POV: Mina (Age 17 - Five Days Until Ceremony)
The campus had split overnight.
I noticed it the next morning at breakfast. Where there had been one unified social hierarchy before—the Trio at the top, everyone else arranged in descending order below them—now there were factions.
Two distinct camps, divided by an invisible line that everyone could feel but no one was explicitly naming.
On one side: students loyal to the old order. The Trio's traditional allies, high-ranking Alpha families, anyone with something to lose if the Academy's power structure shifted. They watched me with open hostility, moved to block my path in hallways, whispered to each other when I passed.
These were the students who would sell me out to the Council without hesitation if they thought it would benefit them.
