The next morning unfolded with a kind of lazy calm that felt foreign to the academy. No bells rang. No instructors barked orders. The courtyard that was usually bustling with shuffling students now carried a slow, steady rhythm — footsteps, laughter, the faint rustle of wind against the trimmed hedges.
Arios sat on the dorm balcony with a cup of lukewarm tea in his hand, staring at the training fields below. From here, he could see Lucy and Liza walking across the grass, arguing about something he couldn't hear. The two of them moved like opposite ends of a compass — one steady and controlled, the other impulsive and loud, but somehow they always circled back toward the same point.
He took a quiet sip. The tea wasn't particularly good, but it gave his hands something to do.
