Location:Obsidian Academy → Lower Realm Settlement (Ashfall Village)
Date/Time:Early Emberwane, 9939 AZI
Realm:Lower Realm
The merchant's son was showing his hand to anyone who'd look.
Jayde heard him before she saw him — the particular pitch of a sixteen-year-old boy performing injury for an audience, loud enough to carry across the Academy's eastern corridor, where students filtered between morning lectures and the training yards. She was walking with Eden toward the clinic, Takara's small weight warm on her shoulder, his large blue eyes tracking the corridor with the patient attention of a kitten who was not a kitten.
"—and the WHOLE thing cracked, right down the middle, and the flame came out sideways instead of up, and LOOK—"
