"Huff... Huff..."
The crisp morning air bit at my lungs, a clean counterpoint to the steady rhythm of my feet on the packed earth of the training grounds.
"Huff... Huff..."
Beside me, Vance kept pace with a bit of difficulty, but he was doing really good considering the fact that he was just a false Resonator. The silence between us was comfortable, broken only by the sound of our breathing and the distant clang of a blacksmith's hammer.
The thought formed in my mind, a quiet murmur in the private channel we'd established.
The flood of information Vance had just poured into my head was… a lot.
The King's announcement. The Trials of the Crown. The mandatory fifth trial. It was a political earthquake disguised as a royal decree.
And then, the first test: The Trial of the Heart.
Being stripped of titles. Sent to a struggling region and forced to solve a real problem with nothing but wits and a single attendant.
