The chill of early dawn clung to the mountaintops like a breath never exhaled. Pale mist coiled between jagged rocks, and the sky above the Mercenary City of Avila was painted in deep indigo and slow-blushing gold. Most of the city still slept, its warriors dreaming of glory or haunted by past bloodshed.
But Saeko was already awake.
Wrapped in silence, she walked the steep trail beyond Avila's northern gate, her katana strapped to her back, her dark cloak billowing behind her like trailing smoke. Her eyes were clear, focused—not with the sharp edge of urgency, but the quiet hunger of discipline. Today was hers. A day to sharpen herself, to push beyond limits, to let her soul scream in silence where no one could hear it but the wind.
And it just so happened that a harpy den was nestled in the cliffs.
A perfect place to train—and to exterminate a threat before it reached the trade roads.
