The meditation garden had become Iris's sanctuary over the past week. Every morning before dawn, she would come to the ancient oak, embed her long katana into its living vitality, and suspend herself on the blade while the Academy slept around her. Hours would pass in profound silence, her consciousness merging with the circulation of life force that pulsed through wood and leaf and root.
Today, something was different.
Raya found her sister still suspended on the blade as afternoon light filtered through the canopy, but Iris's eyes were open—not the unfocused gaze of someone lost in meditation, but the sharp, analytical stare of someone who had discovered something fundamental and was still processing its implications.
