The bells rang noon.
Eloy heard them from inside the Sanctum's entrance hall, three stone walls and a vaulted ceiling between him and the tower. The sound came through anyway. Low. Bronze. A single toll that hung in the air longer than it should have, the way sound behaves in spaces built to contain things larger than sound.
Kael closed the ledger. The red ribbon marked the clause that bound the duel into law. "Your answer."
Maya stood at the shelf with the captured satchel. Her fingers hadn't moved from the clasp in twenty minutes. The documents inside were her only leverage now and she was treating them accordingly. Isolde had taken the chair Kael offered her three hours ago and hadn't moved since. Her posture was the same one she used during lightning calibration. Stillness that wasn't rest.
"I accept."
