Five exchanges were enough for a crowd to invent a story and for a villain to ruin it.
Dusk made the practice court look honest.
Daylight flattered Astral Zenith. It turned white stone into glory, gold trim into destiny, and blood into something distant enough to romanticize. Dusk was less polite. Shadows gathered under balconies. Ranking sigils burned colder. Faces in the audience became harder to separate from hunger.
Marcell Rovain arrived wearing silver-blue dueling gloves.
Artifact stitching along the knuckles.
Illegal under the revised terms.
He wanted me to notice.
More importantly, he wanted me to accuse him.
I stood at the opposite end of the court with my right palm wrapped beneath a new black glove, left shoulder stiff from yesterday's fall, and enough fatigue in my bones to make breathing feel like paperwork.
