"Welcome, students, to the Royal Fyre Academy of Knights," he said, his voice carrying easily to the back of the hall without any visible effort. "I am Meridian Voss, Headmaster of this institution, and I intend to be your mentor and guide for the next four years."
Baris let out an audible gasp beside Corren, eyes wide with the reverence of someone recognizing a legend in the flesh. Voss had trained the king himself, along with generations of the royal line before him, and Baris had clearly devoured every book and pamphlet ever written about the man's exploits.
Voss's gaze swept the hall, meeting each row of students in turn, and the silence that followed felt less like politeness and more like genuine attention being paid. "We do not ask for much to gain admission here," he said. "But we ask a great deal to keep it. If you lack the talent to meet that demand, you will not last long within these walls. So give every hour here everything you have."
He went on to describe the three disciplines that formed the backbone of a knight's education: swordsmanship, magic, and alchemy, each with its own path, its own mastery, its own reward. A student could specialize, combine two disciplines into something like a battlemage or a paladin or a sorcerer, or, for the truly ambitious, attempt all three at once.
"That final path," Voss continued, lowering his voice just enough to make every ear in the hall lean closer, "is the hardest road this academy offers, and the most rewarding. Complete it, and you become a Candidate for Knight of the Realm: a title that has lifted commoners into the nobility of the Kingdom of Fire, though it does so rarely, and some graduating classes see none at all."
He reached beneath his collar and drew out a silver amulet on a fine chain, holding it up so the light caught the carved phoenix at its center. "I earned this after completing all three disciplines and serving the crown through missions few would have survived. It marks my loyalty, my service, my excellence. And it marks something more besides: the chance, however distant, that one day a king might name me his champion."
He tucked the amulet away again, and something briefly, almost wistfully distant crossed his face before he caught himself and pressed on. "The amulet is a fine thing to earn. But it is a small thing, in the end, set beside the true Crown of Fire the King himself wears at his coronation. There are old stories about that crown, students, older than this academy, older than most of the clans sitting in this hall today. They say the crown does not simply sit on a man's brow the way any ordinary circlet might. They say it tests something in whoever wears it, some truth about the blood or the soul beneath the metal, though no scholar living can tell you precisely which, or precisely how. What every version of the story agrees on is this: the crown has never once been gentle with a man who did not deserve to wear it." He let that settle a moment, then shook his head slightly, as if setting the thought back down. "A strange thing to mention at an enrollment address. But you'll hear stranger things than that before you graduate, if you make it that far."
He gestured to his left, where three figures sat waiting on a raised platform, and the hall's attention shifted with him.
"First, Master Doss, the Blademaster, who oversees our swordsmanship department." A muscular man with a long ponytail and a stern, weathered face rose and bowed slightly, a plain white robe draped over broad shoulders, a gleaming sword strapped across his back. The applause that greeted him was polite, some of it edged with visible nervousness.
"Next, Vaelith, our Chief Magus, who oversees the magic department." A slim woman with pale skin and dark hair rose to a grin that had more edge to it than warmth, eyes glowing a faint, eerie red beneath the hall's lantern light, a spider-shaped pendant resting against her collarbone. The applause that met her was more hesitant still.
"And finally, Renwick, our Grand Alchemist, who oversees the alchemy department." A tall, lean man in a high-collared white coat and thick working gloves offered a curt nod rather than a bow, a leather satchel of vials clinking softly at his hip. The hall's response was curious rather than warm, the reaction of students who weren't quite sure what to make of him yet.
Voss let the applause settle before continuing. "These three are your teachers, and more than that, they are the standard you should hold yourselves against for the next four years." He surveyed the room once more, squaring his shoulders and drawing himself up to his full height, gathering the whole hall's attention up into one final push. "So I ask you, students. Are you ready to face what this path demands? Are you ready to become Candidates for Knight of the Realm?"
The hall erupted. Corren felt the surge of it rise in his own chest along with everyone else's, an adrenaline he hadn't expected to feel this early, and found himself shouting "Yes!" along with the rest of the room before he'd fully decided to.
He meant it anyway. He wanted every discipline this world offered, wanted to master them the way he had once mastered dead languages nobody else had cared enough to learn, wanted, more than he was entirely comfortable admitting even to himself, to bring an honor to his new family's name that no amount of ancestral fire magic had managed to earn them in generations.
Voss dismissed the hall with instructions to find their dormitories and rest before the first week of classes began, and the crowd surged toward the exits in a wave of noise and motion.
Outside the hall, Wrenna's excitement had curdled visibly into anxiety the moment she learned that boys and girls kept separate dormitories. Corren caught her hand before she could disappear into the crowd of departing girls.