Sunday Afternoon. The Great Hall. Post-War Games Banquet.
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They didn’t want to be here. Not in suits. Not with silverware. Not under this choking ceiling of old pride and polished lies. But duty wore a tux. And tonight? So did they. The Great Hall of the Bloodclaw compound shimmered with candlelight and low magic. Long tables overflowed with roasted meat, bloodwine, spiced roots and wild fruits stacked in carved obsidian bowls. Elders lounged like smug lions across the banquet tiers, their laughter too loud, their stories sharpened with secondhand glory. And at the front, under banners of claw and flame, sat the Thorne family… whole, grim, radiant. Victor’s tie was already loose. Dorian hadn’t buttoned his shirt right. And both of them looked like they’d rather be back in the pit bleedi
