Chaos soon ensued as a gust of wind swept across the beach.

Cyrus Archer and Sybil Westley snickered even more. They were clearly allied together for this exam. It made sense: the two children of the most privileged and powerful families in Zestiris teaming up to crush the other students. It was the exact kind of thing they would do. Max shouldn’t have been surprised.

They did not care about working together with everyone else though. They wanted to pass the exam and see everyone else fail.

Sybil twisted her hands—obviously manipulating the wind.

“Ahh!”

A bunch of students cried as their candle flames fluttered and then sizzled out from the gust of wind.

The candle flames went out like falling dominoes, getting closer and closer to Max and Casey.

Casey quickly stretched her arm backwards and shouted, “Max—take my candle and get back!”

Max grabbed her candle and moved backwards as quickly as he thought was possible without disturbing the sensitive candle flames.

This was bad.

Sybil Westley was a talented airbringer and she’d just knocked out forty percent of the class with that gust of wind she just shot out.

Casey raised her hands and pushed the wind back, stopping the air in its tracks.

Sybil and Cyrus scowled at her from the other end of the beach.

Sybil readied another gust.

“Max!” shouted Casey. “It’s time to run! Stick to the original plan!”

They rushed across the beach as the skirmish amongst the students continued as a waterbringer attempted to retaliate against Sybil by creating a huge rising tide of ocean onto the beach.

“Go go go!” said Casey as Max hurried through the island jungle. “Stick to the plan! Head to the summit!”

Max rushed and kept an eye on the candles.

He kept thinking the same thing over and over. That was an unbelievably stupid move on Sybil and Cyrus’ part. Sure, they’d knocked out a whole group of the competition, making future exams easier. The only problem was they’d just made this current exam ten times harder. They’d created more antagonists on the island than there were before. Just under half the class would now be hunting students with lit candles. They hadn’t solved anything by what they did, but their actions had now actively made the test more difficult.

The screams of fighting students diminished the further they ran off, but there was always a hint of something coming from behind them that made them not want to stop running.

It was good they had a destination in mind. Their forethought and planning might be the only thing that saves them from failing this exam.

Hopefully.

60

Max and Casey ran for fifteen minutes without stopping.

Max still held both candles in his hands, diligently holding them steady in his arms and protecting them as to not disturb the candle flames.