By the end of the fourth day, only a handful of students were still alive.
Not literally, of course, though at this point, some of them probably wished they were dead.
The first-year section of the Academy had gone silent, and no, not the peaceful kind of silent, but the "everyone is too deep in their own personal Hell" kind of silent.
Faces were pale, eyes were bloodshot, and heads drooped.
Every conversation had been reduced to a mumble, a grunt, or a dead, exhausted wave.
By the fifth night, the ones still going after the crown weren't even "awake" anymore. They were surviving on quick naps and that shaky, delusional courage unique to people who had not slept for more than seventy hours.
Sure, Runebearers were supposed to need less sleep, but against this assignment?
Their brains were frying like eggs on a hot stone.
Aurelia and Merlin were the worst among them.
They weren't even trying to hide it anymore, life completely sucked out of them.
