The stone beneath him stayed cold, no matter how long he sat.
Merlin leaned forward a little, elbows braced on his knees, fingers laced loosely together. His head hung low, gaze blank.
The air smelled faintly of morning fog and the metallic edge of mana drift from distant practice fields. He didn't move. Not even when a pair of birds kicked up from a tree nearby, wings snapping sharp through the stillness.
'Maybe I should be grateful.'
The thought scraped along the inside of his mind.
'Alive. Breathing. Whole.'
But it did not feel like living.
It felt like something else. Like standing in the ruins of a burned house, knowing the fire was gone but smelling the smoke anyway.
He shifted his weight, testing the strength in his legs again. Still weak. Still unreliable. The walk from the dorm to here had felt like dragging iron chains behind his heels. His body remembered how to move but not how to thrive.
He hated it.
A soft clatter echoed from the far end of the path.
