The training yard had emptied out quickly after what happened.Sena had called the session early without explanation, which was the kind of decision that required no explanation when everyone present had just watched a new wolf throw a seasoned warrior fifteen feet across the yard without laying a hand on him. The other wolves had filed out in a silence that felt different from the usual end of session quiet, more careful, more considered, the silence of people who had witnessed something they needed time to process before they could talk about it properly.I had stayed behind and sat on the low stone wall at the edge of the yard and looked at my hands for a long time, turning them over and back, studying them like they belonged to someone I had only just met. They looked exactly the same as they always had. Same knuckles, same small scar across the back of my right hand from a training accident two years ago in Silverstone, same bitten-down nails from the habit I had never managed to
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