Location:Obsidian Academy — Great Hall
Date/Time: 1 Frostforge, 9941 AZI
Realm:Lower Realm
Ryo saw it happen.
He'd been standing three paces behind the empty table. Kiran beside him. They'd been watching the portal — the blue-white radiance, the organized lines of students descending, the spectacle of two thousand five hundred people walking into something that would kill a third of them. They'd been watching because the kits were distributed and their job was done and the Harrowing was the kind of thing you watched even when watching was all you could do.
He saw Jayde grab Eden's wrist. Saw her pull backward — sharp, urgent, the expression she wore in combat drills when instinct overrode thought. Two steps back. Three. Something was wrong. He could read it in her body — the tension in her shoulders, the angle of her retreat, the way she was moving Eden behind her while scanning for something he couldn't see.
Four steps back.
Then a body hit them from behind.
