"Enough."
Arion's voice hit the room like a blade dragged clean across stone.
Everything stopped.
Nero's next step died half-formed. The heat in the ring collapsed inward with a violent hiss, fire along the boundary strips guttering down into ugly embers. Dean, one hand still half-lifted, froze with blood bright over his mouth and chin, chest rising and falling hard enough to make the torn fabric over his ribs pull.
For one beat, no one moved.
Then Arion was in the ring.
He did not remember crossing the distance.
One second he was at the observation barrier; the next he was stepping over the ruined floor with the kind of speed that made even trained adults in rooms like these remember exactly why he had once been a student they survived rather than controlled.
He stopped in front of Dean first.
His hand came up without warning, fingers grabbing Dean's jaw and turning his face slightly toward the light.
