Elizabeth lay sprawled on her bed, eyes half-lidded as some painfully dull show played on the screen in front of her. She had picked it for that exact reason, something so mind-numbingly boring that it might finally drag her over the edge into sleep.
'Dang… this show really is my insomnia remedy.'
She had not felt this close to drifting off since the Nightmare Spell had claimed her. Trying to remember the last time she'd actually slept properly in the past couple of days felt like reaching for a memory that did not exist.
Outside, the sun was long gone. Her body had settled into the shape of a woman in her mid-thirties, which had created a brief wardrobe crisis until she raided her mother's room and helped herself to a few old outfits. She'd chosen the most comfortable ones she could find and refused to feel guilty about it.
The slow, pleasant pull of drowsiness was just beginning to swallow her when her communicator buzzed.
'Ugh. Who calls at this time…'
For a second, she considered ignoring it. Then she remembered she only had three contacts registered: Mael, Jennifer, and Tessie. Her family never called. They never had, and she doubted they would start now.
Which meant it was almost certainly Tessie.
She dragged herself upright and groped for the device. As expected, Tessie's name blinked on the screen.
"Yeah? What's up?" Elizabeth mumbled, punctuating the greeting with a yawn.
"Liz! I did it! I got you the sponsorship! Even your deal made it through!" Tessie's voice came through bright and triumphant.
Elizabeth yawned again. "That's… great, Tessie. But can I get some sleep first?"
The other end went quiet for a moment, then Tessie sighed.
"Fine, I'll keep it short. Before you pass out, can you look through the list of Memories I'm sending and pick what you want? You get an extra pick for a Dormant one. Choose it and I'll bring everything tomorrow."
Elizabeth nodded at no one. "Sure, sure. I'll do it."
She was about to end the call when Tessie rushed on "Also tomorrow, someone's coming to verify that you really have a True Name."
The words cut through her drowsiness like a blade.
"Someone's coming to check?" she repeated.
"Yeah. I believe you, but the House of Night wants proof. Those bastards… after all these years working with them, they still don't trust me at word value."
Elizabeth frowned. How exactly did one "confirm" a True Name?
"How does that work?"
Tessie chuckled. "Nothing dramatic. A True Name is tied to your sense of self and your soul. You say it out loud, and the person checking can tell whether it's real or not."
Relief washed through Elizabeth. For a moment, she'd imagined someone reading her runes and seeing far more than they should.
"…Alright. I'll send you my picks," she said.
"Great, good nigh—"
Elizabeth cut the connection before Tessie could finish. She immediately opened the file Tessie had forwarded, determined to make her choices before the drowsiness slipped away.
'Oh wow…'
The list was long. A quick scroll showed more than fifty entries; a deeper look put the count somewhere around three hundred. This had to be the pool reserved for sponsored candidates, there was no way a great legacy clan would show their entire stock of Memories to someone like her.
Each entry came with a concise description: rank, tier, type, and enchantments. The enchantments themselves were broken down in detail, explaining exactly what the Memory did so she knew what she was picking.
She skimmed through for a while and found several that caught her eye. Most were weapons, with a few echoes sprinkled in, but she exhaled through her nose.
'I already have enough weapon Memories… maybe an echo…'
She shook her head. What she truly lacked was armor. With a flaw like hers, the idea of wandering the Dream Realm naked until she killed a creature that dropped something wearable was not appealing.
She kept scrolling. A handful of armors appeared, only about thirty in total out of the entire list. Disappointing, but expected. Armor-type Memories were often a matter of survival for many Awakened; good pieces were hoarded, passed down, or worn until they broke. What remained in lists like this were the items people had decided they could live without.
Even among that limited selection, one entry stood out.
Memory: [Broken Promise].
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: II.
Memory Type: Armor.
Memory Description: [The armor of a knight who failed to keep his vow to the love of his life. The only thing that still reminded him of her was the armor he had worn the day he first saved her.]
Memory Enchantments: [Knight's Honor], [Broken Promise].
[Knight's Honor]
Enchantment Description: "When facing something stronger than you, fear does not take root in your mind; your thoughts remain clear, and doubt is stripped away."
[Broken Promise]
Enchantment Description: "Each time you make a promise and uphold it, the armor grows more durable."
'Not bad… not bad at all. But is this really the best I can get?'
Given the pool, it was. She selected [Broken Promise] and dropped it into her cart.
'Now, for a Dormant Memory…'
Dormant Memories weren't famous for raw power, but that hardly made them useless.
'What do I lack?'
She sat with the question for a few seconds. What would help her survive the Dream Realm the most?
'A tool… preferably storage. But those are rare.'
She searched for storage-type tool Memories anyway, and as expected nothing came up. She sighed, disappointed but not surprised.
'Then… a charm type?'
She flipped over to the charm category. At first glance, none of them seemed worth the pick. it ranged form small conveniences, modest boosts, to nothing that felt essential. She was about to give up when one line made her blink.
'How is this even up for sale?'
Memory: [Destined Death].
Memory Rank: Dormant.
Memory Tier: II.
Memory Type: Charm.
Memory Description: [Once worn by a worshiper of Shadow, infamous for uncanny luck and an almost insane ability to evade death.]
Memory Enchantment: [Death Sense].
Enchantment Description: "Detects danger and alerts the user when something nearby dies."
'This is exactly what I need.'
A storage Memory would have been nice but this was better. In two months, she would walk into the Dream Realm. Being able to sense danger before it landed on her was invaluable.
She added [Destined Death] to her cart and sent the finalized list to Tessie.
Thankfully, the soft weight of sleep still pressed on her shoulders. She sank back into the bed, set the communicator aside, and, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, allowed herself to let go.
Sleep claimed her.
****
In the morning, she woke up in the body of a six-year-old.
'So… it really is random.'
It was what she had feared. Last night, she'd gone to bed looking like a woman in her mid-thirties; the night before that, closer to fifty. There was no consistent pattern, no fixed "baseline" she could plan around.
'Which means… there's a chance I wake up as a baby.'
A shiver ran down her spine. How was she supposed to fight like that? The best strategy she could imagine in that scenario involved relying entirely on others or somehow learning to fight as one. Neither option appealed to her.
She kept wracking her brain as she took public transport to the port. Somewhere along the way, she noticed the stares, tinged with worry and caution.
At first, she assumed people were reacting to her clothes: baggy, ill-fitting, obviously borrowed. It was an odd sight, a kid in clothes that barely fit. But the looks didn't stop. Instead, they intensified and shifted from concern to a look she recognized.
'…Are these creeps actually attracted to a kid?'
The looks of some people around her were full of desire, as if enchanted by her.
'I dare them to step forward… They won't even know how they died.'
Then she noticed something odd. It wasn't just one or two people looking at her that way. Men, women, young, old, their eyes lingered on her with a dazed, almost hungry focus. Desire burned in some of those gazes, and it made her skin crawl. The eyes fixed on her weren't quite… present. Their owners stared too long, their pupils unfocused, their expressions slack, as if they weren't fully aware of what they were doing. As more and more heads turned, the pattern became impossible to ignore.
She scowled, already forming a suspicion of what it could be in her head. She summoned her runes and reread one of her attributes.
[Siren of the Sea].
'Sea sirens possess unmatched beauty. Their allure draws all beings toward them…So that's what this is'.
She had never liked that attribute. It painted a target on her back of beings seeking her what ever was in her insides and now it seems to be bring more unwanted attention towards her.
'How annoying.'
She tugged the oversized hood down over her head, hiding as much of her face as she could. Gradually, the weight of the stares eased and eventually faded.
A few hours later, she reached the port. Tessie waited at their agreed spot, standing beside a red‑haired woman whose presence felt… wrong. Even at a glance, Elizabeth could tell she was Awakened. But the subtle pressure rolling off her made it clear she wasn't just any Awakened.
She was something else and definitely far from average.
"I'm here," Elizabeth said.
Tessie nodded, giving her a brief, curious glance, then gestured to the woman at her side.
"Liz, this is Master Leeve. She's here to confirm whether you really have a True Name."
'Oh…So she is an Ascendant.'
Master was a term used to describe where one stood on the path of ascension. Elizabeth lifted a hand, intending to offer a handshake. Master Leeve looked at the offered hand, tilted her head, and said calmly with a smile on her face.
"You will die."
Elizabeth froze.
Tessie stared at the ascendant for a moment, then sighed. "That's not why I asked you to come, Master Leeve. Please focus."
Leeve blinked, then flushed. "Oh. Sorry… I didn't mean to say that."
Her expression shifted again, as if she were suddenly possessed, her eyes hardening, and her voice turning cold. "I meant it, though. With a flaw like hers, she'll be helpless in the Dream Realm. Therefore, she will die."
Elizabeth frowned and glanced at Tessie. "…Is that some kind of flaw?"
"Not… exactly," Tessie muttered.
Leeve sighed, and her demeanor flipped once again. She smiled brightly, almost childishly. "Can we just do our job already? I want to sleep."
Then anger flashed across her features. "Yes, yes, Joy is right. We should finish quickly."
Elizabeth watched the woman argue with herself, confusion mounting with every rapid shift she went through.
Tessie squeezed her shoulder. "Ignore her. Just tell her your True Name, she'll confirm it, and then she'll leave."
Master Leeve fell silent. Her expression cooled, settling into something distant and unreadable. "Yes. That's right."
Elizabeth exhaled. "Fine. My True Name is—"
Pressure slammed down on her like a sudden weight. The world constricted, sound thinning, and space tightening. When she looked around, a crimson dome shimmered into existence around them, sealing the small group off from the rest of the port.
Leeve's eyes glowed faintly as she stared at her.
"Continue," the Ascendant said.
The words caught in Elizabeth's throat. It felt as though the dome itself resisted her voice, as if she had to push her True Name through something heavy that was restricting her.
"My… True Name is Siren of the Last Haven," she managed.
Master Leeve closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again and smiled.
"She did not lie."
The dome dissolved, and the crushing pressure lifted.
"She really does have a True Name as a Sleeper," Leeve murmured, then her smile twisted into something sharp. "Who cares. She'll die anyway."
"Yes, yes, she will! Hahahah…" Her voice cracked, sliding into an odd, manic lilt.
Before that spiral could deepen, Tessie tapped her shoulder.
"Now that you've confirmed it, you can go."
Leeve nodded and turned away. She walked off at a measured pace—then abruptly broke into a brief sprint before slowing again, as if her own body couldn't decide what it wanted.
'What a strange woman…'
Elizabeth quietly noted to avoid her in the future if at all possible.
"She's right, you know," Tessie said.
Elizabeth glanced at her.
"With a flaw like yours, changing into a random age every morning is dangerous… you could really di—" Tessie cut herself off, ruffling her golden hair instead. "I was hoping you'd at least keep yesterday's appearance each time you regressed. That would've been manageable."
Elizabeth had hoped for the same thing. But flaws existed to be inconvenient; it was never easy to find a way to deal with it.
"It is what it is, Tess," she said quietly. "I'll find a way. I have to."
Tessie nodded and smiled, giving her shoulder a firm pat. Warmth surged through Elizabeth's soul a moment later.
[You have received a Memory.]
[You have received a Memory.]
"These are the Memories you picked," Tessie said.
Elizabeth summoned her runes and saw them appear there: [Broken Promise] and [Destined Death].
"Thank you," she said.
"The shards should reach you once you arrive at the Academy."
Elizabeth nodded and then found herself wrapped in a tight hug.
"Take care, alright?" Tessie murmured. "I'll be busy this month, but call if you need me."
Elizabeth smiled against her shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."
She adjusted the strap of her bag, turned toward the port's inner gates, and started walking.
"Well… see you later," she said over her shoulder.