The run continued through the desert.
Seven hours stretched into nine, then twelve, then fifteen. By his estimate, it should've been around eleven at night, yet the sun still blazed overhead. Either it grew hotter the longer they remained beneath it, or they had simply been under it for far too long.
Skin had burned and peeled. Lips were so dry they had turned cracked and white. Exhaustion had slowed their pace to a crawl, the cadets looking as though they could collapse at any moment.
Their eyes had grown hollow, fierce, and desperate. Even worse, the tree line to the north had become clearer and seemed even closer, whereas the west remained nothing but an endless stretch of desert.
Zephyrion could tell from the desperate looks on the cadets' faces that they wanted nothing more than to head north. They were on the verge of breaking.
He knew it.
When that happened, he would completely lose the trust he'd managed to build with them.
