They found a quiet corner of the terrace before the match, away from the crowd already gathering along the Aurelian ring's edge.
"We could ask for a delay," Almond said. "Give the crowd someone else to watch first."
"We could," Lily agreed. "But that just moves the problem an hour down the road. It doesn't solve it."
Almond was quiet for a moment. "Then we fight it honestly. Full effort. No holding back to spare the other's feelings."
"Anything less would be an insult," Lily said. "To both of us."
He almost smiled at that. "When did you get wiser than me."
"I've always been wiser than you," Lily said. "You've just been too busy reading everything else to notice."
---
The ring called them a few minutes later, and the crowd's noise settled into an expectant hush the moment both names lit the board together.
Rudra and Ainen watched from the terrace rail, and neither of them said much, because there wasn't much worth saying that the fight wouldn't answer better.
