Chapter 177: Curtain Calls
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.
Some leaned forward slightly, hands tucked behind their backs like soldiers awaiting judgment. Others stood rigid, arms folded, silhouettes unreadable against the flat gray sky.
None of them spoke.
None of them moved.
Their silence gnawed at the edges of the world, a collective breath sucked in and never released.
Elias shifted his stance instinctively, boots grinding against the sand, but the sound seemed to vanish before it even left his body. The vast arena swallowed every small motion, every tiny noise, as if punishing him for breaking the illusion of stillness.