Night settled over the Imperial Capital with the particular silence that follows spectacle — the city exhaling after holding its breath all day, the crowds dispersing through lamplit streets, the noise of the arena replaced by the quieter sounds of a world remembering how to be ordinary.
The first day of the National Championship Finals was over.
The organizers had suspended the match at sundown. The arena floor required repairs — stone cracked and scorched in patterns that would take the maintenance crews until morning to address. The Imperial Elders had issued the suspension with the measured efficiency of people managing a logistical problem.
