Chapter 139: Beyond Just Teamwork (1)
Sirius stood in the center of the field, arms crossed, his coat billowing slightly in the wind like the final boss of a particularly harsh curriculum. The sky above shimmered faintly with residual astral energy—leftovers from the morning’s exercises. The training ground, warded and reinforced, buzzed softly with latent celestial tension.
"Again," Sirius barked, his voice like a blade slicing through the stagnant afternoon air.
Raphael panted, fingers flickering with orange heat. Sparks danced across his knuckles, flickering in and out like impatient fireflies. "I’m trying—"
"Don’t try," Sirius snapped. "Control it. You’re not lighting a match. You’re invoking ignition itself. The flame doesn’t ask for permission. It obeys because it fears being extinguished."
Raphael grit his teeth, eyes narrowing. He thrust his palm forward, summoning the fire again—but the blaze erupted in a burst too wide, scattering across the grass and nearly catching his own sleeve.
Sirius raised one brow in quiet disappointment.
Raphael groaned, rubbing ash from his arms. "You make it sound easy."
"It is easy. For someone with discipline." He turned. "Isolde. Show him."
From her corner of the field, Isolde was already working in eerie silence. Her fingers moved with meticulous grace, threads of silver barely visible to the naked eye snaking through the air like ghostly spiderwebs.
One strand looped around a floating practice dummy, and with a precise flick, she yanked it down. Another thread intercepted Raphael’s runaway flame from earlier, snuffing it out midair before it could reach a tree.
Her movements were economical—every gesture deliberate, controlled, elegant.