Location: Thornhaven Village / Training Clearing
Date/Time: 20 Ashwhisper, 9938 AZI
Realm: Mid Realm
The mornings had gotten easier.
Not easy — Lyria doubted mornings would ever be truly easy again, not with the weight of visions pressing behind her eyes like storms waiting to break and the constant, low-grade awareness of a bond humming in her chest like a second heartbeat she hadn't asked for. But easier. The way a bruise stopped hurting when you stopped poking at it.
She sat on the porch step of her family's cottage, mending a rip in Joren's tunic. The boy had torn it climbing something he shouldn't have been climbing — a tree, a wall, the new fortification stonework — she hadn't bothered asking which. Eight-year-old boys climbed things. That was their entire purpose in life, as far as she could tell, and no amount of heritage was going to change that fundamental truth.
