Page 17 of The Beautiful Blade

“First time?”

The voice came from one of the bunks. A woman, who could have been my mother's age, sat up. Her face was shadowed, her eyes sharp. She had the look of someone who’d been here too long, her hair matted, her posture wary.

“Yes,” I said, my voice steady despite the nerves clawing at my throat.

She snorted softly, shaking her head. “Doesn’t matter how many times you come through here. It’s always the same. Fear. Blood. Death.”

"How many times have you been here?"

She shrugged. "This will be my fourth game."

Four games? That meant twelve years. "If you survive, they keep you here? In these quarters?"

I began searching the shadows, looking for his dark hair and kind eyes.

"Unless you win." She snorted again, as though someone like her winning was a joke. "If you choose to stay, it's not a bad life. You get to live the years between the games fed, housed. But you have to survive first."

As though to punctuate her words, a gong sounded. The vibrations shook the stone walls and made my teeth ache.

"You said choose? What's the other choice?"

The woman ignored my question. Her shouldersstiffened as she walked away, leaving me with the words echoing in my mind:You have to survive first.

The gong reverberated again, louder this time, its sound heavy with finality. The fighters around me shifted uneasily, a murmur of fear and tension rippling through the group. Most gazes darted toward the heavy iron gates that loomed ahead. A few, however, stood calm and still, their eyes cold and calculating. Veterans, no doubt. Survivors of past games. I wondered how many of them had started in the Fresh Meat brigade like me, how many had clawed their way out, only to return to this blood-soaked arena.

The gates groaned as they began to lift, the sound grating and slow. Beyond them, the arena stretched wide and ominous. Avarix hung heavy in the sky, his pale glow dimmed as he prepared to be eclipsed in a couple of days’ time.

Three years ago, Jorge had been here. He had walked these halls, slept in these quarters, fought in these games. He had survived. And then he'd disappeared. And he hadn't come back for me. I had to believe the reason was that he couldn't.

Just as I'd felt his pain when they took his hand, and the pain when he was hurt in these games, I was going to make them hurt. Then I was going to make them tell me where he was.

The roar of the crowd hit me like a wall, a deafeningwave that vibrated through my chest and threatened to unsteady my legs. I stepped forward into the light, my boots sinking slightly into the loose, packed dirt of the coliseum floor. It was overwhelming—too loud, too bright, too real.

The Sun and Moon Gauntlet was a spectacle of strategy and survival. I’d watched it from the safety of soft cushions and flickering light, cheering for my favorites, marveling at their strength. Standing in the middle of it as part of the Fresh Meat brigade, it didn’t feel anything like I’d imagined.

The coliseum stretched endlessly. Its towering walls of stone blotted out the horizon. High above, the crowd loomed like a living, shifting sea. Their cheers and jeers merged into a chaotic symphony of expectation.

I focused on the ground, on the faint pattern of marks etched into the dirt where countless others had stood before me. My heart raced, each beat loud and insistent in my ears, but I forced myself to breathe.

The announcer’s voice boomed over the chaos, a sharp, clipped tone that echoed against the coliseum walls. “And now, the Fresh Meat! Witness their struggle, their desperation, their fight to survive!”

On one of the massive crystals embedded in the coliseum’s walls, I saw myself. A girl with tangled curls, lavender skin smudged with dirt, and a defiant tilt toher chin. She looked braver than I felt. Her blue eyes were steady despite the chaos around her.

I could do this. I had to do this.

Across the arena, a massive gate creaked open, revealing the first challenge. A surge of heat rolled out from the gate, accompanied by the crackling sound of fire. The first section of the gauntlet—solar flames danced along the ground, forming shifting paths of fire that burned hotter than the forge back home. The forge that had remained cold after Jorge's abduction.

The Sun and Moon Gauntlet had begun. My body moved on instinct, dodging and weaving through the searing paths. The fire roared, hungry and alive. The heat scorched the air around me, leaving my throat dry and raw. I kept my eyes on the ground, focusing on the flicker of flames and the safe spaces between them.

The crowd roared again, their voices a distant blur as my world narrowed to the challenge in front of me. The fire was relentless, shifting, and unpredictable. I stayed light on my feet, my training kicking in as I moved with purpose. I knew these games. I knew how to win.

The fire lunged toward me like a living beast, but I was faster. I leapt through the final gap, the heat licking at my heels, and landed hard on the other side. My heart thundered in my chest, every muscle coiled tight as I took a steadying breath.

The scent of charred air filled my lungs. I barely registered it. I was already looking ahead—to the next barrier, to the next fight. No time to rest, no time to falter.

A sharp scream split the air behind me. I turned just in time to see another contender caught in the flames. It was the woman who'd been here four times. This was her last.

The crowd cheered, indifferent to the life snuffed out before them. If I were back home with a crystal viewer in my hand, I doubt I would've registered her death.

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