It was already getting dark.
Not suddenly—gradually, the way afternoon light died in open arenas, the sky above the open roof shifting from the bright flat blue of midday into something deeper and more amber, the shadows across the arena floor lengthening and softening simultaneously. The sun had moved past the angle where it poured directly into the space and now lit the upper tiers from the side, the lower sections already in the particular half-light that came before full evening.
The crowd had noticed.
Not all at once—individually, in the way people noticed things that changed slowly, one person looking up and then the person beside them looking up and then a whole section adjusting to the awareness that the day had been long and the light was going and the tournament had taken more of the afternoon than anyone had planned for.
Six fights.
