"Asher... right?"
Asher turned toward the voice as he approached the seemingly endless queue, finding himself face-to-face with a young man he knew all too well. Dante, he thought, though he simply nodded outwardly.
"The name's Dante—Dante Frontez," the young man said, extending his hand with a friendly grin.
Asher accepted the handshake, offering a small, gentle smile in return. "Nice to meet you, Dante."
The guy standing before him was moderately dark-skinned with a neat, low-cut black hair and warm light brown eyes. Asher knew him well because they'd been roommates back in his first year, when he wasn't elite yet and was just another low-ranked student crammed into a tiny room with two other guys. Those had been different times—the academy's treatment of non-elite students was notoriously harsh, which was exactly why everyone in the elite ranks fought tooth and nail to stay there. The difference in treatment was like comparing night and day.
