The silence of a familiar room was a strange thing after months of nothingness.
Morgan sat on the edge of his narrow dormitory cot, studying his calloused hands.
They looked ordinary enough.
Ten fingers. Old scars. Faint lines where the skin had healed over wounds that no longer hurt. Nothing about them suggested that they had crossed places where distance had ceased to behave rationally, or that they belonged to someone who had spent months surviving in a world that seemed determined to make survival an unreasonable ambition.
He flexed his fingers.
The movement was familiar.
That was reassuring.
The gray light of dawn filtered through the reinforced smart-glass window, casting pale shadows across the stone floor. Beyond it, Pyreptar Academy was already stirring.
The distant clang of training weapons mingled with the low hum of defensive arrays and the occasional announcement from the academy's public address system.
Morgan listened.
