Two days.
Two full days have passed since the massacre.
The Earth Kingdom camp is no longer a military base.
It is a graveyard cleaned too quickly. A scar still burning beneath the surface.
The tents have been repaired roughly. The palisades reinforced. The bodies burned far from sight.
But the smell of death remains.
Soaked into the soil.Into the wood.Into the air.
We all live here now.
Twenty-four survivors.
Students.
Children who saw too early what they were never meant to see.
My uncle's squad has taken control of the camp.
Everything is methodical.
Silent.
Efficient.
They organize watch rotations. Patrol the perimeter. Inspect every weak point. No one truly sleeps. Even when eyes close, the mind stays awake.
Rhaen buried Selene.
Alone.
Far from the camp, beneath a tree with thick roots.
He dug the grave with his bare hands.
He refused help.
His fingers bled.
He did not slow down.
He did not speak.
I didn't know.
I didn't know they had known each other since childhood. That they grew up together. That they shared the kind of bond you don't even name because it feels too obvious.
Madly in love.
That's what Serah whispered.
For two days, Rhaen has remained there.
Sitting in front of the grave.
He barely eats. Barely sleeps. He doesn't even look at us when we leave food beside him. He doesn't cry.
He just stares at the fresh earth, as if waiting for it to give something back.
No one forces him to return.
No one dares.
Oryn has become a shadow.
He isolates himself. Drifts to the edges of the camp. Avoids everyone's eyes.
When he crosses Brask, his gaze lingers a second too long.
Not hatred.
Not really.
Something fractured.
I can feel it.
Even when he laughs. Even when he mutters to himself.
There is an emptiness inside him.
A sadness he refuses to acknowledge.
He lost Selene too.
In his own way.
And it is hollowing him out.
But he will never admit it.
Brask talked.
When the shaking stopped.
When his body recovered enough strength to sit upright without trembling.
He told us everything.
What the soldiers did to him.
To the others.
The humiliations.The beatings.The interrogations.The muffled screams.The executions meant to break the ones still breathing.
I listened.
And with every word, something inside me shifted.
The tied-up soldier.
His breathing.
The knife.
The finger.
I said nothing.
But Brask saw my eyes harden.
"You've seen this before, haven't you?" he asked quietly.
I didn't answer.
He nodded anyway.
Brask is alive.
But he is not the same.
His eyes are heavier now.
Sharper.
He studies every movement around him.
He laughs less.
Speaks softer.
And when he trains, he doesn't stop until his body fails him.
Kaïros is… different.
He watches too much.
He observes my uncle closely.
He asks precise questions about Carmine Fire.
About its stability.Its structure.Its mana consumption.
Elëv answers without suspicion.
But I feel it.
Kaïros keeps distance.
From everyone.
As if he is recording everything.
For later.
He is solitary.
Calm.
Cold sometimes.
But never openly hostile.
Serah…
She is wounded.
Not only in her shoulder.
At night, I sometimes hear her breathing too fast. Like she's choking on air.
But every morning she stands.
Present.
Helping prepare food. Treating wounds. Cleaning the camp.
Especially me.
She talks to me often.
Sometimes about nothing.
Sometimes just to keep me from sinking too deep into silence.
She is warm.
Human.
Alive.
Something is forming.
A bond.
With Brask.
With Serah.
With me.
Something solid.
Elëv spoke to me one evening.
When the camp had finally quieted.
"War is almost certain," he said.
He was staring at the horizon.
"The Third Earth Master Warrior is dead. They cannot ignore that. The island was strategic. Too important."
I clenched my jaw.
"And the Academy?"
"If the King commands it," he replied, "even students will be sent to the front."
The words struck harder than I expected.
"Children…" I murmured.
"Warriors in the making," he corrected.
Over these two days, he trained us.
Me.
Brask.
Serah.
He taught us how to channel mana properly.
Not to force it.
To feel Carmine Fire as an extension of the body.
To shape it without anger.
Without panic.
"Fire answers what you are, Aydan," he told me. "Not what you pretend to be."
I still don't fully understand.
But I'm trying.
There have been no deaths.
Not for two days.
Because of him.
Because of his squad.
Because of discipline without compromise.
This morning…
The air feels different.
Calmer.
The boat arrives today.
Extraction.
Return.
I look at the camp one last time.
Rhaen still sits by the grave.
Oryn stands apart.
Brask adjusts his bandages.
Serah gives me a faint smile.
Kaïros watches the sea.
I don't know what waits for us.
But I know one thing.
We are not the same students who stepped onto this island.
And this world—
This world will not wait for us.
It will use us.