Two years passed.
Not slowly. Not quickly. The way time moves when you're too busy to notice it slipping through your fingers.
Finn stopped counting the days. There was no point. Every morning looked the same—grey light through the window, the smell of Lucian's tea, Mira already waiting in the courtyard with her staff and her stubborn silence. The routine had become a heartbeat. Steady. Reliable. Unstoppable.
He didn't remember when he'd first punched through stone. It happened during a drill. Lucian had conjured a wall of compressed earth, the kind that would take a team of mages an hour to break. Finn hit it. His fist went through. Not because of magic—because of muscle, bone, and the supplements Lucian had been feeding him for months.
Mira had stared at the hole. Then at Finn. Then back at the hole.
"That's not normal," she said.
"Nothing about us is normal."
She couldn't argue.
---
The sound barrier broke on a Tuesday.
