Seyun planted his straw sandals squarely on the worn blue flat stone slab in the center of the pit. Directly behind his neck—so close that he could feel the faint radiated coolness of the ancient grey stone inside the brass bars—hung Master Uren’s tablet on its ten-foot iron chain. Three paces in front of his chest stood Daro Kesh.
Across the four packed galleries of the Old Wrestling Lodge, four hundred voices died away into a silence so complete that the gurgle of the canal beyond the stave-yards and the dry flutter of a pigeon’s wing under the eastern roof edges sounded loud in the pit. In the eastern box, Examiner Vael leaned forward with his ivory tablet braced against the rail. On the western stairs, Mina rested one hand on the latch of her medical satchel, her eyes fixed on the rise and fall of her brother’s ribs.
Beside Mina at the western rail, Ilyra stood with both hands resting on the upper band of her ash spear. She didn’t call out advice or shout a warning as Torin had done. She simply met Seyun’s outer gaze once and gave a barely perceptible nod. Acknowledging that as a spearwoman of the Hall, she understood why a fighter couldn’t step back from the center line when his foundation was called by name.
