Just about everything hurts. My nose is definitely broken. My entire body is littered with bruises, welts, and cuts. By all accounts, I should be struggling for days after a beating like that. But I’m not going to. After the upset in my qualification match, the prim woman from earlier brought me to some kind of mass sleeping quarters under the arena, after removing the mana suppression cuffs and collar. A dozen beds line either side of the stone walls, and a few other gladiators occupy beds of their own. This includes the Rogue, the man I gently introduced to unconsciousness. There isn’t much else in this room, but there doesn’t need to be. I can feel its effects the moment I walk in. It feels the same as when Sara helps me heal. It’s slow, and my body fights it as it always does, but my wounds are correcting themselves. I’ll have a few new scars, and my nose will probably be a bit crooked for the rest of my life, but I’ll be in fighting shape again shortly.

  This is divine magic, or nexus energy. Whatever they want to call it. I suppose it makes sense, what with a sage running this place. No matter how many people are attacked and enslaved on the road, they can’t actually have multiple fights, all day every day, where half the combatants die and the others are too badly injured to fight the next day. I suppose they must save the executions for either prominent matches or disposable slaves who can’t fight well. The rest of us need to be healed quickly so we can go on to entertain the masses. This is convenient for me, but also sickening. I wonder how many hospitals and clinics have the same radiant effect applied to them, or if healing is more of a convenience to keep entertainment steady.

  As a gash on my face closes, the woman I watched yesterday is escorted to her own bed, two rows away from mine. Bahamut the Demon. Not a terribly different persona from mine, really. A fairly different presentation, though. She towers over me. I also note that, unlike me, she still has her cuffs and collar on. She seems to notice this as well, based on the nasty look she gives me.

  “Moron,” she grunts, shaking her head like I’m a disobedient child. This is all she says before lying back on her bed and closing her eyes.

  “I get that a lot,” I agree. Her jaw tenses before she opens her eyes and turns her head toward me.

  “Do you think this is some kind of game? You’re lucky to be alive. If you don’t have to be here, then get the fuck out of here,” she orders.

  “I do have to be here. Maybe not for the same reason you do, but I have to be here,” I reply.

  “I don’t care what debt you think this will fix. I don’t care what trouble you are in. I don’t even care if you think it’s worth dying for. It’s not worth it. Stay until you are fully healed, then never come back here,” she demands. I tilt my head, eyeing the collar around her neck.

  “How did you end up here?” I ask. She releases a deep, beleaguered sigh before sitting up again and glaring at me. Goddamn she is tall. Pretty too, in a ‘prepared to commit violence’ kind of way. She’s clearly angry at me and I’m a loyal woman but if we met under different circumstances I might blush. These are not those circumstances.

  “Look. Risking your life isn’t the hard part, alright? Obviously that didn’t shake you much anyway. But facing death is easy. Feels like just about everyone does it, these days. Shit, maybe that’s even why you are here. To have the most interesting suicide. But risking your life isn’t admirable, or brave, or difficult. The hard part is winning. You’ve clearly managed that once, or you wouldn’t be here. But eventually, it’s going to mean killing an innocent person. You’re proud of facing down death? Wait until it’s someone else losing their life because of you,” she lectures.

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach, and she has no idea exactly how perfectly she has me pegged. She is absolutely right. I could die a thousand times over. Hell, I’ve even done it once. Twice, actually. But Henry. Yeah, I understand what she means. But I refuse to let the nerve she struck show on my face.

  “If death is easier to face than killing, why haven’t you chosen it yet?” I ask. I watched her decapitate a man yesterday. I actually agree with everything she has said. But this does make it hard to take seriously coming from her. At the same time, I have decapitated more than a few people myself, so I understand the necessity sometimes. But she is speaking like killing innocent people is unavoidable as a gladiator, which means she must have made the choice to do so at some point.

  “There is no choice. Not for me. You can leave any time you want, but I am going back out there every day whether I want to or not. Do you really think they are going to leave sparing people as an option? No. If you let a person live, the sage himself will kill them, he’ll do it in front of you, and he’ll make it so much worse. The choice is how quick their death will be, not if they die. That’s the choice you have in front of you, if someone doesn’t kill you first,” she answers bitterly.

  That . . . is not what I was expecting, but I suppose it should have been. “When you say in front of you, do you mean he comes down, into the arena, and tortures them then and there?” I ask. She nods.

  “You don’t look like you’d have the stomach to face that choice. However you present yourself. And you don’t have to. So get out, now. Before they decide you are too entertaining to remain free,” she says.

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  “You’re right,” I agree. “I don’t. But I still can’t leave.” Her eyes lock on mine as she searches them. Finally, she shakes her head again and lies back down.

  “Fine. I won’t ask more. I won’t push. And if I end up fighting you, I’ll make sure you don’t have to face the sage directly,” she promises.

  “Maybe that’s what I am looking for,” I suggest and she laughs humorlessly.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to meet the sage directly,” she answers, her eyes closed now. I am about to answer, but the woman who brought me here appears in the entrance to the room.

  “Cordelia,” she calls. “Markus, the sage, has requested to meet you.”

  August

  The fight after Lillith is far more violent, in a way. I can barely look at it. I just want to go back to the inn, but my sister wanted to be here. She’s obviously not enjoying the fight any more than I am. I don’t know how everyone else is. I have to close my eyes as the man with the horned helmet drives a knife into his opponent’s shoulder. Based on the screaming, and the cheering, that's not the end of it. I feel like vomiting. But when I open my eyes and look at Autumn, she has her eyes fixed on it.

  “How can you watch this?” I ask.

  She answers without even looking at me. “I have to.” That’s all she says. I don’t understand it.

  “Why? Why do you have to? Autumn, we can just leave. Meet up with the others later. We don’t have to sit through . . . this,” I insist. She doesn’t answer. I give her a moment, but it becomes clear she doesn’t intend to answer. “When is she going to be back, anyway?” I finally ask.

  “It will take a while, I imagine. She’s probably not in any shape to head straight here after that beating,” Autumn replies.

  “I guess that’s true,” I admit. “But . . . Why did she? It was like she wasn’t even fighting back! She just stood there and took it when she could have beat that guy at any moment! Was she trying to act like the fight was harder than it was? Was she distracted? Was it just to get more attention quickly? They hardly seem worth it. That hurt to watch, much less experience.”

  “That’s not why,” Autumn answers, but fails to elaborate.

  “Why then?” I push, but again she doesn’t respond. I dig my nails into my palms in frustration. I miss my sister. I’m worried for her. But she barely talks anymore, and when she does it’s like talking to a corpse. The liveliest she gets is angry, and even that is an improvement. She was clearly upset by Lillith’s fight, but she won’t say anything. She won’t talk to me. She is like the shell of my best friend. Alive, but not living. Why did Lillith want her here? I don’t understand. I want my sister back.

  “Did I hear you right?” A man seated to my left asks. “You know the woman who fought under the demon queen’s name?” I shrug.

  “Does it matter?” I answer with a question of my own.

  “She was amazing! We haven’t seen a new volunteer actually win in a couple of years now, and the way she did it was amazing! The Rogue is a quick one, tough too. Catching him like that, then knocking him out in a single hit? Especially after she proved she could take so many hits from him! That and she pulls the demon queen look off perfectly. Shit, consider me a new fan of your friend. Will you introduce me?” he asks.

  I’m a little taken aback, unable to answer at first. “That’s not why she did it,” Autumn repeats. “And she’s taken, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, well. That figures. I’d hate to make a man who could land that angry. Still, I’d love to meet her,” the man laments.

  “I don’t think she’s going to want to meet any new fans,” I respond with an awkward smile. “But I’ll pass your praise on to her!” The smile fades as the announcer calls everyone’s attention to the middle arena again. Both of the combatants look more like the meat at a butcher’s shop than actual people. The volu man holds the human man’s head by his hair and a dagger to his throat. Much like yesterday, an illusion of the sage appears in place of the gladiators. Again he holds a thumb out to the side, but this time turns it down. His illusion fades, and the gladiators are visible again. The volu drops his opponent with a grunt and begins a limp back to his gate.

  “I’m glad they don’t always die,” I say and the man next to me laughs.

  “Not a fan of gore, huh? You may not have the stomach for the arena then. I take it you aren’t your gladiator woman’s partner then?” he teases.

  “I do not, and I am not,” I confirm. “But I can handle gore if I have to. But this . . . this is something different.”

  He shrugs. “Where else would you even see it? It’s alright buddy, the arena isn’t for everyone. Some men are more . . . faint than others. No shame if you don’t want to come back. I’ll cheer your friend on. And keep your sister here company, if she likes,” he suggests.

  Autumn doesn’t bother responding, and I don’t much feel the need to either. Instead, my attention goes to a man approaching the short wall separating the seating from the arena below. I’m not sure what about him catches my eye. He looks perfectly comfortable. Perfectly confident. But I feel anxious watching him for some reason. He turns back for a moment, waving cheerfully and saying something inaudible to someone else in the stands. Then he climbs up on the wall.

  “What in the third plane is he doing?” I ask and the irritating man next to me follows my eyes.

  “Oh, another one of those. Yeah we get them here all the time. I guess they think the sage’s barrier will hurt less,” he answers.

  “Hurt less than what?” I ask. Before I get an answer, the man on the wall casually steps off the wall, disappearing from view entirely. I jolt as Autumn’s hand catches my arm. She looks at the wall the man jumped from with wide, horrified eyes. No one else reacts even a little. Even the announcer simply continues to introduce a new set of fighters.

  My skin feels like it’s too tight as my heart pounds in my chest. What is happening here?