The training hall smells like ozone and warm leather, the way it always did after a storm drill. It’s too quiet for that to be coincidence—the Array keeps its quiet on purpose, like a held breath—but I still like it. Quiet makes room for listening. Listening makes work honest.
I warm up like I always do: breath, pitch, micro-modulations. My hands hover over the resonance slate on the floor, feeling the faint hum of Vein access beneath the panels. The hall is built to accept sound—curved walls tuned so a single note can be studied without bleeding into the rest of the complex. Celadryn-made and proud of it. The designers put mirrors at exact angles so you never lose sight of yourself in training; practitioners used to call it humility glass. I call it practical.
Two days. That’s how long
