As the cries continued in the stands, as the nobles stirred, protested, fumed—some even rising to their feet—disorder slowly reached the upper tiers of the arena. The echo of their fury swirled in the air like a blade of wind, shaking certainties, threatening, for a moment, to break the ritual structure of the tournament.
But me… I looked at only one person.
My gaze was fixed. Entirely. Absolutely.
Anarael.
The First.
The one whose mere presence was enough to suspend laws, to silence oaths.
I stared at her, unable to look away, and in the silence I forced within myself despite the surrounding storm, only one question pulsed—mute, intense: what would she do?
She alone could choose.
She alone had that right.
And then, in this tumult beginning to unravel under her shadow, she rose.
Not abruptly.
But like a wave that rises slowly, inevitably, with no need for thunder.
She stood… and she looked at me.
Straight in the eyes.
And my body… yielded.
