Her feet carried her against the stream of people heading toward the kitchens. She wasn’t hungry. Vhalla didn’t think she’d manage a bite today. She had one day left before she’d march away from everything she had ever known. Her normally small appetite had shriveled to a rock hard pit.

She entered the training rooms of the Tower, which encompassed the center of an entire level. The circular room was lined with a low outer wall that acted as a barrier for spectators and waiting trainees.

A woman already stood in the room behind a high desk.

“Major,” Vhalla called as she entered.

“Yarl.” Major Reale was a Southern woman who was built out of steel and was just as warm. A metal eyepatch had been melted directly onto her bone, covering her left eye. “You’re early.”

“I can’t stay away,” Vhalla retorted with a sarcastic tone, a tone that was beginning to permanently slip between her words. Vhalla didn’t know where it came from, and she was too tired to care.

“Well, you’re not working with me today.” The major glanced up only briefly before returning to marking up the papers on the desk.

“I’m not?” Vhalla didn’t know where else she’d go. She couldn’t leave the Tower per the Senate’s orders. She was still property of the crown until she saw the war in the North to its conclusion—or she died.

“The minister wants to see you.”

Vhalla knew a dismissal when she heard it, and Major Reale wasn’t exactly the friendliest of women to be around.

With breakfast underway, the Tower hallway was empty. Most of the residents packed into the kitchens a few levels up. As she passed the mess hall, the noise washed over her, but Vhalla was too numb to hear it.

Past her room and almost at the top of the Tower was the Minister of Sorcery’s office and quarters. All other doors held a name plaque on their fronts bearing the resident’s name. But the one before her had the symbol of the Tower of Sorcerers cast in silver, a dragon curling in on itself split in two: the Broken Moon.

Her eyes drifted upward.

There was one more door, just visible on the curve of the sloping hallway. It was completely unmarked. And, while no one could confirm with any certainty, Vhalla could only suspect who it belonged to. She hadn’t seen or heard from her phantom in days and had no way of reaching out to him, no matter how badly her poorer judgment begged her to. Vhalla swallowed and knocked on the door in front of her before the bad idea to proceed to the next door could overcome her.