The moon was a sharp, white sliver in the sky, a cold eye watching us run. The air bit at my lungs, each breath a cloud of frost in the darkness. The only sounds were the crunch of our boots on the frozen ground and the ragged rhythm of our breathing. Hers was sharper, higher, a testament to the brutal pace I set. We had been running the academy’s outer perimeter for an hour. Weighted vests dragged at our shoulders. The Haunted Gorge lay ahead, a black tear in the landscape, its secrets waiting to break the weak.
I ran slightly behind her, my eyes never leaving her form. Arden. Aria. The two names warred in my mind, but the person before me was a fusion of both. The boy’s disguise was a shell, but the spirit inside was entirely her own, and it was magnificent. She moved with a new economy
