Dawn broke over the Imperial Academy in shades of pale gold, and by the time the first rays cleared the garden canopy, Ren was already dressed, already fed, already standing at the edge of a crowd so massive it made the side block's stadium look like a broom closet.
The amphitheater stretched in a vast bowl carved into the landscape itself, tiered seating rippling outward in concentric rings that seemed to fold slightly at the edges, as though the space were somehow larger on the inside than its footprint suggested.
Ren's analytical mind tried, briefly, to calculate the geometry involved, then gave up and simply accepted it as one more thing this place did that shouldn't have been physically possible.
