The morning held its breath before dawn.
That particular quality of pre-light hours where the Academy's mountain air carried a cold clarity that felt almost physical, the kind that made sounds travel differently and made the open training ground outside the King facilities feel larger than it did in full daylight. Stars still visible at the edges of the sky where the horizon hadn't yet decided to become something else.
Raze arrived first.
Gareth was thirty seconds behind him, which suggested he'd been watching the time with the precision that seemed to govern everything he did. He came without his Pieces, without equipment beyond his blade, dressed in training clothes that were practical without being casual — the particular combination of someone who understood the difference between a spar and a performance and had dressed for the former.
He surveyed the open ground with the quick professional assessment of someone who catalogued terrain as reflex.
"Good space," he said.
