Ashford Library
The Ashford Keep library was a different world from the main campus library.
No students dozing at desks. No stacks of romance novels or textbooks on economics. Just shelves upon shelves of leather-bound volumes, their spines cracked with age, their pages smelling of dust and secrets. The lighting was dim—deliberately so, to preserve the older texts—and the only sounds were the soft rustle of turning pages and the distant hum of the preservation wards.
Lucian sat at a table near the back, a stack of tournament records in front of him. The Silver Falcons had won the inter-academy championship for three years running. Their tactics were solid, their coordination precise, their individual skills polished. But there were gaps. Patterns. Weaknesses that could be exploited.
