**Aria's POV**

I found Caspian in the Academy's training courtyard at dawn, working through combat forms with the kind of focused intensity that suggested he hadn't slept any more than I had. He looked up when I approached, his expression unreadable in the early morning light.

"Aria," he said, using my real name for the first time in public.

"Caspian."

We stood facing each other in the space where we'd sparred dozens of times over the past months, where I'd carefully hidden my full ...