Then came the time for final exams, a dreaded moment marking the end of a year at the Imperial School of Mor. Every subject studied during this period—from core courses to extracurricular activities—would be tested in a relentless series of exams. Two intense weeks loomed ahead, where, from morning to evening, for eight hours straight, exams would follow one another without respite, a storm of paper and ink ready to engulf Mero and his classmates. There was no escape, no pause to catch their breath—just a deluge of questions, calculations, and words to be committed to parchment under the unyielding gaze of proctors.
The first day dawned like a silent threat, the pale light filtering through the curtains of his room as Mero opened his eyes, his body already heavy with anticipated fatigue. He sat up, muscles stiff, his mind still foggy from the hours of studying the night before. Each morning would be like this now—a struggle to emerge from bed, to chase away the shadows of sleep and face a day that seemed endless before it even began. Subjects piled up in his mind like waves ready to overwhelm him: imperial history with its dates and battles, foreign languages with their strange sounds, navigation with its maps and precise calculations, arts where every gesture had to be perfect, and then those unexpected courses—human biology and sex education—that still plunged him into embarrassment he couldn't control. He had worked tirelessly to get here, but this final test seemed intent on challenging not only his knowledge but his very will to survive.
The school's corridors buzzed with palpable tension as he joined the other students in the great examination hall. The dark wooden benches were lined up like rows of soldiers, each place marked by a name and an uncertain destiny. Sven and Dorian were there, their faces drawn with fatigue but their eyes burning with fierce determination. éléonore, farther away, adjusted her glasses with mechanical precision, a barrier against the anxiety floating in the air.
The exams began under the shrill ring of a bell, a sound that echoed in his chest like a death knell. The first day was a dive into imperial history, pages upon pages of questions about dynasties, wars, and alliances that had shaped the Empire. Each word seemed to dance before his eyes, the dates tangling in his mind like ropes twisted by the wind. He scribbled his answers with contained frenzy, his pen scratching the parchment in a grating sound that set his nerves on edge. No sooner had one exam ended than another took its place—navigation this time, with maps to decipher under flickering light, calculations to solve as his fingers trembled with fatigue. The hours stretched on, endless, a marathon where each step felt heavier than the last.
The two weeks became a trial as much physical as mental, an assault on his body and mind. Each morning, Mero woke before dawn, his eyelids heavy as lead, his back hunched from nights too short. He swallowed a bowl of lukewarm porridge without really tasting it, his stomach knotted with anxiety, then dragged himself to the examination hall, his steps echoing in the still-dark corridors. The subjects followed one another relentlessly: one day it was the Oriental language, its complex characters that he struggled to trace accurately; the next, human biology, where he still blushed under the professor's detailed explanations, his childhood ignorance catching up with him at every word. Even extracurricular courses, like dance—an art he had learned to appreciate with Mandarine—became torture, his movements clumsy under the stern gaze of the examiners.
Revisions were an endless battle. In a group with Sven, Dorian, and éléonore, he spent hours in the library, surrounded by piles of books and yellowed parchments, the scent of ink and old paper filling his nostrils. Conversations were rare, broken only by tired murmurs or sighs of exhaustion. "Do you think they'll really ask us about the currents of the Thethian Ocean?" Dorian grumbled one evening, rubbing his reddened eyes. "They ask everything," Sven replied, his voice hoarse with fatigue, before diving back into his notes. Mero nodded, too tired to speak, his mind circling around formulas and facts he feared he would forget.
Sometimes, he isolated himself in his room, alone with his books, the light of a flickering candle casting dancing shadows on the walls. These moments became a struggle against himself—his eyelids grew heavy, his body screamed for rest he couldn't afford. He pinched the skin on his arm to stay awake, his breath short, the words blurring before his eyes until he had to reread a sentence ten times to grasp its meaning. The nights were short, haunted by confused dreams where marine maps faded under his fingers and examiners' voices reprimanded him endlessly. He woke with a start, his heart pounding, to discover he had slept only an hour or two before dawn called him back to his task.
The exams followed one another in a merciless whirlwind, timed with cruel precision. Each examination hall was a battlefield, the air charged with almost palpable tension. Proctors paced the rows, their heavy steps echoing like a funeral drum, their gazes scrutinizing each student as if to detect a weakness. The questions were tough, sometimes brutal—essays demanding a depth he wasn't sure he possessed, calculations requiring a clarity he struggled to maintain. He felt the furtive glances of his classmates, some confident, others on the verge of collapse, and this silent competition added pressure he hadn't anticipated.
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The pace was infernal, and Mero felt pushed to his limits, a castaway fighting against raging waves. Days blurred into a haze of exhaustion, his body crying out with every movement, his mind wavering under the weight of knowledge he had to summon. Sex education, with its frank explanations and truths he was still discovering, put him in a delicate position—he wanted to close this chapter, erase the embarrassment that had pursued him since his first lessons, but the questions forced him to delve deeper, to confront what he had avoided. The arts, which he had once enjoyed, became a torment—his fingers trembled on the pen, his sketches lacking the grace he knew he possessed.
The pressure mounted, an invisible vise squeezing his chest. There were moments when he felt lost, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what was demanded of him. During a navigation exam, a complex map sprawled before him, its lines blurry under his tired eyes. He miscalculated a current, corrected, recalculated, each error a blow to his confidence. "Focus," he murmured to himself, teeth clenched, but the chaos in his head threatened to make him capsize. He handed in his paper with a trembling sigh, convinced he had failed, that everything he had learned was crumbling under fatigue.
Yet, he did not give up. Even in the worst moments, a flickering flame still burned within him—a mix of duty, pride, and the promise he had made to himself not to fail. He drew on this determination, forcing himself to move forward, to dig deeper into his reserves. Group revisions with Sven and Dorian became anchors—their voices, their tired jokes, their complicit silences brought him back to the surface when he was sinking. "We're almost there," Dorian said one evening, his eyes reddened but his smile intact. "Almost," Sven echoed, and Mero nodded, clinging to that faint hope.
As the days passed, a sense of liberation grew despite the exhaustion. Each completed exam was a battle won, each answered question a step toward the end. The final exams approached, and he felt his body giving way—his hands trembled on the pen, his shoulders slumped under an invisible weight—but his mind refused to yield. He had only one obsession: finish, succeed, and finally release the pressure that threatened to suffocate him.
The last day arrived like an uncertain dawn, the sky streaked with pink as he entered the hall for the final test—an essay on imperial politics, a synthesis of everything he had learned. The hours ticked away in oppressive silence, his pen scratching the parchment with desperate urgency. He wrote until his fingers were numb, until the proctor announced the end in a dry murmur: "Time's up." The hall emptied slowly, a stream of exhausted students dragging their feet toward the exit, leaving behind a silence that contrasted with the tumult of the previous days.
Mero remained motionless for a moment, his eyes fixed on his paper, a mix of fatigue and satisfaction washing over him like a gentle wave. He had survived. He didn't yet know if he had shone or simply held on, but he had given it his all. He stood up, his legs unsteady, and left the hall, the cool air of the corridor hitting his face like a blessing.
He returned to his apartment exhausted, a specter with hunched shoulders and dark circles under his eyes. The door closed behind him with a dull thud, and he staggered to his bed, unable to take another step. The mattress seemed to call him, a promise of comfort after days of struggle. He collapsed onto it without even removing his clothes, his tunic wrinkled and his boots still on, too tired to care about propriety. The silence of the room enveloped him, an almost unreal calm after the chaos of the past weeks.
His muscles screamed with fatigue, every fiber of his body protesting against the effort he had imposed on it. The last days, the nights too short, the adrenaline of the exams—all of it still weighed on him, a storm that was fading but left waves in its wake. His mind was a troubled but calmed sea, concepts and questions still dancing in a distant blur. The uncertainty of the results hung in the air, a haze he didn't have the strength to dispel, but for now, it didn't matter.
His eyes closed almost against his will, the world fading into a gentle darkness. Thoughts drifted by, slow and confused—marine maps, formulas, Mandarine's face—before dissolving into a deep, restorative sleep that carried him far from the exams, far from everything. He didn't need to dream to know he had given it his all. It was a moment of pause, an instant where he could simply exist, freed from the weight of the trials.
When he woke up, a soft light filtered through the curtains, bathing the room in a muted glow. He blinked, disoriented, and felt under his fingers the softness of pajamas he didn't remember putting on. A wave of confusion washed over him, followed by a burning blush that rose to his cheeks. Someone had changed him while he slept—a servant, no doubt, or perhaps Leila—and this thought struck him like a brutal intrusion into his intimacy.
He sat up abruptly, his heart pounding, his adolescent body suddenly too big, too awkward for himself. At fourteen, he was still in full transition, his limbs lengthening, his voice deepening, each change a reminder that he was no longer the child he had been. He didn't have acne, not like the imperial princess who hid hers under layers of makeup, but this luck wasn't enough to erase the discomfort that gripped him. Being seen like this, vulnerable, asleep, exposed—it rekindled a shyness he thought he had overcome. Who had undressed him? Who had touched his exhausted body to slip him into these clothes? Shame overwhelmed him, an intimate drama he couldn't share.
He ran a hand over his face, trying to chase away this sensation, but it lingered, tenacious, an echo of the upheavals he had been experiencing for months. The exams were over, but this strange awakening marked another turning point—a brutal realization of his own fragility, of his changing body that didn't ask for his opinion. He sighed, the red slowly fading from his cheeks, and murmured to himself, "At least, it's over." The bed was still there, comforting despite everything, and he lay back down for a moment, letting peace return gently, a refuge in the storm of his adolescence.
