Far below the emperor's box, behind the rusted bars and blood-washed floors of the underground cells, Aelric and Valkira stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes fixed on the slit in the gate that peered into the arena.
On one side of the colosseum, the sun carved light across three figures.
Caelvir stood centered, one hand gripping the black-forged hilt of the Sword of Seren. On either side of him were two one-armed men: one missing his right arm, the other his left. Both held short daggers in their remaining hands. Their bodies trembled. Their knees didn't lock. But they stood.
Valkira's gaze, once venomous and unrelenting toward Caelvir, now bore something else. Not affection—no, not yet—but respect. Earned, not given. One drop of blood at a time, he had slain Garrik, Hask, and the rest of Brusk's pack. Not cleanly. Not quickly. But with purpose.
Aelric, by contrast, never changed. His gaze was soft, quiet, but firm. Aelric did not look at Caelvir as one looks at a beast let loose in a pit. He looked at him like a man watching the course of a river—inevitable, destructive, and necessary. Beneath his calm was something deeper: duty. A duty passed not from another but from within.
Behind them, a half-circle of one-armed thieves and broken men stood watching the crack in the wall, where sunlight framed the stage of slaughter. Most were new. Raw. Terrified. Confused.
One spoke, voice small. "There's no way that guy can beat that monster…"
Another added, "Even if we had both arms, we'd be lucky to live through a fight with Brusk."
A third man's voice wavered, "Why don't we escape? Maybe… with Lady Valkira's help, we—"
"You'd best throw that thought into the pit," Valkira snapped, voice sharp, cold. "Escape is a fantasy. Not an option."
"But they're new," Aelric murmured beside her. "They don't know the rules."
He stepped forward, slowly. "Thou shall head the call."
The thieves blinked.
"Thou shall fight for the call."
He turned and pointed upward, toward the colosseum's upper ring. "And thou shall kill by the call."
A pause, then a whisper from a man missing both arms. "And if we don't?"
Aelric's finger guided their gaze to a section of the arena wall, where guards stood clad in blacksteel armor, chests emblazoned with the sigil of twisted thorns strangling a rose, and a broken blade through its heart.
"They will vaporize you," he said calmly. "Lightning is not myth. It is their language."
"They are few," Valkira said. "But they can kill the best of us with a single strike."
"And even if you escape," Aelric continued, "You are still property. And the colosseum watches its property closely."
"We are nothing but entertainment to them," Valkira said, her voice bitter as she looked up toward the emperor's box. "Our lives mean less than the sand we bleed on."
A desperate man whispered, "Then what do we do?"
"Train," Valkira said. "Grow stronger. Use the arm you have as if it's all that matters. Because it is."
The horn sounded.
The fight had begun.
Dust swirled beneath Caelvir's feet as he stepped forward, eyes locked on the beast across from him.
Brusk stood on the other end. A mountain of muscle. Towering. Veins like cables across his arms and neck. His axe was not a weapon—it was an executioner's tool. Iron, heavy, stained by more than blood. His face bore a grin, teeth broken, lips curled with anticipation.
They charged.
The two one-armed men wisely remained behind, forming no strategy, offering no help. They stood still, shoulders tight, like lambs watching wolves.
Caelvir moved like wind over water.
Brusk came down like a hammer through stone.
The first clash never landed—Caelvir slipped just beneath the swing, his back arching, feet gliding across the sand. Brusk's axe crashed where Caelvir had stood a heartbeat ago, sending a burst of dust and shattered gravel into the air.
Caelvir rotated behind Brusk, swinging once—not to strike, but to measure. Brusk turned, faster than expected, and blocked the feint with the flat of his axe.
"Fast," Brusk said, voice like gravel and smoke. "But not fast enough."
He came again—this time with a spinning chop that threatened to slice the world in half. Caelvir ducked low, rolling under the blow, coming up with a sharp, upward stab aimed for Brusk's ribs.
Clang.
The axe caught the sword's flat edge, shoving it aside. Brusk growled, following with a punch—not from the arm, but the shoulder itself, ramming like a boulder into Caelvir's chest.
Caelvir staggered. Breath left him. But he didn't fall.
He slipped left, his sword dancing back into guard position.
The crowd screamed. Cheers. Shouts. Madness.
They saw a beast and a blade, clashing again and again.
Brusk's strength was overwhelming—his swings made the air scream. Each attack, if landed, could cleave a man in half.
But Caelvir was water.
He ducked, twisted, weaved through the axe's arc.
Once, twice, three times, he slid past death.
He struck when he could—not to kill, but to probe.
A quick slash at the arm. A flick at the thigh. Brusk grunted, blocked each one with the flat of the axe or thick muscle, but his grin had vanished.
He was beginning to feel it—the annoyance of a mosquito that refused to be swatted.
Caelvir moved like no man Brusk had fought. He didn't rush. He didn't panic. He circled like a wolf, always within reach, yet always just out of it.
For every two steps Brusk took, Caelvir took one—and yet stayed ahead.
Their blades met twice more. Sparks flew. Sand rose like smoke.
Then, they broke apart.
Both panting.
Brusk's muscles twitched. Rage building.
Caelvir's stance held. Sword low. Breath even.
Still no blood. No death. Just pressure. The kind that could crack bone. Break minds.
And still the armless men in the underground watched in silence.
"Maybe…" someone whispered, "Maybe he has a chance."
But Aelric said nothing.
He just watched.
Watched the dance of sword and axe.
The dance of death held back by a breath.
And far above, Venara watched too.
But that was a different story.