I should probably lay down an apology before I post this. There are so many other things I'm supposed to be doing, and I don't intend to update this for another long while, but I just kinda wanted to get it out there. (Those of you waiting on No Quarter, I know, I'm a terrible person. I'll get around to it, I promise!)

This story came about while I was bored with schoolwork several months ago and felt like obsessing over my OTP for a little bit. (Of course, then finals happened, and . . . yeah.) So, with that said, feel free to submit your feedback and tell me what you think. Or just yell at me for not updating what I'm supposed to be updating. Ha. Anyway.

Chapter One

"Your ghosts are real, I feel them in my lungs . . .

Bowing to your throne . . . I'm rising and I'm falling and I'm losing all control. . . ."

~ Crywolf

The Twelve Provinces looked about as good as wastelands, but though living in the Centre had its benefits, it was subject to one unfortunate occurrence every year.

The Apprenticeships. Though most people didn't refer to them by that name. Colloquially they were known as the Leaving, or sometimes the Sacrifices. Everyone under the age of nineteen was eligible. None were excepted, not even the children of the Royal Bloodlines. Someone from one of the Twelve Provinces would come up to the Centre every year and examine its students until he or she found one who would be acceptable as his or her successor. That student was taken to one of the Provinces and never seen or heard from again in the Centre.

The Apprenticeships were created to keep the Twelve Provinces afloat and should have been regarded as positive in both the Centre and the Provinces; many of the students from the Centre had excelled in the Provinces and became highly successful at their craft. But there had been stories. Stories of masters who were abusive and cruel, whose apprentices vanished in the middle of the night. Some students had grown downright terrified by the day of the Apprenticeships; some tried to run away or hide on the day they were to happen. The Primarch and his lieutenants checked a list of names and faces every year, and those who tried to escape were always punished.

Claire and Serah Farron, daughters of the late Councilors, had stood Apprenticeships every year; they had been overlooked every year. This year was Claire's last year standing the Apprenticeship: she had just turned eighteen. Serah, on the other hand, was only fifteen and had a few more years left.

The Farron sisters were identically beautiful, with the same rose-colored hair and slender frames, but those who knew them pronounced Serah the optimist and Claire the pessimist. Their dispositions couldn't be more different, despite their similar looks, people said. They'd said Serah would be a good Councilor. They said nothing about Claire's future profession.

Serah had confessed to her sister once, a few weeks before the Apprenticeships, that she was glad they hadn't been chosen. "I want to sit on the Council," Serah had told Claire. "I want to do what our parents did. And there's no Council in the Twelve Provinces."

"Serah," Claire had said seriously, "I know, but you still have a few more years of standing Apprenticeships. If they choose you in the future, you'll have to leave, no matter what you've been planning to do."

"I guess you're right," Serah answered. "But I hope I can stay here."

Everyone hopes that, Claire wanted to say. No one wants to get exiled to the Twelve Provinces.

Now the two of them stood at the window of their tower in Castle Circes, looking out upon the greenspace below them. The Primarch and his lieutenants crisscrossed the lawn, calling out names and marking positions. In just a few hours the ceremony for the Apprenticeship—the Leaving, the Sacrifice—would take place.

Serah turned to her sister. "Do you remember which Province's turn it is this year?" she asked.

Claire nodded. "The Twelfth Province. Their master is . . . him." She dropped her voice as if hoping she wouldn't be overheard, though she hadn't even mentioned the man's name.

"Oh," Serah breathed, understanding. "You mean . . ."

"Caius Ballad," Claire finished, her voice almost less than a whisper. The silent, formidable instructor who had come to take his job in a strange sort of sequence of events, in which his own master had died suddenly and he'd had to take up his work abruptly four years ago, at the age of nineteen. His treatment of other people from the Twelfth Province was not always pleasant, from what Claire and Serah had heard. The Twelve Provinces were often considered lawless, however, and so his abuses had gone unpunished and nearly unrecognized. People used the name Caius Ballad with more fear than they did The Twelve Provinces.

"I pity whomever he chooses," Serah stated, leaning on the windowsill.

"Serah, you shouldn't say things like that," Claire said. She crossed her hands in front of her chest, a gesture to signal an appeal to the goddess and Her blessing. "Someone will be chosen and taken to the Twelfth Province. It could be one of our friends. It could be you."

Her sister looked up at her, and at first Claire thought she did so with remorse, but when Serah spoke, it became clear that she had something altogether different in mind.

"Or you," she whispered, her eyes huge with fear and reproach.

Claire took a deep breath. Her sister was right, after all. Though this would be her last year, it could very well still be the year she left the Centre and never saw it again. "Yes, Serah. It . . . could be me."

The Primarch stood next to the General as the latter called the Lieutenants to attention. The Primarch began to walk back and forth in front of the line, saying something the sisters couldn't quite hear. As he did so, Claire looked up, realizing that the sky had begun to darken. No clouds even threatened to obscure the sky, yet the token pastel blue had turned to cobalt, and the sun…

The sun. Claire shielded her eyes with her hand. The only possible way this could happen was . . . the eclipse. From the prophecies. But how could that happen now? They said the prophecies wouldn't come true for thousands of years. They couldn't. . . . That would mean . . .

Below her, some of the soldiers tried to look into the light and had to turn their eyes away, blinded as they were by the sun's few escaping rays. The Primarch and the General shouted at them, reminding them to get back into formation.

"The eclipse," Serah whispered finally. "It . . . means dark days for the entire Kingdom."

Claire nodded almost imperceptibly.

"They say it's followed by disaster and death, as well as a miraculous love and a life." Serah's eyes were cast down on the soldiers below her, and she too held her hands out in front of her as Claire had, a silent and desperate prayer to the goddess.

"That's not how it goes," Claire interjected, turning to her sister. "The prophecies don't tell of love or life. There's only destruction. Only death."

"O-oh," Serah stammered, her eyes widening at her mistake. "Of course. I must have heard the other part somewhere else." As Claire turned away again, she murmured, "But perhaps it would be better if the prophecies ended in love and life…"

"Not if everyone had already died," Claire said sharply.

If Serah had a response to that, the sound of a knock at their door cut it off. Serah turned from the window to answer it. Claire, too, set her back to the window: she had to resist the temptation to look upon the blinding sun, almost blocked by the moon.

Serah opened the door to reveal a dark-haired figure in silver armor, twin swords belted at his sides and a white cape flowing over his shoulders. General Cid Raines. Not the Primarch's Major General, but close enough, Claire supposed.

"I am here to escort you, Claire and Serah Farron, to the courtyard. This year's Apprenticeship is to begin shortly," General Raines said.

"It's not supposed to start for a few more hours," Claire responded.

"Plans have changed," General Raines replied. "Both of you, come, if you would."

The two of them obeyed, following Raines out the door and down the spiraling stairs of the tower. Outside, people had begun to light torches and candles to combat the consuming darkness left by the shadow of the sun. The soldiers guided students to their places, ordering them by age and name, leaving enough space between the lines so that the instructor from the Twelfth Province could walk among them, examining them.

For a capital city, the Centre didn't have many children and young adults—or people at all, really. Perhaps it was due to the fact that life in the Centre was of a much higher quality than in the Provinces, but the population seemed never to actually grow. Claire supposed this fact had its benefits; the Apprenticeships would take approximately forever if the instructor for any given year had to walk through thousands of lines of students to find the one he or she wanted.

Raines led Serah to her place first. The younger students stood in the front, and the older ones behind them. Claire was in the very back of the group with some other students she didn't recognize. They murmured to one another in sympathy and nervousness. Claire said nothing; it wasn't as if she had studied with them all of these years. She and Serah had been tutored in Castle Circes their whole lives. They were alone.

Gradually the students were settled, the places were filled, and the Primarch stood upon a dais with the Major General, who instructed the students to be silent. They stood in the persisting darkness, their hands fixed at their sides, their eyes darting to the students next to them. Finally the sound of hoofbeats on the Province roads called them to attention, though they could hardly feel relief. On the hills ahead, a shadow emerged on a jet-black horse, drawing closer with every moment. The figure in the saddle wore a long cloak whose hood covered his head, and even when he reached the lines, slowing his horse to a stop, they still couldn't see his face.

He dismounted. The Primarch rose to greet him, and he threw off his hood.

His lavender hair fell over his broad shoulders; his eyes were discerning, his expression severe. Against the folds of his cloak, weapons glinted in the scarce light. Claire reflected that he looked a bit like Death himself.

Caius Ballad.

This time, under the Eclipse and its terrifying darkness, no one dared whisper his name. No one dared whisper at all.

"You've come to us from the Twelfth Province, I see," the Primarch said. He extended his hand. "Caius Ballad, correct?"

"That is correct," the cloaked man said, reaching out to shake the Primarch's hand. As soon as he had done so, he turned to the ranks of students ahead of him. The Primarch crossed his palms over his chest behind Caius Ballad's back, glancing worriedly up at the sky, which remained the color of spilled ink.

The Primarch began to speak again, this time in a loud, sonorous voice that carried across the courtyard and, Claire guessed, beyond. "May the goddess look upon those gathered before us today," he intoned. "And may She bring the destined student and his or her master together." He dropped his hands, and when Caius Ballad turned to look at him, he gave a short nod.

The man from the Twelfth Province began to pace the lines, looking into the eyes of each student he passed, coaxing those who didn't meet his gaze to do so. This was Claire's least favorite part. No one moved except Caius; no one spoke at all. The tense silence would continue until he had found the one he believed would become his apprentice, and then they could all release the breaths they'd been holding. Well. Except for the one who'd been chosen.

Claire recalled Serah's words. I pity whomever he chooses.

She'd chided her sister for saying such things, but now, as she watched the black-cloaked man sweep between them, she couldn't help but agree. She could only hope that he didn't choose Serah.

Caius turned and entered the line of students in which Serah stood. Claire held her breath and waited for him to pass her; he looked her in the eye and for a split second Claire's heart stopped. But he continued walking, and Claire had to fight back a sigh of relief.

But Caius kept walking, nearing Claire's line. Either he was looking for an older student, or he would turn around and walk through the lines again when he had looked at the last of them. Neither seemed a desirable outcome. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He turned to Claire's row; he began his slow strides through the line, and before she could prepare herself, he was in front of her, looking down on her, looking into her eyes, and he had stopped.