Professor Elara Kaine began her lectures with questions, not answers.
"What," she said quietly, standing at the front of the classroom with her hands folded behind her back, "is the difference between a battle we lost and a battle we couldn't win?"
The room was silent. Forty first-year cadets sat in tiered rows, datapads ready, attention focused. Kaine's voice was soft enough that you had to lean forward to hear it properly—a deliberate choice, Isabella had realized weeks ago. It forced you to engage rather than passively absorb.
Kaine waited. She was comfortable with silence in a way most instructors weren't. Her silver-streaked black hair was pulled back in a simple knot, and her dark academy robes made her look more like a scholar than a military officer. But the pale blue eyes that
