Location:Obsidian Academy — Eastern Ranges
Date/Time:Late Frostforge, 9939 AZI — early morning
Realm:Lower Realm
The Academy hadn't changed.
Jayde had. But the stone corridors, the frost on the training yard walls, the distant sound of the first bell cutting through the mountain air — all of it was exactly as she'd left it. A week. A week outside — four days in the Pavilion's dilated time, the rest in transit. Forty days inside those four. She'd grown four inches, gained wings, lost a cultivation framework, and learned more about her parents. The Academy corridors didn't care. They were stone. Stone didn't notice.
The Veil sat on her skin like a second face — the disguise artifact fully recharged, the black hair and brown eyes back in place, the silver-white and gold-amber hidden beneath Pyratheon's craftsmanship. The height was the problem. Five-seven to five-eleven in a week. The Veil couldn't compress her frame — it altered appearance, not mass.
