The sound of a wooden blade hitting dirt cracked through the courtyard like a warning shot. Somewhere nearby, a few first-years groaned in frustration.
One of them shouted something about footing. Another voice, sharper and older, barked a correction that got drowned out by laughter.
Merlin stepped into the edge of it all, hands in his coat pockets. The breeze caught at the hem, tugging fabric against his legs.
The sun was high enough to warm the stone path beneath his boots but not high enough to make him sweat.
Nathan noticed him first. He blinked once, then raised a brow, still chewing on something. Meat skewer. Grease stained the corner of his paper napkin.
"You're walking so sickly," Nathan said around a bite, voice dry. "That's unsettling."
Merlin didn't answer right away. His gaze wandered past Nathan to the bench under the tree. Elara sat cross-legged on the low wall beside it, sharpening a short knife slowly and without looking up.
Nathan squinted at him. "Or is this the ghost of Merlin, back for unfinished essays and poor life choices?"
Elara's knife paused.
"Don't be stupid," she said. Her voice was quiet, even. "Ghosts don't look that annoyed."
Merlin stepped closer, then sat down without invitation. His legs felt stiff. Not sore. Just… slower.
"I got bored," he said.
Nathan shrugged, lips curling up. "Sure. That's the healthiest reason I've heard for skipping medical supervision. You want some of this?" He offered what remained of the skewer. "Probably chicken. Might be something else though."
Nathan popped the last piece into his mouth and chewed with exaggerated satisfaction.
Elara didn't say anything right away. Her eyes flicked up, just once, as if scanning him for signs of something he wouldn't say out loud. She resumed her work on the blade, slow and steady, metal whispering against stone.
"You missed this morning's session," she said after a while.
"Reinhardt let people pair up," Nathan added. "Then he let them break the rules just to see what stuck. It was kind of great. Kind of terrifying. I think someone sprained a rib."
"He called it 'creative assessment,'" Elara muttered.
"Which is teacher-speak for 'duel until I get bored.'"
Merlin didn't respond.
Across the courtyard, two students were still circling each other near the practice ring. One held a short sword in a reverse grip, too flashy for his stance. The other had a longer blade, heavier, but his balance kept slipping.
Merlin's eyes narrowed slightly. The long sword user kept pulling to the left. He was overcompensating with his back foot. Too much weight on the wrong side.
His gaze dropped to his own hand, fingers twitching slightly where they rested on his thigh.
'Keryx doesn't feel wrong. But it's like trying to fight with a whisper. No weight to push against. Nothing to slow me down or challenge the movement. I used to know how to move. Now I just follow what the sword wants instead of the other way around.'
Nathan leaned forward, elbows on knees, tone more careful this time.
"You've been different."
That pulled Elara's attention back up.
Merlin didn't flinch. Didn't deny it.
Nathan hesitated, then ran a hand through his hair and let out a long sigh.
"Not like, weird-different. Just… quieter. And you're already the quiet one, so that's saying something."
Elara glanced between them but said nothing.
"Training on your own?" Nathan asked.
Merlin gave a short nod. "Trying things out."
"What kind of things?"
"Longer blades. Heavier grip."
Nathan looked genuinely confused. "You? Using a longsword? You know that's for people with wrists like siege weapons, right?"
'Reinhardt wasn't wrong. The rapier only works if I have the speed to push its limits. If my body's changed, the weapon doesn't compensate. It just exposes every weakness I don't want to admit.'
"I need more control," he said simply.
Elara tilted her head, knife finally lowered to her lap.
"That's not like you."
"It wasn't," he murmured.
The words sat between them. Heavy. Not dramatic, just final.
Off to the side, someone let out a sharp yelp. A training dummy had snapped backward into the dirt with a loud thump. A group of students scattered around it in laughter and groans.
Nathan gave the chaos a glance, then looked back at Merlin.
Merlin considered it. Then shook his head.
They just sat there, three silhouettes against the afternoon sun, watching others fail with style while not saying the things that mattered.
Eventually, Elara sheathed her knife.
"You'll tell us when it gets worse?" she asked.
Merlin didn't answer.
That was enough for her.
Behind them, the wind stirred the canopy. Someone near the ring called for water. Another voice yelled back that they could go find their own.
Merlin leaned back against the wall, eyes half-lidded.
He didn't close them.
The warmth had thinned. Not gone, but brittle around the edges. Merlin noticed it in the way the flagstones felt under his boots. Still sunlit, but duller. Like the heat was only clinging out of habit.
He stayed seated for a while after Nathan and Elara left, watching the wind catch leaves in slow, spiraling lifts.
Someone behind the west wing was hammering wood together, short, careless strikes, no rhythm at all.
Two third-years passed behind him muttering about a fire affinity duel that got cut short. Something about a snapped practice staff and a scorched robe.
None of it touched him. Not really.
A blade cracked against a training dummy across the field. Over and over again. Same swing. Same follow-through. The dull thunk of impact repeated too perfectly.
Merlin rose, letting his hands fall into his coat pockets. His fingers brushed the edge of Keryx, still sheathed inside, but he didn't touch it. Not today.
He walked slowly across the courtyard, letting the rhythm of his boots against stone drown out the sound of the swings.
The boy at the training ring was still at it. Black hair. Short sleeves. Arms tense, too tense for how loose the grip was. The sword moved like it was being dragged through water.
No break in breath. No adjustment. Just the same mechanical arc.
The boy didn't blink. Just kept swinging.
Closer now, Merlin saw it more clearly. The boy's shoulders were trembling, but not from fatigue. His pupils were dilated. No tension in the jaw. Breathing too shallow.
Merlin stepped forward and reached out, tapping two fingers to the kid's wrist.
The boy froze in place, arm half-raised.
Then his eyes twitched. He blinked. Looked around like he'd just been dropped into the middle of the field.
"I…" His voice cracked. "I didn't realize—sorry. I was just practicing."
He stepped back, one foot skidding on loose gravel. The practice sword clattered from his hand, and he stared at it like it wasn't his.
"You're fine," Merlin said. "You should sit. And drink something."
The kid didn't even pick the sword up. Just turned and walked quickly across the field, head low, almost stumbling when his foot caught the ring border.
Merlin watched him go.
He looked toward the hedge wall. A tall student had been there earlier. Same uniform. Short buzzed hair. His face wasn't familiar.
The kind of face your eyes slid past in a crowd. But he'd stopped. Turned. Stared straight at him.
No sound. No footprints. Nothing.
'That's how it starts. You catch them out of the corner of your eye. Figures that don't belong. Faces you can't place. Patterns in behavior so subtle most people just move past it.'
Merlin rubbed his temple.
The headache had started again, faint and pulsing at the center of his forehead.
He turned back toward the courtyard. Empty now except for a few scattered bags and training gear.
The wind tugged lightly at the canvas roof stretched over the archery platform. A few wooden arrows lay scattered underfoot, half-buried in dust.
His eyes tracked across the stones automatically.
Cracks. Small ones. Forming concentric arcs near the edge of the courtyard.
He crouched. Ran a hand lightly over the break.
No heat. No frost. Just pressure. Like something had pressed up from beneath the surface and left it just barely split.
A faint pressure built in the air. Not heavy, but hollow. A vacuum in sensation. The kind of silence you didn't hear so much as feel behind your ears.
A group of students passed on the upper walkway behind him. One of them laughed, too loud. Another mimicked a teacher's voice. Their footsteps echoed against stone, faded into the corridor beyond.
None of them noticed the flicker at the corner of the courtyard. Not a movement. A blur. Like something stepped out of sync with everything else.
Merlin didn't follow it.
His thoughts were too loud.
'The boundary's wearing thin. Not torn open. Not yet. But it's like… wind leaking through the edges of a locked door. I read about this in the novel. When a gate fails to anchor, the space around it distorts first. People lose time. Get disoriented. Animals won't go near it.'
He glanced at the old crow that usually perched near the bell tower.
Even the insects seemed quieter now.
He looked toward the path where Elara and Nathan had gone. Then down the corridor toward his dorm.
Because the Hollow Labyrinth wasn't here. Not fully.
But it was starting to breathe.