Selvara walked back toward the third-year dormitories.
The stone corridors were cool and nearly empty.
Her thoughts would not stop.
For two months she had wanted to see him again.
After he again disappeared, she kept finding reasons to be where he might walk.
She waited at the training yard.
She lingered by the library steps.
She pretended to visit the archives and walked the same halls he used.
Sometimes she saw only the backs of other students.
Sometimes she saw nothing at all.
At night she would run the small moments over and over in her head.
Like an actor remembering a single line, she practiced the way she would stand, the way she would listen.
She told herself it was only observation.
The mission.
The clan's orders.
But the truth sat heavier than duty.
She missed him.
She wanted him more than she wanted freedom from the chains that bound her.
'Why him?' she asked herself.
'Why this ache for someone who was nothing to me months ago?'
