The tent did not empty immediately after Lord Edric's announcement. Instead, whispers filled the air, spreading like fire across dry grass.
"Noel Thorne… first place?" one matriarch murmured, her jeweled fan snapping shut. "Impossible. He was disqualified in the last Hunt. Dead last."
Another lord leaned forward, brows furrowed. "Not just disqualified. He barely kept up last time. To climb from that to this—something doesn't add up."
At the edge of the gathering, Mirelle's voice cut sharp. "I said it before, and I'll say it again—this cannot be natural. Twenty-four hours without rest? No boy his age has that kind of endurance."
Serina echoed her, arms crossed tight. "It's a farce. A staged spectacle."
But their words fell flat against the silence of the rest. Everyone in the tent had seen the same thing—the endless streams from the drones circling above the mountains. Noel fighting through wave after wave, never yielding, never stopping.
