The air outside was cool and smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet.
Jin stood on the front steps of the school for a moment and just breathed. The courtyard was quiet. A few people were moving around near the walls, carrying supplies, fixing a broken section of fence, talking in low voices. Someone waved at him from across the grounds, and he waved back. Nobody stopped him. Nobody asked him for anything. It was the kind of quiet that only came after something big was finally over.
He started walking.
He didn't have a direction yet. He just walked, past the training yard and the gardens, toward the edge of the grounds where Mirim's forest began. His hands were still tender inside the bandages, and every step reminded his ribs that they were not happy with him. But it felt good to move. It felt good to be in his own body again, heavy and sore as it was, after floating around as whatever he had been in that black tower.
