The barrier begins to rise again.
The blue glow of the pillars runs along the sides of the arena and meets the ceiling in runic lines. The suspended screen still shows the Leader Match, the names split into two teams. The bleachers, which minutes ago seemed to be chewing over Mira's elimination and Veric's collapse, have changed tone. It isn't training noise anymore. It's expectation. Silence mixed with small whispers.
Freya is already inside the field.
The ice under her feet stays controlled, a shallow layer of crystals that doesn't spread past her body. She doesn't look at the crowd or the others. She looks straight at me.
I take a step to cross the arena line.
The building's main doors open.
The sound in the hall doesn't die at once. It loses strength little by little, as if each row of the bleachers understood at a different moment that someone with authority had arrived.
