The Grand Arena of Caldmore Academy had stood for three hundred years. Pale stone walls rose sixty feet high. Banners from every noble house hung from iron spires. Inside, eighty thousand seats spiraled upward toward the sky. Students filled the lower tiers. The public galleries sat above them. Private boxes crowned the top.
Vendors walked the aisles selling bread and meat and herbs. Bookmakers shouted odds from wooden booths. The air smelled like cooking food and sweat and the sharp ozone tang of barrier magic.
Four crystal display boards hung from the ceiling. Four raised platforms waited on the arena floor. Barrier mages stood at every corner. Healers waited in the wings. Judges sat at elevated tables with quills and ledgers.
Dorian Hale's voice rolled across the arena. Deep and warm. The voice of a man who'd called tournaments for twenty years and still loved every minute.
