The Knight stood in the registration line before dawn and heard the marshals arguing about pulling Creusus from the bracket. A squire had vanished after one punch, armor and all, and now three men in gray sashes wanted the unarmed fighter struck from the sheets before the morning horn. The Knight had trained for this bout longer than he could name. He would not say why. He would not say where he had come from, or what he had done to earn the scars under his gambeson. He only knew that if the marshals crossed Creusus's name out of the ledger, every year of that training died on the desk in front of him. He walked past the line and put his hand flat on the registration book. Brogan Ironquill looked up from his stack of forty-three forms, red-eyed and sour. "Back of the line." The Knight drew his sword and set it across the ledger, point toward the marshals, hilt toward Brogan. He did not speak. Brogan looked at the blade, then at the Knight's face, then at the three marshals halfway down the arena tunnel. "You want the slot against Creusus." The Knight nodded once. Brogan scratched his jaw. "Fighter vanished. Rules say I can pull him. Charter says I don't have to." He looked at the sword again. "You sponsored?" The Knight laid a sealed paper beside the blade. Brogan read it, grunted, and dipped his quill. "Bout at second horn. Center field. You die, I log it clean." The marshals came up the tunnel as the Knight walked out into the sand of the arena. He heard Brogan behind him, blunt as a hammer: booked, sealed, paid. Three words, three stamps. The gray sashes stopped at the desk and did not pass it. The Knight found his mark at the center of the field and stood with his sword low. Somewhere in the tiers a horn was being oiled for the morning call. He thought of a burned door, a name he had buried, a promise he had made to himself on a road he would never describe to anyone. Then he set his feet. Creusus would come through the far gate at second horn, and no marshal would stop it now.