"Congratulations on winning my little contest, Heavenly Commoner."
They were now in a building that served as an administrative office within the stadium complex… a private room with wooden furniture, official documents stacked neatly on shelves and the smell of ink and paper in the air.
Currently behind Klaus stood the three girls who'd accompanied him to the tournament, all still wearing their cat masks to maintain anonymity.
Mirela's goat ears twitched occasionally beneath her hood, Taula's blond hair was tied back and Serra stood quietly.
Klaus could still hear the ringing in his ears.
After he'd won the entire Tournament of Swords… after that final moment when Zephyr had stepped out of bounds and the referee had declared victory, the crowd's cheering had been so impossibly loud that the sound still echoed in his skull like he had been hit in the head.
The roar of hundreds of voices, all screaming at once, celebrating or mourning their bets, had been genuinely deafening.
