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I frown. "I don't understand."

"They're slowly stopping us from thinking like separate Houses." She looks toward the crowded courtyard. "They're teaching us to think like one army."

The thought follows me all the way to breakfast. The dining hall has changed too. Not dramatically. Subtly. Enough that most students probably won't notice. The Chiefs no longer eat beside their own Wings. Instead every Chief shares one long table near the professors. Rhyven. Caelen. Lyss. Dax. Soren. Maelis. Maps cover nearly half their table. Breakfast seems almost secondary. They're already discussing something. No...Planning. Rhyven points toward one of the maps. Dax shakes his head. Soren adds another suggestion. Maelis writes something down. No raised voices. No arguments. Just work. Cassian follows my gaze. "They've been doing that every morning since the Council arrived." I hadn't noticed. Then again...I've spent every breakfast trying not to fall asleep in my porridge.

Before I can answer a bell rings. Not the normal class bell. Lower. Slower. Professor Aldren immediately stands. Every conversation dies. He waits until the room is completely silent. "Beginning today..." His voice carries easily across the hall. "Students will remain seated until their Wing Chief dismisses them."

Confused murmurs spread instantly. "Why?" A second-year asks.

Professor Aldren answers simply. "Because organization saves lives." No further explanation follows. For the first time since arriving at Varethia reakfast ends in complete silence. Not uncomfortable. Disciplined. Each Chief dismisses their Wing individually. One after another. No rushing. No crowding. No chaos. Even something as ordinary as walking through the Academy now feels structured. The courtyards no longer look familiar. Wardkeepers patrol nearly every path. Pairs. Always pairs. The western walls now hold permanent lookouts. Two dragons rest atop the northern towers, enormous wings folded neatly against ancient stone. I don't remember ever seeing dragons perched there before. Neither does Nyra. "They're watching." She whispers.

I look toward the dragons. "They've always watched."

"No." She shakes her head. "They're guarding."

Our first class isn't Magical Theory. It's Ward Defense. Apparently everyone's first class is Ward Defense now. Professor Elian stands before nearly two hundred students gathered inside one of the Academy's largest lecture halls. He doesn't open a textbook. He doesn't greet us. Instead, he draws a single circle across the enormous chalkboard. "The wards." Another circle. Smaller. Inside the first. "The Academy." Then a single dot. Near the center. "You." Silence settles naturally over the room. Professor Elian sets the chalk down. "For generations..." He says quietly. "You've been taught that the wards protect you." He looks around the room. "They don't." Confused whispers. "They protect all of Varethia." The room stills. "If the villages fall..." He taps the outer circle. "The Academy becomes the next wall." Tap. "If the Academy falls..." The inner circle. "There are no walls left." No one writes. No one even blinks. "The wards are not magic." He says. "They are responsibility." The lesson continues for nearly two hours. Not about creating wards. About defending them. How they're anchored. How they're monitored. How damage spreads. How panic kills faster than cracks. By the time class ends no one complains about the extra workload anymore.

Outside, the training fields have transformed overnight. Temporary barricades. Signal flags. Medical stations. Entire sections of the grounds divided into simulated villages. Students from different Wings mix freely. Vampires beside wolves. Sirens beside fae. Dragon Riders beside everyone. House colours suddenly matter less than assigned teams. A whistle echoes across the field. Every conversation stops. Every student turns.

Rhyven stands at the center of the largest training ground. Not alone. Dax stands to his right. Soren to his left. Maelis several paces behind. No one introduced them. No one explained the formation. It simply exists. Because they built it. Rhyven steps forward. His voice isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. "Listen." The entire field obeys instantly. Nearly three hundred students. Silent. Watching him. For the first time I don't see the man who made my morning miserable in Dominion. I see the officer every professor trusts to lead. "You trained to master your own House." He says. "That is no longer enough." He lets the words settle. "In battle..." He looks slowly across the crowd. "magic doesn't organize itself for your convenience." Several students exchange uncertain glances. Rhyven continues. "If the person beside you falls..." He points toward a wolf student. "You protect them." Toward a siren. "You adapt." Toward a fae. "You continue." His eyes move across every Wing represented on the field. "Your House determines your birth." A pause. "It will not determine who survives." Silence. No dramatic applause. No cheering. Just understanding. He steps back.

Without another word. Dax immediately takes over. "Mixed formations!" Students begin moving. Not hesitantly. Automatically. Because the Chiefs already know exactly where everyone belongs. I watch Rhyven instead. While Dax instructs the first exercise Rhyven isn't watching Sky Wing. He's watching everything. Adjusting groups. Speaking quietly with Soren. Redirecting instructors. Checking distances between formations. Correcting one signal flag. Changing another. He isn't leading one Wing anymore. He's leading leaders. And somehow without ever raising his voice the entire Academy has started moving to his rhythm. For the first time I understand why he became Chief Wings Officer. Not because he's the strongest Dragon Rider. Because when uncertainty arrives people instinctively look toward him. And somehow he always seems to know where everyone should be.

By midday no one remembers what the Academy felt like last week. Not because we've forgotten. Because we haven't had time to. The New Order leaves no empty spaces. Every hour belongs to something. If not lectures then drills. If not drills then ward rotations. If not ward rotations then emergency response. Even lunch has been shortened. Students no longer linger beneath the oak trees or gather in the gardens with books spread across the grass. Meals have become fuel. Nothing more.

The afternoon begins with another notice. This one delivered by the Chiefs themselves. Every Wing gathers on the western training grounds. Hundreds of students. Seven Wings. One field. The size of the crowd makes my stomach tighten. We've never trained together before. Not like this. Not all at once. Rhyven stands before us. The other Chiefs form a loose line beside him. For the first time since arriving at Varethia no Wing occupies the center. No House stands first. Everyone shares the same ground. Rhyven waits until the field falls completely silent. Then speaks. "Today..." He begins. "You stop training beside your own people." A murmur ripples through the crowd. He lets it. "You don't choose who stands beside you on a battlefield." His golden eyes sweep slowly across the assembled students. "You don't choose who bleeds beside you." Silence. "You learn everyone." Without another word he steps aside. Maelis unrolls an enormous map across a wooden table. Soren drives six colored flags into the earth. Dax crosses his arms. "This Academy has spent generations producing exceptional individuals." His voice carries easily across the field. "We're no longer interested in exceptional individuals." He points toward the map. "We're building exceptional units." Students begin exchanging uncertain glances.

Someone whispers, "What's the difference?"

Soren answers before anyone else can. "A dead hero saves no one."

The words land harder than shouting ever could. For the next hour everything changes. Mixed formations. Mixed manifestations. Mixed responsibilities. A vampire shields a siren. A wolf escorts a fae healer. Dragon Riders protect medusas while they prepare defensive manifestations. Nothing feels natural. That's the point. My first assignment places me beside three students I've never spoken to before.

A second-year wolf. A first-year medusa. A third-year human from Stone Wing. We stare at one another. Awkwardly. The wolf finally sighs. "Well. I guess we're a team." We aren't. Not yet.

Within minutes our first exercise collapses. Literally. The medusa freezes because she doesn't know our signals. The wolf charges too early. I move left. The human moves right. Everyone ends up exactly where we shouldn't. A whistle cuts through the chaos. "Stop." Rhyven. The entire field freezes. He walks toward us. Not quickly. Not slowly. Purposefully. He doesn't look irritated. Only observant. "What happened?" Silence.

The wolf finally answers. "We've never trained together."

Rhyven nods once. "I know." Another pause. "What else?" No one speaks. His gaze settles on me. "Vaelith." I straighten instinctively. "What did you see?"

I replay the exercise in my head. "Everyone assumed someone else knew what to do."

He nods. "Correct." Then he looks at the rest of our group. "You're waiting for familiarity." His voice remains calm. "You don't have it." He gestures toward the entire field. "So build communication instead." He steps back. "Again." No lecture. No criticism. Only another chance.

The second attempt goes better. Not well. Better. By the fourth we're beginning to anticipate one another. By the sixth we're speaking less. Watching more. Adjusting naturally. It's strange. How quickly strangers can begin trusting one another when they stop trying to prove themselves. Across the field the Chiefs continue moving between formations. Dax demonstrates defensive positioning. Soren corrects magical timing. Maelis reorganizes entire groups based on their strengths. Lyss adjusts evacuation routes. Each teaches something different. Yet everything somehow fits together. Like pieces of a single machine. I glance toward Rhyven. He's no longer instructing. He's watching. Not the strongest students. The struggling ones. He notices a fae student repeatedly stepping into another student's casting range. Before the professor assigned to that group says anything Rhyven is already there. One quiet correction. The mistake never happens again. Minutes later he redirects an entire formation because one injured ankle has begun slowing their retreat. He saw it before the student admitted it. Then he notices two groups practicing the same exercise too close together. One gesture. They spread apart. No collision. No wasted movement. He sees...Everything. "You've been staring." Nyra murmurs beside me.

"I have not." I look at her.

"You have."

"I was observing."

She smiles. "That's what staring is called when Chiefs do it."

"Maybe."

Our final exercise of the afternoon is unlike anything we've done before. No magic. No combat. Only movement. Professor Aldren joins the Chiefs near the front of the field. "In war..." He says. "Your greatest threat isn't always the enemy." He points toward the students surrounding him. "It's confusion." He divides us into groups of twenty. Mixed Wings. Mixed years. Mixed Houses. Then blindfolds half of us. Confused laughter spreads across the field. Until he explains. "The blindfolded students represent civilians." Silence returns immediately. "The rest of you..." He looks slowly around the field. "Must get every civilian to safety. Without magic."