The iron gong at the far end of the dormitory did not just wake them; it shattered the thin, fragile silence of the hall.
Devvyn sat up before the second strike. He had not slept at all. His head pounded with a dull, heavy ache behind his eyes and his mouth tasted weird.
All around the long hall, the surviving candidates moved like ghosts. There were no loud voices this morning, no cocky boasting or nervous jokes.
People washed their faces in stone basins with trembling hands and pulled on their gear in grim silence. One boy sat on the edge of his cot, staring down at his bandaged forearm, his breathing fast and shallow until an overseer barked at him to stand.