Chapter 181: Day One, Closed
The training field slowly let go of its fever. What had been a dozen simultaneous rhythms—wood on wood, breath on breath, the scrape of boots on packed earth—now relaxed into a single, jangling exhaustion. Snow drifted down in thin sheets, settling on shoulders and the tips of wooden blades.
Orion stood at the center of it all, arms folded against the cold, watching.
The archery group still hummed with quiet frustration; wooden arrows lay in the snow with cloth-wrapped tips, quivers slumped. The stone pyramids remained stubbornly intact on more than one stump, a few missing stones at the top the closest anyone had managed all day. But that wasn't enough.
The spear line had grown better at basic grip and stance, but their thrusts were hesitant, the wooden shafts wobbling in mid-motion.
The axe-wielding candidates had rhythm—at least some of them—but even Cat's easy swing had begun to flag as muscle fatigue crept in.
