Later that night, their room was quiet.
Atlas lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, while Jelo sat near the window, looking out at the dimly lit academy grounds.
The grounds were mostly empty at this hour. A few lights still burned in the training halls across the way—someone grinding late, or maybe just a facility left on by accident. The shadows between the buildings were long and still. Jelo watched them without really seeing them, his mind already somewhere else. Somewhere ahead.
He had replayed the fight with Nylen three times in the last hour.
Not because he was proud of it. Because he was looking for the gaps. The moments where a different opponent—a smarter one, a faster one, someone who had spent the day studying him—could have made him pay. He found two. Maybe three, if he was being honest. Small windows, but windows nonetheless. And in the next round, against whoever was left, small windows had a way of becoming large problems.
