But it had.
And standing here — whole, untouched — felt more wrong than dying ever had.
The arena stretched out around him, a vast, brutal circle of sand and stone. The floor, closer now under the harsh light, revealed patches of glass-paneled stone between the compacted gravel, dark seams snaking through the surface like veins beneath the skin of a dead thing.
Torches lined the perimeter, their flames hissing and flickering under the unseen currents of the dead air. Each one cast a jagged pillar of shadow stretching inward, long enough to cross the distance between Elias and the first line of silent figures watching him.
Nearly a hundred.
Raised platforms ringed the arena, stacked in uneven layers like the stands of some ancient, broken coliseum. Figures stood atop them — motionless, statuesque — their faces blurred by distance but their presence cutting clean and sharp into the stagnant air.
