Sansbrook wasn’t quite what she’d thought it’d be. She was too used to the Capital, and the walls of stone that surrounded it, protected it. They seemed to reach to the heavens when standing at their base, and were so thick that a house could be buried within and no one would know.

But the walls here were in sad form, barely above the height of a man. Not to mention they barely surrounded anything, acting more as a divider between the peasants and the merchants than anything else. She couldn’t help but look displeased, though she could tell from the faces of Plebus and her uncle that they would rather avoid the discussion.

The carriage passed through a gate into the walled section of the city, the inside of which was closer to her expectations. Though more bare than the Capital, Sansbrook was still filled with every variety of commodity and entertainment, and looking from her window Lady Uthain was reminded of images of the Red Quarter. A smith, a tailor, street dancers, and stalls of food and trinkets lined each side of the carriage. Sansbrook was a city that made its coin from tourism.

“Who governs Sansbrook, again?” The basic courtesies of being a royal of the Uthain family were ingrained in her, and her hand itched at the thought of the letter she would write. It was paramount, her father had said, that each city be a prepared and wonderful host to those of the royal family, even when unexpected, and that the their leaders should be written to whenever their cities were visited.

“High Artif Ramdel is the provisional governor until the elections. Artif Liard is the favored candidate, currently.”

“Ah, so you’re playing benefactor again, I see.” Nepotism at its finest.

“Don’t put it that way. Liard is ambitious. I won’t say he deserves the position, but he’s worked damn hard for it.”

“Sounds like you’ve taken quite a liking to him, lord Robb,” Plebus interjected. “Should I worry about being replaced?”

“Nonsense, Plebus. I couldn’t replace you even if I wanted to.”

“Oh, is that so,” Plebus replied, his tone lacking any pretense of belief.

“It’s true, dammit.” Plebus didn’t reply, still wholly unconvinced, and Lady Uthain focused her attention to the outside world once again. A man in purple clothes did a cartwheel, moving in circles as a lady in blue jumped atop him. She walked along, the man’s hands and feet meeting her steps as she walked above him, her legs moving so fluidly it was if she was held up by a rope.

“How long before we see the beast?”

“Patience,” her uncle said. “We won’t be able to see it today. Tomorrow, perhaps, but we won’t be able to see it fight for a few more days yet.”

Patience? She had begun to run out of it. The trip had been dull, and excitement existed just outside her grasp. She had become a starving man taunted with food, and Lady Uthain could only take the abuse for so long.

She sighed. It was a flaw of hers, own she was knowledgeable of and took pains to diminish. Removing it altogether seemed impossible, though she tried still. From the window she watched nearly every variety of entertainer or tradesman, as well as many people of various wealth and status. As the carriage rolled up to the colosseum she even made note of a Domicus, though even clothed in a full suit of resplendent armor that shined with the brilliance of the reflected sun, he attention was drawn to the colosseum itself.

The building, though no more than a giant circular structure, was giant indeed. It was monumental, the walls reaching almost as high as the tallest towers of the capital, the buildings breadth going so far in each direction as to seem flat as they approached. Built with a marble and copper, it was a lustrous white that gleamed in the sunlight, the copper having long since faded to a deep green, the metal itself seeming etched into the wall to form a portrait of man and beast in the depths of battle.

“Quite impressive,” Plebus spoke, breaking her trance.

“Indeed. I feel like I shall quite like it here,” she replied, eyes pulled back to the monument.