"The best actors never take a bow."
***
Blackthorne's gaze found Rhys Blackwood in the third row.
The commoner's weathered hands gripped his father's spear like an anchor. His green eyes held something Blackthorne rarely saw in these soft academy halls. The hard glint of someone who'd killed to survive. The scar along his jaw. The calluses visible even from this distance. The way he sat coiled rather than relaxed.
All of it spoke of a life lived on the edge of violence.
That one knows what steel tastes like. Shame he's wasting it here.
The crowd's murmur shifted as Vance Thorne emerged from the northern tunnel.
House Aurum's heir strutted across the sand in polished leather armor that probably cost more than most families saw in a year. The straps gleamed with brass buckles. The leather itself was dyed a deep blue that caught the light like calm water. His practice sword caught the morning sun. Bright and eager.
