The fact that Darim had defeated her so easily bothered Theora for a while. She had always known there was a difference of a year and a half of training time at the Academy between the Whites and the current Smokes, but she hadn't realized how much of a gap those eighteen months could make in terms of actual skills. She could stand her ground against Reylan, who was a really skilled Cloud, but he only had six months more training, and unlike Theora, he hadn't spent every day of his childhood trained by a marshall. She had no doubt he'd picked up a lot of skills on the streets, but their difference in strength and skill when they dueled felt perfectly fair. Javes was a Fog, a year ahead of her, but clearly, the guy deserved whatever shitty rank he'd gotten. Judging by how unwilling he had b
