Adyr, the Practitioners, and the spectators fixed their attention on the scales, eager to see whether the arms would sink farther than they had for Brakhtar before he revealed his bloodline talent, imaginations pulled taut as bowstrings while the arena's heat gathered under the high vault and the carved stone planet on the far pan glimmered with a faint, mineral sheen.
Moments passed, and faces changed, interest turning to unease as the stillness refused to break and the breath that people held without noticing began to burn in their chests.
"What's going on?"
The arms did not shift a finger's width, steel pivots untroubled, and murmurs rose about a fault in the device, the sound like cloth rubbed together in a thousand restless hands.
The conclusion came quickly for many, an easy answer the mind accepts when it wants to be spared the work of doubt.
