He hadn't done enough. Maybe that's why he's here, stalking up the steps of the Arena as if there's anywhere to go or anything left to be done once he gets there. But on the surface, of course, it's a show of support for the Militia, implicit approval of their power by bearing witness to a demonstration thereof. He doesn't stand with the crowd; he finds a place in the royalty box with the rest of Baedal's rich and powerful, and where so many look viciously eager or just lost, he is one of the few whose cold, pale faces betray almost nothing at all.

Whatever they do, it will be bold and brutal, but the inevitably of it now, the way the air hangs heavy in the Arena, seems almost worse.

(It won't be worse, he knows. Not by a long shot.)