Soren counted three days of uninterrupted rain by the taste of mildew creeping along his collar and the fug of wet wool that invaded even the deepest stonework.

Between bells the storm let up just long enough to coax the mud on the quad into a slick that doubled the turnout for slips and falls, half of which the instructors called "opportunities to learn balance under duress."

By the second morning, Thale had declared every training yard condemned and marched the cohort into the Hall of Mirrors for indoor drills.

The Hall was not, as Soren first assumed, a metaphor. It was a literal chamber lined in polished steel panels, ceiling to floor, hundreds of feet of warped reflection throwing back every student's posture, every misstep, every failed parry magnified into perpetuity. Several initiates had already learned the cost of staring at their own face mid-bout: it cost them the bout.

Cassian, predictably, adapted by using the glare off his blade to blind or at least disorient his opponent; Kale Trennor just laughed at his own ghoulish grimace until Thale boxed his ears for disrespect.

On this afternoon, Soren faced Seren Avelle for the sixth consecutive round. She favored spear, as always, and he withstood the unfamiliar rhythm by treating each mirror-glimpse as another attacker, a feint thrown by the room itself.

He reset his stance after every exchange, ignoring the flicker of rainwater running behind the walls, condensation blurred their shapes into a mosaic of blue and grey, a tapestry of movement so dense he could no longer isolate which limbs belonged to which body.

There were moments when it seemed he attacked his own reflection, when the angle of Seren's approach intersected precisely with his own in the glass, and he saw twelve versions of himself, all with mouths set in the same careful line, all moving with the same predatory caution.

"Pivot, Vale!" Thale shouted from the perimeter, his hawk nose and arms folded into an apex of disappointment. "You're fighting ghosts."

Soren resisted the urge to check his own eyes in the mirror. Instead, he followed Seren's lunge up the axis of her body, tracking the telltale flick of her wrist that always came a half-breath before a switch in grip.

He parried, overextended by design, drew her in. Her footwork was flawless, he had to admit it, but she broke posture just enough to open a throat-line. He cut low, the edge of his practice blade finding the crook behind her lead knee before she twisted free.

The thud of spear against stone echoed like thunder, followed by a sharp inhale as Seren landed in a crouch, blade poised but etiquette shattered. She flicked a glance at the mirrored wall and back, as if still verifying which Soren was the real threat.

He kept his focus on her wrist, not her face. The sequence repeated, escalating: four feints, two committed attacks, one reset. By the fourth cycle, the repetition itself threatened to numb him into error, but Soren overlaid the images, looking not for difference but for pattern.

The room blurred, the steel panels catching and stretching fragments of bodies in all directions.

Somewhere in the overlapping shimmer, Soren caught a flash of blue that was neither uniform nor reflection, something else, a momentary afterimage that left a streak burning on his vision. For a heartbeat, the geometry of the hall fractured: not twins, not repeats, but a pale figure looming above the mirrored line, armor trimmed in azure and streaming night-silver hair. Then it vanished, as if rinsed away by the next clash of blades.

The shock slowed him, an error so basic it brought his old instructors to mind with a jolt: never freeze on a hallucination, especially not in a duel. Seren capitalized, twisting the flat of her spear into his exposed side, the impact radiating bruise-deep against his ribs.

He converted the pain into forward momentum, driving in under her guard and locking her arms at the elbows. The speartip skated off the mirror mere inches from his temple. From this close, Soren could smell the rain on her skin and the sharp, minty note of whatever balm she used on her hands.

He let go of the hold, stepping back to neutral, weapon angled low. Seren seemed to debate a quip before settling for a nod, professional, no grudges.

Thale strode to the center, voice booming across the chamber. "Again." The word echoed, folding back on itself as if the room hungered for repetition.

They set their weapons. Soren met Seren's gaze, and in the moment before the round began, she arched an eyebrow as if to ask: what did you see?

He lined up his stance and tried to decide if the apparition was Valenna's doing or some quirk of exhaustion. 'Not now,' he cautioned her silently, sure she would listen only if it amused her to do so.

The bout was cleaner this time. Seren feinted predictably in the first motion, but Soren followed the arc of her knee rather than the spear, catching the rhythm of her step and nullifying it with a sweep.

He pushed the tempo, letting the mirrored afterimages multiply, using them as camouflage rather than distraction. The moment Seren's posture shifted to compensate, he struck, not at the reflection, but the faint dissonance behind it, the one place the mirrors didn't double perfectly.

He caught her off-guard, blade at her collarbone before she could launch a counter.

Thale whistled, sharp and approving. "That, Vale, is how you murder a phantom. Or a person, if you're clever."

Seren stepped back, cheeks just barely flushed, more from the mask of composure than any embarrassment. "Good read," she said, rolling her braid between two fingers. "Most people can't see past the surface here."

Soren shrugged, then caught himself before the motion could become habit.

Thale circled them, fixing both in his gaze. "Hall of Mirrors humbles everyone, eventually. It's built to weaponize your own reflection."

There was a lesson there, Soren noted, more about the Academy than about footwork. He filed it under 'future threats' for later.

Before the next bout could begin, the razor clap of a whistle cut through the chamber: Master Dane, doorway framed in the stark light of the next corridor. With a gesture, he summoned Soren and dismissed Seren, his face unreadable as the rain-scarred sky outside.

"Coren Vale. With me." His voice left no room for confusion; it was not a request.

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