The flames around the trial circle had not dimmed since Corvin’s defeat. If anything, they burned higher, restless, as though the gods themselves demanded more blood before they would let the night end.

Draven stood in the center, chest heaving, blood still dripping from the gash across his shoulder. He had not cleaned it. He hadn’t needed to. He wanted them to see it—that even bloodied, even pressed to the edge, he had not fallen.

But in the silence that followed, something ...