A cold mountain wind whipped across the flagstones of Cloud Mist Peak, carrying the scent of damp pine needles and the faint metallic tang of unworked iron.
Caleb Conway kicked off his traveling boots inside the wooden pavilion, tossing his gray coat onto a low bench before stepping out into the rear courtyard where the spiritual spring bubbled steadily against its pale granite basin. He had dismantled Boro in the arena with a blunt sword hilt and a ruptured nerve cluster, yet winning against a common brute in the opening melee proved nothing about his prospects in the higher brackets. The fighters advancing to the second round were core scions from prominent imperial lineages, men and women who had spent their childhoods drilling complex martial sequences under grandmasters, possessing p
