Chapter 188: Still Wednesday

Arthur reached for a plate of eggs near the center of the breakfast table and stopped halfway there.

The movement pulled sharply at the deep scratches tracking across his shoulder blades, and the bruised skin along his collarbone instantly reminded him of Morwenna’s teeth.

Emily looked up from her plate.

Arthur smoothly dropped his right hand, reached out with his left instead, and pulled the eggs toward him.

Emily’s eyes narrowed.

She didn’t immediately launch an interrogation. She just watched him while he ate. When Arthur leaned forward to grab a piece of toast, his collar shifted just enough to expose a fading red mark near his collarbone. Then she caught sight of the canvas burn around his left wrist.

Emily looked at him. Then at the marks. Then back at him.

"Long training session?" she asked.

Arthur kept eating. "Very thorough instructor."

Emily snorted, popping a piece of bacon into her mouth.

Chloe noticed the marks for an entirely different reason.

She was sitting on his other side, already halfway through her own meal. When Arthur reached for his glass of water, the sleeve of his uniform pulled back, fully exposing the red friction burn from the heavy canvas strap.

Chloe stopped eating and caught his wrist before he could pull it back.

She examined the irritated skin. "What did you do to this?"

Arthur paused.

Emily started laughing into her food across the table.

"Training," Arthur said.

Chloe looked from the mark to Arthur, then across the table at Emily.

She released his wrist and picked up her fork.

"Put salve on it before conditioning," Chloe said calmly.

"It doesn’t hurt," Arthur told her.

Chloe reached over and pressed her thumb exactly onto the center of the irritated skin.

"Ow."

"Salve," Chloe repeated.

Arthur shut up.

Further down the table, Cedric was complaining about a massive reading assignment for magical theory, completely oblivious to the conversation. Felix was aggressively focused on finishing a massive pile of sausages, and Elara was quietly reading a letter from home.

As they left the dining hall for their morning classes, Emily fell into step beside him in the crowded corridor. She hooked a finger under his collar, pulled it back slightly to look at the bite mark near his shoulder, and let it go.

"Subtle," Arthur noted.

"She bites?" Emily asked.

Arthur glanced down at his shoulder. "Apparently."

"Huh."

Emily walked in silence for a few seconds. Then, without warning, she reached over and squeezed the sore muscle of his right shoulder as hard as she could.

Arthur flinched. "You fucking—"

Emily grinned, letting go and walking faster to pull ahead of him toward the combat halls.

Advanced Ranged Combat with Professor Selene immediately reminded Arthur why showing up to a physical class sore was a terrible idea.

The focus of the session was shooting immediately after forced movement. Selene had set up a complex gauntlet of heavy canvas targets and reinforced stone cover at the far end of the range.

The rules were simple: sprint between cover, acquire the target, and release within two seconds without putting an arrow through one of the blue friendly targets moving across the lane.

Arthur usually drew smoothly. Today, his first hard draw pulled painfully at the scratched muscles in his back. He gritted his teeth, forced the draw through the pain, and released.

The arrow went slightly wide, clipping the edge of the target instead of hitting center mass.

"Again," Selene called out from the observation deck.

She didn’t ask for excuses, and Arthur didn’t offer any. He reset his stance and corrected the pull.

The drill forced him to adapt. He couldn’t afford to waste time muscling a full draw when his back hurt, and he couldn’t afford to dump raw mana into the string when he only had two seconds to shoot.

On the next sprint, Arthur broke cover, settled his stance instantly, and pulled the string back just far enough to form a highly compressed Mana Quiver arrow.

He held for half a heartbeat as a blue target crossed the lane.

The instant it cleared, Arthur released.

The Phantom Shot buried itself dead center in the red target behind it.

No wasted movement. No wasted mana.

Between classes, Arthur was walking across the main courtyard toward the tactical lecture halls when he saw Morwenna.

She was walking in the opposite direction with a stack of requisition forms tucked under one arm. Her hair was back in its usual tight knot and she was already dressed for the day’s classes.

She saw him.

Arthur kept walking.

"Vance," she said smoothly as they passed each other.

"Professor," Arthur replied.

She kept walking without slowing.

Just as she passed him, she murmured quietly enough that only he could hear.

"Salve on the wrist."

Arthur stared after her for a second.

Then he continued toward his lecture.

Lunch was completely normal.

Leon and Alicia were sitting together near the end of the table. Alicia casually leaned over and stole a piece of fruit off Leon’s plate, and Leon didn’t even blink. He just moved his plate slightly closer to her.

Elara had the letter from breakfast folded neatly beside her plate. She looked mildly irritated.

"Nothing confirmed," Elara said, tapping the folded letter. "More patrols, more delays, and apparently everyone back home has decided merchants need to be questioned three times before they’re allowed through a gate."

"Your family worried?" Chloe asked.

Elara shook her head. "Not enough to call me home."

Arthur listened while she complained about patrol schedules and merchants being delayed at checkpoints, occasionally stealing food off Emily’s plate while she talked.

After his final class, Arthur took the city transport down to Warehouse 9.

Sylvia didn’t waste time greeting him. She immediately shoved a clipboard into his hands the second he walked through the heavy warehouse doors.

"Look at this," Sylvia ordered.

Arthur looked over the columns of numbers. "I liked this business more when I just shot things."

"You own half of it," Sylvia reminded him, pointing at the bottom column.

Sylvia had done exactly what Brokk asked. A month’s worth of damaged weapons and armor, repair costs, rush fees, and enough totals at the bottom to make Arthur’s eyes hurt.

"These are good," Arthur admitted, handing the clipboard back. "Set up a meeting with Brokk. Send the figures over first, then go down there and negotiate a proper rate."

Sylvia nodded, already pulling a fresh sheet of parchment to draft the formal offer.

While she worked, Arthur walked over to Sophia’s desk to check the odd-monster log.

Sophia had added a few more entries since he had last checked. One more tunnel crawler found outside its expected underground territory. A weird scavenger sighting near the eastern woods.

Arthur read through the new entries twice and still couldn’t pull anything useful out of them.

"Still weird," Arthur said.

Sophia leaned back in her chair. "Still not a pattern I’d bet money on."

Arthur couldn’t argue with that.

"Anything from the courier in Rauk?" Arthur asked.

"Not yet," Sophia said, organizing a stack of bounty slips.

Arthur nodded and headed back toward the academy.

Arthur got back to campus late enough that the dinner rush had already thinned out.

By the time he reached his room, the soreness in his back had settled into a dull ache.

He dropped his bag beside the desk, pulled off his uniform jacket, and caught sight of the canvas mark around his wrist.

Arthur stared at it for a second.

Then he finally went looking for the damn salve.