CHAPTER 445: EXHAUSTING WEEKS

Evaline:

If someone had told me a few months ago that the weeks leading up to exams at Silver Moon Academy would make battle training with River feel like a vacation, I would have laughed. Now, I knew better.

Every day felt like running a marathon - except instead of a finish line, there were tests, assignments, quizzes, and presentations piling up faster than I could breathe. It was as if the professors had joined forces to see how much a student could handle before collapsing.

Morning classes bled into afternoon labs. Group projects stole the evenings. And the rare, precious moments in between were devoured by reports that had to be handwritten, illustrated, or both.

If I wasn’t in class, I was in the library, my table buried under mountains of parchment, quills, and books thicker than my arm. If I wasn’t there, I was in the study hall with my friends, all of us equally drowning in notes.

"Do you think Professor Elira secretly enjoys watching us suffer?" Mallory muttered one afternoon, flipping through her History notes as if the pages themselves were responsible for her misery.

Kyros snorted. "Secretly? She practically grins every time she assigns an essay."

Rowan yawned loudly, his chair tipping dangerously back on two legs. "I haven’t seen my bed in three days."

"Then how are you still alive?" Ria asked without looking up, quill scratching rapidly across parchment.

"Pure spite," Rowan replied solemnly.

Even through the exhaustion, we all laughed. That was the only thing keeping us sane - each other.

Sometimes, I would catch Noah dozing off mid-sentence, or Selena doodling spell circles instead of note-taking, and I would realize just how much we had all changed. We weren’t just classmates anymore. We were a team. A strange, sleep-deprived team, but a team nonetheless.

Still, no amount of teamwork could make the days feel any longer. Because when the sun went down and my friends dragged themselves back to their dorms for whatever little rest they could manage, my night would only just begin.

Every night, without fail, I slipped away.

Once the halls grew quiet and the clock neared midnight, I would sneak past the guards and leave the Academy through the secret passages. The night air always felt colder after a long day, brushing against my skin as if to remind me I was alive.

Lioren was always waiting.

The moment I entered the house, I could hear his soft whimpers. Sometimes Kieran would already be pacing the room, his eyes tired but gentle as he held our little boy. Sometimes River would be there instead, shirt half-unbuttoned, humming under his breath to soothe Lioren back to sleep.

And every time, the instant my baby caught my scent, he would turn toward me, his small fists curling in the air as if demanding I hold him right that moment.

Those late hours were my refuge. My world.

Feeding him, feeling the tiny weight of his body settle against my chest - it erased everything else. The pressure, the exhaustion, the endless cycle of classes and training - it all faded the second his warm little fingers curled around mine.

When he fell asleep, I would sit quietly by his crib, pumping enough milk for the next day. It was tedious work, but necessary. I couldn’t risk him waking hungry while I was trapped in the Academy. Kieran always insisted he could handle it, that they could bottle-feed him, but some part of me felt guilty every time I wasn’t there.

After that came my second kind of bonding... one I didn’t tell anyone about.

Sometimes, when the house was silent and the others had gone to bed, I’d let my power flow through my fingertips and rest them against his chest. Just a whisper of healing energy. Not enough to do anything visible, just enough for him to feel it. It was my way of ensuring he would always know my touch, even if I wasn’t there.

And then, before dawn, I would sneak back to the Academy.

It was exhausting. Maddening, even. Some days I thought I would collapse halfway up the dorm stairs. But I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t.

Because as hard as it was, I was still getting stronger.

My training with Elder Ren continued during weekends. He pushed me further each time, forcing me to face my hesitation until there was none left. I learned to summon my power faster, sharper, to focus without losing myself to exhaustion. My healing was stronger now... cleaner, more controlled.

Even River noticed the difference.

During combat sessions, he no longer held back. He and Oscar both tested me ruthlessly, sparing no mercy when it came to discipline or focus. But there was a strange rhythm to those sessions now, a pulse that existed somewhere between pain and... something else.

Flirtation, maybe.

"Your stance is slipping again," Oscar murmured one evening, circling behind me as we sparred. His breath brushed the back of my neck, sending goosebumps racing across my skin.

"I’m tired," I muttered, raising my staff again.

"Then you’ll learn to fight tired," he said softly, his tone far too smooth for the words to be comforting.

He moved suddenly, disarming me in one swift move and catching me before I fell. His arm wrapped around my waist, holding me just close enough that I could feel his heartbeat against my back.

"Better," he whispered.

River, watching from nearby, just shook his head. "You are supposed to be teaching her balance, not distracting her."

Oscar grinned without looking away from me. "Distraction builds focus. Don’t you agree, little healer?"

I turned my head slightly, trying - and failing - to hide my smile. "I think you just like having an excuse to touch me."

"Always," he murmured, low enough for only me to hear.

Those moments - light, teasing, charged - made the exhaustion bearable. Between Elder Ren’s endless lessons and the brothers’ relentless training, I barely had time to breathe. Yet somehow, I could feel myself improving - physically, mentally, magically.

Maybe I was finally learning how to balance both worlds.

By the time last week before exam arrived, the Academy was buzzing like a hive of anxious bees. Everyone was either studying, panicking, or pretending not to panic.

The library became my second home.

Tonight was no exception. The grand hall was quieter than usual, most students having already returned to their dorms. Only a few dim lamps lit the first and ground floor, leaving most of the space cloaked in a soft golden darkness.

I had been studying alone for hours, surrounded by stacks of notes, a single candle burning low beside me. My neck ached, my eyes burned, and the faint tick of the library clock told me it was almost eleven thirty. Curfew was in thirty minutes.

I rubbed my eyes, closing my notebook. "Enough," I muttered to myself. "One more page and I’ll start dreaming about potion equations."

Gathering my books and papers, I tucked them into my bag and slung it over my shoulder. The library was nearly empty now... eerily so. The only sound was the faint rustle of pages turning somewhere below, probably from one of the night scholars.

As I walked through the rows of shelves, my footsteps echoed faintly against the marble floor. The air smelled faintly of parchment and candle wax, and the silence pressed around me like a thick blanket.

Just as I reached the second-floor balcony, ready to descend the staircase, something shifted in the air.

A faint rustle.

My eyes had just started to adjust to the darker section when...

A hand shot out of the shadows.

Before I could react, it clamped around my arm and yanked me hard into the narrow space between the shelves.