Mother Renn reached up to the brass stopcock of the glass water-dripper to prime the first red drop. Seyun had begun to take a half-step back toward the western side of the center circle—where the flat stone slabs had a firmer grain under his sandals and the slanted shadow of the boat-shed roof was just creeping over the gallery rail—when Daro Kesh raised his heavy iron blade an inch and tapped the rounded steel tip once against the polished center flat stone slab directly beneath the hanging brass cage.
The sharp clink of iron on stone cut through the hush of the tiered arena.
“Wait on the stopcock, Mother Renn,” Daro said. His calm voice carried to the top tier of the benches.
Mother Renn kept her thumb on the brass valve and looked into the pit. Up in the western gallery, Veteran Guard Torin frowned and leaned over the rail, while Ilyra’s hand tightened on her spear shaft.
Daro didn’t look at the galleries. He kept his dark eyes fixed on Seyun across the center of the yard. Above and between them, Master Uren’s grey stone tablet hung motionless inside the ball-shaped brass cage at the end of its ten-foot iron chain, six feet off the floor.
