Elsie’s POV

After days of training, I was finally starting to feel like I wasn’t completely useless. Madriod was still a pain with his constant yelling, but at least I could swing a staff without nearly breaking my wrist now. Mia, though? She’d been unusually quiet all day, and that girl being quiet is like… unnatural.

It was during the afternoon drills when I noticed something was off. Mia was supposed to be practicing her shield spell, but instead, she was just sitting on the ground, staring into space.

“Mia, you good?” I asked, walking over to her.

She didn’t even look up, just mumbled something like, “Yeah, I’m fine.”...