The training hall emptied slowly, boots scraping against the stone floor as students murmured among themselves. Some glanced back at Aria with lingering fear, others with awe. They didn’t understand what they’d witnessed. They didn’t know what it meant.
Aria barely felt her feet as she followed the crowd out of the arena, her breath shallow, hands trembling at her sides. The faint outline of the glowing crescent remained on her wrist, now hidden beneath her sleeve, but its warmth pulsed like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.
Behind her, standing alone at the center of the arena, Kael didn’t move.
Not yet.
He watched her walk away, jaw locked, every muscle drawn so tight his vision blurred. The air still hummed with the echo of her energy—that moment she touched him, the spark that jumped b
