He found the arena by habit — following echoes of noise and the grit of old combat into the place where he and Bram had once clashed.
Without the pressure of a public fight, the coliseum surrendered its secrets. Dust still hung in the air, a fine gray film that smelled faintly of sweat and old iron, but the whirl during a real duel had passed; the place felt patient, waiting.
The scale of it hit him properly for the first time. The duel ring was enormous — as wide as a football pitch, a raw circle of packed earth scarred with the arcs of a thousand blades.
On the north end the stands rose high, rows of stone benches stepping up like a sleeping amphitheater.
Near the gate where he'd entered there was a training precinct: a rectangular dojo space, boxed off and laid with a thick carpet meant to soak blows and keep feet from skidding. The carpet was a disciplined thing — heavy woven fibers dyed a deep, muted red at the center and hemmed with gold thread.
