The silence didn't just break, it shattered.
"What?!" someone gasped from the third row.
"No way!" a girl closer to the back clutched her desk like it was her last lifeline. "Did he say… Prince Carl? Riverum's Prince Carl?"
"As in, the Crowned Prince of Riverum?!" a boy on the far left whispered loudly, eyes wide. "I thought he was just a med student like the rest of us—"
"How ignorant of you!" another snapped, rolling her eyes. "He's the best surgeon on the continent. Possibly beyond. Have you been living under a rock?!"
"He set the questions?" a pale boy muttered, visibly trembling. "That's not just authority, that's power."
"We're doomed." one guy groaned, slumping over his desk. "That guy's a genius, but I heard he's evil when it comes to papers."
"I heard he once wrote a physiology exam that made even the tutors cry," another added in a near whisper, like a ghost story.
"Why didn't anyone warn us?!"
