After returning to the Southern District, Sheila did not give the morning time to settle on its own.
Two students on guard duty near the courtyard were ordered to spread word through the barracks, cleared rooms, watch posts, and resting areas: every second-year was to gather in the courtyard within thirty minutes. No exceptions unless a healer had marked them unable to move. The instruction traveled quickly, carried by patrols and repeated in low, urgent voices through the half-awake district.
Students stirred from poor sleep, reached for weapons, checked bandages, argued softly with their own exhaustion, and began moving toward the courtyard with the uneasy understanding that a gathering before full morning never meant something small.
