The roar of the crowd crashed through the arena like thunder, but to Julian Cardill it was no celebration—it was the shattering of his pride. On his knees in the dirt, chest heaving, he pressed a trembling hand against his heart as though to hold the fragments together. His eyes, bloodshot with fury, locked on the man towering above him.
Helio Bandor.
The name burned in his mind like a curse. The man he had branded a cheater. The man he cast into oblivion for twenty-five long years. The man who had just bested him—not through trickery or deceit, but cleanly, indisputably, in the sight of royals, nobles, and thousands of onlookers.
"Impossible," Julian rasped, his voice hoarse with disbelief. "Even now… you mock me."
Helio—Jethru Mendel—stepped closer, his shadow falling like a blade across his rival. His voice, calm and steady, carried a weight sharper than steel.
