The morning was thin with mist, the academy's stone paths still cold from the night. Milly woke earlier than usual, fingers restless on the edge of sleep, heart oddly tight with a question that wouldn't leave her alone.
She brewed tea and walked to the training field with the excuse of extra warm-ups. The students shuffled in, yawning and complaining but Milly's eyes were fixed on one person: Celeste, standing by the practice circles, adjusting a student's posture with that same measured precision.
Milly kept her tone bright as she passed Celeste. "You okay today? You look… a little tired."
Celeste glanced up, amber eyes soft. "A light maintenance schedule last night. Nothing to worry about, Miss Mila."
Good, Milly thought. Keep it casual. She slowed, pretending to sort equipment, and asked, voice low enough only Celeste could hear, "When you recalibrate absorption flow, do you count the breaths by threes or fives? I prefer threes for stamina."
Celeste's hand paused for the barest second so small Milly could have convinced herself it was nothing then she answered, perfectly neutral: "Threes. Less mental load for beginners."
Milly let out a soft, secretive laugh. That rhythm Simni had used it during drills in the Fortress. Her chest fluttered with something like hope and something like fear.
She pushed another small test, watching the way Celeste's fingers moved as she demonstrated. "If a student overfeeds a flame orb, you-?" Milly asked, feigning curiosity.
Celeste snapped her hand up, palm angled in the exact mechanical arc Milly half-remembered. "Redirect, compress, return excess to earth." Her voice was calm, but her eyes flickered blue for the tiniest sliver before amber returned like a blink.
Milly's throat tightened. She's Simni, a thought whispered, but it was still a whisper fragile and dangerous. Still, Milly kept her face composed. She would not test again in front of students. Not now.
They moved into the combined circuit: stamina runs, magic funnels, timed absorption drills. Celeste taught the breathing cadence and the students fell into synchronized pulses of mana under her patient guidance. Milly watched the flow like a musician listening for a wrong note.
The morning's rhythm hummed until the sky answered with a sound that had nothing to do with the academy: the world itself released a low, keening vibration, then a pressure wave rolled through the courtyard like the inhale before a scream.
Celeste's head turned before anyone else's. For an instant her eyes flooded true blue not the practiced flicker, but a deep, diagnostic glow and she raised a hand instinctively.
The first ripple hit like the smack of an invisible giant's palm. Students stumbled, armor clinked, spell orbs wavered. The grass bowed as if the ground exhaled.
Milly didn't think she reacted. She pushed forward to reach a fallen student, and the world folded in on itself.
A second, brighter flash tore through the sky. Light like a blade stabbed downward, and sound broke into a notch of silence. The air thickened, then went thin. A roar, distant and impossibly close, sliced across everyone's ears.
For one heartbeat, everything was painfully aware. Then the surge whatever it was, wherever it came from went through them.
Hands slipped from grips. Voices choked and stopped mid-word. The energy in the training circles collapsed inward, like a tide sucked out to sea. Celeste's lifted palm went slack. Milly's knees gave as if the ground had left.
Someone's whistle clattered and rang on the stones, a sharp note swallowed by the sudden hush.
When the world settled, it was not with order but with silence. Bodies lay where they had been students face-down in grass, teachers slumped among cones, a few chairs upended. The sun did not move; even the birds were still.
Celeste's head rested against the soft dirt, eyes closed but a thread of blue lingering at the edge of her lids. Milly lay half-turned, one hand outstretched and useless. Her breath was shallow; her mind fogged with a memory she could not grab.
Above them, the sky was unblemished again-no scorched clouds, no falling embers-only an ordinary, indifferent blue.
For a long, echoing moment the field simply held the sleeping shapes of everyone who had fallen. No one moved. The only sound was the rustle of a loose leaflet skittering across the stone.
Milly's last coherent thought before blackness took her: If she is Simni if she is what will that mean when she wakes? Then the question unraveled along with her consciousness, and the field went quiet under a perfect, terrible sky.