Two weeks in, and the prayer room didn't feel like an interrogation chamber anymore.
Selene still wore the armor. Still carried herself with that straight-backed church discipline. Still smiled that polite, measured smile. But the edges had softened. She didn't watch Aegis's hands like she was looking for signs of corruption anymore. She watched them like a teacher checking a student's form.
Progress.
Today's exercise was shaping. Not that it was "shaping up well", no, literally shaping.
Aegis held divine light in her palms and molded it into basic forms. A sphere, a flat disc, a small point of concentrated brightness. The kind of control work that required focus and a steady hand, both of which Aegis had gotten noticeably better at over the past few sessions. She still wasn't being taught actual spells, which was annoying, but the main point of all this was to get Selene on her side, not to learn Divine Magic anyway (though she obviously wouldn't mind that).
