Days later
The training yard had changed.
It wasn't the equipment—the mats were the same, the dummies still cracked, the pendulum weights still swinging. What had changed was the rhythm. The way they moved. The way they breathed. The way they trusted each other without looking.
It had been two weeks since Lucian took command.
Two weeks of six AM starts and eight PM finishes. Two weeks of Dr. Blackwood's dry critiques and Cora's competitive fire and Derek's shaky but growing confidence. Two weeks of Mason's flames burning steadier and Sera's blood sense reaching further.
They weren't the same team that had stumbled through Greyhollow.
They were becoming something else.
This morning, the yard was humid, the air thick with the promise of rain. Cora was running drills with Mason—him throwing heat bursts, her phasing through them at the last second, her short sword finding the gaps in his defense. They moved like dancers, predators, partners.
