The second call came before the room had fully settled from the first.
Ken had barely cleared the doorway when Olmo's voice cut through the residual noise.
"Joan. Riven."
The room shifted again. A different kind of attention this time—not the charged uncertainty that had preceded Ken and Plistus, but something more focused. More informed. They had just watched a fight. They had just seen what it looked like when two people stepped onto that floor and stopped holding anything back. The abstract idea of the tournament had become something with texture and weight, and now the second match was live before anyone had fully processed the first.
Joan was already standing.
