WOULD I EVER NEED THAT?!”

  “To avoid prison,” I answered from my chair, sipping tea like a smug academic who wasn’t seconds from exploding.

  Rielle looked ready to commit sword-based homicide.

  Eli’s Quiet BreakdownNow Eli, sweet, quiet Eli, was usually the stable one in the group.

  Until you made her memorize formal etiquette responses for magical battlefield banquets.

  “‘If a noble from a higher house initiates a ritual duel during a seasonal gathering, and you are under escort by a ranked mage—’ what the actual hell does that even mean?!”

  “Exactly what it says,” I muttered.

  “I should have joined the mercenaries like my cousin,” she groaned. “They stab, they eat, they sleep. That’s it. No historical charts.”

  But when she wasn’t unraveling into the abyss, she was actually good at the theoretical combat breakdowns. Her diagrams of battlefield formations were sharp enough to be used as weapons themselves. Unlike Rielle, who beled a pincer formation as “Stabby Circle Attack Thing.”

  Gram, the Potion Addict (and I mean that literally)You’d think Gram, being an alchemist, wouldn’t care much about theory exams.

  And you’d be wrong.

  “Licensing exams are hell,” he said through gritted teeth, ink smeared across his face, surrounded by broken beakers. “Do you know what the potion testing protocol looks like? They make you identify thirty-six rare compounds by taste. TASTE, Lucien. Do you know what powdered deathbark tastes like?!”

  “…Death?”

  “Burnt licorice with regret.”

  He was on the verge of melting down—or blowing up—but still pushed through. He had three mock tests to complete, two brews to perfect, and zero functioning brain cells left.

  Honestly, I was proud. Terrified, but proud.

  Meanwhile, Me and the Book That Wants to Rewrite My SoulWhile the others panicked about equations, essays, and etiquette, I was busy having an existential crisis over a book I probably should’ve burned.

  The Forgotten Discipline of Battle-Summoners was no longer just a tome. It was a companion, a whispering devil that now sat with me wherever I went, feeding knowledge into my mind and dreams.

  I now understood things I had no business understanding.

  Evolution sigils.

  Fme-mana breath harmonics.

  Symbiotic spell-forging.

  Mind-shared casting.

  All of it designed for one thing: total sync between summoner and summon. Not “I tell you to attack” type. I’m talking “I cast, you move, we become one.”

  Ember could feel it too. Her fmes had started shifting—colors twisting, bursts becoming sharper, more controlled.

  She was no longer a samander. Not really.

  She was becoming something else. Something powerful. Something ancient.

  And I could feel the world’s rules starting to shift around me.

  Battle summoners had been wiped out for a reason.

  They weren’t just mages. They were living weapons.

  I could be one too.

  But every day I learned more, I also learned what would happen if I failed.

  Mental colpse.

  Summon colpse.

  Spiritual backsh.

  Or worse—Ember becoming unstable and taking me with her.

  So yeah. While everyone else was spiraling over written exams, I was trying not to accidentally bind my soul to a fire-dragon in the middle of study hall.

  Cassandra, Our Grim BabysitterThrough it all, Cassandra loomed like a quiet predator.

  She’d stop by, check our notes, scoff, and remind us that failure meant disciplinary action, lost academy status, and possibly… reassignment to royal military command.

  And we knew what that meant.

  Marriage.

  War.

  Marriage during war.

  Rielle and Eli didn’t even argue anymore. They just stared bnkly into the void when Cassandra said, “Don’t worry. You’re Princess property. She won’t let you die yet.”

  YET.

  The Night Before the StormWe stayed up te, cramming everything in.

  Rielle pacing while reciting border duel protocols.

  Eli whispering combat stances like bedtime mantras.

  Gram talking to his own potions to get them to behave.

  And me?

  Staring into the book like it might stare back.

  “You ready?” Ember asked in my mind, the connection now strong enough to carry actual words instead of feelings.

  “No,” I replied, “but that’s never stopped me before.”