I woke drenched.
Sweat soaked my robe.
The cell was dark.
Gerret's snoring drifted from his pallet. Marcus breathed slow and deep. Lyra was silent above me, folded into her corner shelf.
I didn't move.
The skeleton's grin appeared in my mind every time I blinked.
Pride is the sin that wears virtue's face.
A nightmare after a hundred deaths.
My hand found the watch.
The gold casing was warm against my fingers. The pulse that came from it was steady and insistent.
I pressed the clasp.
The cover sprang open.
Light spilled into the dark.
The notifications hung in the air before me.
Below them, the countdown.
I'd already lost a day. One hundred and seventy-nine.
Grenzheim.
The name stared back at me.
The elves would come for Grenzheim. An apocalypse. Our end.
While I was focused on the countdown, the remaining notifications scrolled up.
I took a deep breath. The change was obvious, though subtle.
It wasn’t like when I first activated Mana Breath, when I could feel an entirely new world I’d never had access to.
Instead, it felt like I had put a leash on this discovery. I could control it better. Feel the mana leaving through my mouth. Stop it, and the mint-burn faded. Focus, and the flow intensified.
I closed the watch. The screen dissolved.
The cell returned to its familiar darkness.
I lay still and stared at the ceiling.
Pride.
The skeleton's accusation circled my mind.
Was that the word for not walking past Gerret, not turning off Lyra's screams?
You would rather die a hundred times than admit you cannot save everyone.
Some of the hundred and thirteen were reconnaissance. The rest was me refusing any answer but try harder.
Gerret's snore caught on something. He shifted on his pallet.
I looked at him.
The boy whose family had sold him to clear a debt.
He was alive.
Because of me.
The pride swelled in my chest before I could stop it. A hundred and thirteen deaths, and Gerret was breathing. Lyra too. Marcus.
I did that.
What's wrong with feeling proud of that?
If the system said pride was my sin, then pride was my sin. If the system said one hundred and seventy-nine days remained, then one hundred and seventy-nine days remained.
Grenzheim would fall unless I got out.
Fifteen days flew by.
Dawn brought the training sessions. Four against four on the sand, wooden weapons and bare fists.
I won every morning.
Not easily. Sometimes using some loops.
The opponents changed as teams were reshuffled and rankings fluctuated. Some mornings brought mutants whose physical advantages turned the sand into a nightmare. Other mornings brought trained fighters, conscripts from the regular army, men who'd learned to kill in places worse than this.
I fought them all.
The Novice Swordsmanship climbed. Level 1 became Level 2 in the fourth day. Level 2 held for six days before cracking open into Level 3 on the tenth. Each increment was smaller than the last.
Afternoons brought the real fights.
Fifteen days. Fifteen bouts. Fifteen victories.
Every fight ended the same way. Opponent on the sand. Blade clean.
The crowd despised me.
The booing that had started after my first afternoon never stopped. Day after day, fight after fight, the jeers grew louder.
"COWARD!"
"BUTCHER HIM! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?"
"SEND HIM BACK TO THE CELLS! WE WANT BLOOD!"
They didn't cheer for me.
They came to watch me lose.
To make things worse, my victories kept accumulating. My rank climbing.
Marcus estimated I'd broken into the top thirty by the tenth day. By the fifteenth, I was somewhere in the twenties. The exact number was difficult to determine from inside a cell, but the evidence was there.
Better food. Actual meat.
Access to the conditioning yard, a walled courtyard on the Coliseum's second level where fighters could train between matches.
The promise of better accommodations that the monk had dangled during my first fight had been real. Each win pushed the cell higher.
Still, they never stopped scheduling me every day.
Every afternoon. Without exception. While other fighters in the top thirty received rest days, my name was kept on the daily roster.
The crowd hated me. The crowd wanted to see me broken.
On the sixteenth morning, they came early.
The training session had barely finished.
The cell door opened.
Four soldiers.
Their faces were harder than the usual escort. Spears held at a precise angle that said move without mentioning the word.
"Slave One Hundred Forty-Seven. On your feet. You're coming with us."
I didn't stand immediately.
"Where?"
The lead soldier's eyes dropped to me with the particular contempt reserved for property that forgot how it should behave.
"Meeting with a senior official. Shut your mouth and walk."
"What official?"
The spears angled at me. Four steel points converging at my chest.
I didn't flinch.
"I'm not moving until someone tells me where I'm going."
"You're being summoned to meet with one of the executives," he said through his teeth. "That's all you need to know. Now shut your mouth and move, or I'll have you dragged."
I held his gaze for a moment.
"You're top thirty at minimum," Marcus had told me two nights ago. "Possibly top twenty."
Top thirty meant value. Value meant leverage.
Enough that they couldn't run me through without consequences.
"Fine," I said. "I'll walk."
I rose. But the fist came fast.
The lead soldier's hand drove into my cheekbone. The iron plates that covered his knuckles bit into the skin. My head snapped sideways.
"That's a reminder," he said, his voice flat. "You're still a slave. Don't ever think that because you're climbing, you can open your mouth."
I spat blood onto the stone floor.
The glob landed near his boot.
I straightened and smiled.
"Lead the way," I said.
The upper levels were different.
The stone changed. The rough-hewn blocks of the lower cells gave way to cut and polished masonry. The mana-glow brightened, shifting from the cold blue of the cellblocks to a warmer amber that made the corridors feel almost habitable.
Tapestries hung from the walls. Maps. Battle scenes. The insignia of the Iron Cross rendered in thread and silver wire.
The soldiers led me through a series of corridors.
Each turn revealed a broader hallway, a higher ceiling, a wider window through which natural light poured.
We stopped at a door.
Heavy oak. Iron banding. A handle shaped like a gauntleted fist.
The lead soldier knocked. Three precise raps.
"Enter."
The voice from inside was calm.
The soldier pushed the door open.
The room beyond was a study.
High ceilings. A window down to the arena. A desk of dark wood.
A desk dominated the center. Carved from a single piece of something dark and heavy. Papers covered its surface in organized stacks. A crystal communication device sat at one corner.
Around the desk, chairs had been arranged in a loose semicircle. Several were occupied.
Their attention was focused toward the desk's far end, toward the chair that sat at the head.
I recognized the occupant instantly.
The prince.
Varen.
The one in the black uniform with the silver cross embroidered on the chest.
Up close, he was younger than I'd estimated from the arena floor.
Late twenties. Dark hair cut military-short. Eyes nearly black.
He sat with one leg crossed over the other, his forearm resting on the desk's edge. A glass of something dark sat near his hand.
His gaze found me the moment I crossed the threshold.
Varen studied me.
Then he smiled.
"I've been watching your fights," Varen said. "Fifteen victories. Zero kills."
He picked up the glass. Turned it slowly between his fingers.
"Tell me," Varen said. "What is a Hexenzeit doing among my slaves?"