The next morning started with William heading to Combat Training earlier than usual. Valdris had sent a message the night before requesting that all students arrive fifteen minutes early for formation drills, which sounded ominous in the way most things Valdris announced tended to be.
The training ground was already half-full when William arrived. He recognized most of the faces from his regular classes, like students he had been training alongside for months but had never really talked to beyond brief exchanges during partner drills.
"Cross!" someone called out.
William turned and found Marcus Valen jogging over. The Valoris student looked significantly more awake than William felt, he had an eager expression on his face which looked like he actually enjoyed early morning training.
"I heard you made the Inter-Academy team," Marcus said while falling into step beside William. "That's impressive. I didn't even make it past Valoris preliminaries."
