Soren counted three days of uninterrupted rain by the taste of mildew creeping along his collar and the fug of wet wool that invaded even the deepest stonework.
Between bells the storm let up just long enough to coax the mud on the quad into a slick that doubled the turnout for slips and falls, half of which the instructors called "opportunities to learn balance under duress."
By the second morning, Thale had declared every training yard condemned and marched the cohort into the Hall of Mirrors for indoor drills.
The Hall was not, as Soren first assumed, a metaphor. It was a literal chamber lined in polished steel panels, ceiling to floor, hundreds of feet of warped reflection throwing back every student's posture, every misstep, every failed parry magnified into perpetuity. Several initiates had already learned the cost of staring at their own face mid-bout: it cost them the bout.
