The year had limped to a close with more graves than graduations. Mythos Academy—once the fortress of the elite and the ambitious—had taken a blow that shook its foundations to the core. The third-year exchange program to Starcrest Academy in the East had been meant to broaden horizons, forge connections between institutions, and give promising students a taste of different educational philosophies.
Instead, it had become a graveyard.
When the war erupted across the Eastern continent, the exchange students found themselves caught in the crossfire. Some had been killed outright in the initial attacks. Others had died fighting alongside local defenders, their bodies never recovered from battlefields that had been scorched by magic and steel. A few professors who had accompanied the program had perished trying to protect their charges.
