Zara
Midterms turned the academy into a prison.
Every hallway buzzed with students, paper crumples, and the low drone of students reciting facts under their breath like prayers. Even the combat wing had quieted, no training, no duels — just the suffocating silence of too many brains trying not to fail.
The main library was a disaster. Every table taken. Bodies slumped in uncomfortable chairs, backpacks filled with notes, enchantments pulsing weakly in the corners. I had tried, gods knew I had, to find a place to concentrate. But the whispering, the shuffling, the smell of stress, and sweat…. It rose to my skull.
So I asked Mina Roja, our class captain, quietly over breakfast, where people didn't study.
She blinked at me. "Old East Wing."
I frowned. "Why not there?"
