A wall of noise slammed into me the moment I stepped out.

  The stands were fuller than yesterday, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. Heads turned in unison. Fingers pointed straight at me.

  “Butcher!”

  The shout cut through the air and stuck. Others seized it and threw it across the arena, the name echoing from tier to tier. Boots hammered the boards. Palms cracked together in rhythm.

  Some shouted it with wide grins.

  Others did not.

  I saw some mouths shape a different word.

  “Cheater.”

  The lead instructor descended ahead of me directing me without emotion on her face. I let the noise crash and fall away from me as I focused.

  Below, the circle waited.

  I kept my eyes on it.

  Something new stood at its centre. A mound of packed clay rose from the ground, thick and uneven. Stone shards pushed through its surface at jagged angles, as though the earth had been forced upward and left to harden.

  As my boots touched the amphitheatre floor, I spotted Amelia’s team. Their backs were straight, shoulders squared. They stood apart from the other two groups, who sat slumped and dirt-streaked, staring ahead with hollow eyes.

  When she saw me, she raised a hand and gave a thumbs up.

  I answered with one of my own, brief and steady, then turned back toward the mound.

  A tightness in my chest eased.

  “Sean Mitcheles. This way,” one of the assistants called from the edge of the ring.

  I closed the distance. Just beyond the sand line, a wooden box sat on a narrow table.

  “Place your personal weapons on the table or on the ground. Any advanced runes or valuables you wish to keep safe, put them in here.” He tapped the lid of the box. “Anything you carry into the circle will be examined via scan.”

  I nodded. I removed my rune pouch and the silver ring and placed both inside.

  “The dagger too.”

  I added it without argument.

  Then I drew Lumi.

  For a moment, I held him.

  I considered switching the blades, letting Lumi wear the rusted steel as a mask. The thought died as quickly as it came. The rune scan would strip that illusion bare. They might not detect the curse itself, but I could not trust the Veratii runes to hide everything.

  So, I drove Lumi into the earth just beyond the sand line.

  Steel bit deep.

  When I let go, the connection did not fade. White threads still brushed the edges of my senses, fine and constant, like strands of spider silk.

  No noble armour our hidden defence this time.

  The assistant took off his bronze ring and replaced it with a silver one, then held his palm a breath from my chest. I held my breath as the metal hummed. A faint glow moved over me as his hand passed slowly from shoulder to waist, down along my sides, across my pockets.

  He glanced at the rusted sword in my hand. “That what they gave you?”

  I nodded.

  His brows lifted. Not surprise. Disgust.

  “What are they thinking…” He exhaled through his nose.

  The light from his ring dimmed and went out. He lowered his hand and gave a curt nod.

  “Alright. You’re clear. Good luck, Butcher.”

  The tightness in my chest loosened. I drew in a slow breath and let it go.

  Footsteps echoed across the arena floor.

  Five assistants emerged from the side, each holding something.

  “Aspirant,” the head instructor called. “Stand inside the circle.”

  I stepped across the sand line.

  The crowd fell still.

  Each assistant held a metallic sphere at chest height, a fine seam running around its centre. With a sharp crack, the metal split cleanly into two halves. I leaned forward slightly. A rune had been carved into each inner surface.

  They placed a golden ribbon inside every open sphere.

  Presumably the ones I had captured the day before.

  Then, the halves came together again with a firm click. The seam sealed. Five smooth orbs rested in their hands, a low vibration building within them, subtle but steady.

  The announcer’s voice rolled over the arena, heavy and theatrical. He spoke of destiny, of reckoning, of ancient trials and forgotten beasts. Most of it blurred together.

  Certain words cut through.

  “Cheater.”

  “Justice.”

  “Butcher!”

  “If he leaves the ring he fails.”

  The rest became noise.

  I reached for the thin thread of power that still linked me to the runes beyond the circle. It was faint, but it held. I slowed my breathing.

  In.

  Out.

  The assistants took their positions at equal points around the circle.

  The announcer began to count.

  “Five.”

  “Four.”

  “Three.”

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  “Two.”

  “One.”

  A horn split the air.

  Five spheres arced overhead and slammed into the mound with a heavy thud. Metal punched through clay. The surface buckled inward, fractured, then swallowed them whole as if the earth had opened its mouth.

  For a moment, no one spoke. No one breathed. A dense pulse of purple energy rippled through the mound.

  Stone fingers clawed out of the clay and into open air. Forearms followed. Shoulders forced upward. Chunks of stone and hardened clay broke loose and fell in heavy clods as figures dragged themselves free.

  Five of them.

  Each stood at my height, my build. Poor imitations of noble robes hung from their shoulders, and a dark sword rested at each hip.

  Their faces were mine.

  Their eyes burned purple.

  A collective gasp rippled through the amphitheatre as the colour flared. Near the edge of the circle, the assistants shifted uneasily. One took a half step back.

  “Ah, crap,” I muttered. A shiver ran down my spine.

  They spread out instinctively, stopping just beyond my reach. I counted the steps between us. I took one step away from the sand.

  If I rushed one, the others would close in. If I retreated, I would lose.

  With no other choice, I planted my feet and lifted the rusted blade in front of me.

  The crowd held its breath. A jeer slipped through the silence, then another.

  It barely registered.

  All five began to advance.

  I felt Lumi outside the ring. The connection held, thin but alive. I leaned into it.

  It thickened from a strand into a current.

  I followed the thread inward, cutting through the roar of the crowd, down to where it speared into me. The old hilt bit into my palm. I reached for the spark and found it waiting.

  It did not flicker.

  It churned.

  The memories inside the blade pressed against me like a sea held back by stone, vast and restless, straining against its walls.

  I grinned.

  Time to break the dam.

  I opened the link.

  For a heartbeat, colour drained from the world. Then everything snapped into focus with a clarity that bordered on violent. The blade in my grip opened fully. Not in words, but in memory. Hands I had never known tightening around this hilt. A battlefield under rain. Victories earned. Failures endured. Lessons and experience carved through bone and time.

  And now, they were mine.

  The world slammed back into colour.

  All five figures shifted at once. The one in the centre moved first. No hesitation. He came straight at me, blade cutting for my throat.

  Fast.

  As fast as I had been yesterday.

  My breath caught.

  The stone sword dropped in a brutal diagonal, meant to split guard and skull in the same stroke. Gasps broke from the stands as it fell.

  Adrenaline burned through my veins.

  My wrist turned. Rusted met stone with a sharp crack. I did not stop the blow. I turned it, shifting my weight and letting his momentum carry him past. His arms stretched a fraction too far.

  My point punched through his forearm. Clay split. Purple sludge spilled thick across the stone.

  Another blade fell for my skull.

  I did not think.

  My body moved before the strike completed. The sword passed where my head had been a breath earlier. I turned it with the flat and stepped through the narrowing gap.

  Two more closed in at once.

  They were fast. Relentless. No hesitation between swings. Stone rang against steel. Impact shuddered up my arm.

  They drove me back a step.

  Then another.

  Their eyes burned violet, but their bodies betrayed them. Hips twitched before feet committed. Shoulders tightened before steel moved. Tiny tells. The kind you only notice after a lifetime of watching men try to kill you.

  I did not chase blades.

  I read them.

  A pivot. A half step. My edge grazed one wrist while my guard redirected another strike. Parry into cut. Cut into guard. No pause. No space to breathe.

  They carried only what the ribbons had stolen. Yesterday’s strength. Rune power. Speed without depth. Force without understanding.

  Still, it was enough to end me if I faltered.

  A strike hammered toward my shoulder. I shifted and let it spill past, but the force scraped along my ribs. Another came low. I barely cleared it, the edge biting a sliver from my thigh.

  They were pushing me.

  The only reason I was still standing was the flood of memory surging through my hands. Stances layered over stances. Forms flowing without conscious thought. Corrections made before mistakes formed.

  A third blow crashed in. I let it bind, rolled along the contact, and returned with a tight cut that sheared through an elbow.

  The arm dropped.

  Purple sludge splattered across the floor.

  They pressed again.

  I held.

  Another lunged.

  I cut the distance before his swing found weight, slid inside his guard, and buried my blade beneath his ribs. Clay tore open. In the hollow of his chest, a silver sphere gleamed where a heart should have lived. I smirked. Now I had a target. The others tightened their circle.

  I moved first.

  A cut to the thigh. A slice through the wrist. Each strike dulled the purple glare in their eyes. Each severed limb slowed them.

  Purple sludge slicked the floor and smeared my blade.

  The crowd roared beyond the ring.

  I didn’t look. A short bind. A twist. Another arm tore free. I pivoted low, cut through a knee, then rose into a clean stroke across the neck. The torso split and fell in two uneven halves.

  The first silver sphere tore free from the split chest. I lunged, but a clay boot kicked it. It skidded, clipped a ridge of clay, and shot back toward the mound.

  “Shit.”

  The others did not pause.

  One cut high. One low. Two split wide to close the trap.

  I stepped forward instead of back. The thread held.

  Eight steps.

  My blade carved through a wrist, rolled, and snapped beneath a jaw. Clay burst. I pivoted, drove my shoulder into the next, and smothered his swing. A short thrust punched through his sternum.

  I tore the blade free and kicked the sphere loose.

  “Go, Sean!” Amelia’s voice cut through the noise.

  The sphere skidded across the stone.

  An assistant waited at the edge of the ring, arm outstretched for the orb. His fingers brushed the metal. The sphere shuddered, tore free of his grip, and shot back toward the mound. He frowned, confusion tightening across his face.

  Some of the crowd laughed. The rest cheered.

  The third copy rushed me. I let him overcommit, stepped inside, and cut through his midsection. The blade carried on. I reversed it and took his leg at the knee. He fell. A downward strike split him through the collar.

  A third sphere tore free, struck the floor and rolled back toward the mound.

  “Butcher! Butcher!”

  Two left.

  They came together.

  I broke their timing. Steel rang. I caught the first blade, slid along it, and drove my elbow into his throat. My sword followed, cutting through his shoulder joint.

  The last lunged from behind. I turned and met him mid-step. A rising cut tore from hip to rib. He staggered. I finished it with a tight stroke across the neck.

  Four.

  Five.

  The final spheres burst from their chests as the bodies collapsed.

  The purple ooze did not fade.

  It spread.

  Cracks split along the fallen bodies. They pulsed and widened. Limbs thickened and lost definition. Edges sagged. The figures collapsed inward, melting into heavy heaps of clay veined with violet light.

  All five spheres rolled to the centre.

  A horn blared.

  “Well, done, aspirant! A mighty display of skill. Another trial complete!” the announcer thundered. “The Butcher advances!”

  The crowd exploded.

  “Butcher! Butcher! Butcher!”

  I stood there, breath still heavy.

  Assistants rushed in, trying to recover the spheres, but the clay swallowed them again, drawing them down as if the ground had teeth.

  I turned toward the head instructor. She stared at me, mouth open in astonishment.

  Then something shifted behind me. Her expression hardened.

  She pointed sharply. “Stop them!”

  I spun.

  Assistants scrambled onto the mound, boots sliding through streaks of purple sludge. They dropped to their knees, digging with bare hands, scooping at the surface.

  Their fingers came up coated in darkening clay.

  Empty.

  Through the thread, Lumi hummed.

  Not approval.

  Warning.

  The mound pulsed, and the earth beneath the arena answered with a low, rolling tremor.

  Something gave in my hand. A sharp crack travelled through the hilt. I glanced down and watched the old sword crumble along its edge, rust breaking away in brittle flakes. The ancient rune near the guard flickered once, strained, and split. It had spent everything it had in that fight.

  My heart struck hard against my ribs.

  Then the blowback came.

  Every memory the sword forced into me came back sharp and biting. Triumph curdled into failure. Hard-won lessons twisted into regret. Faces that were never mine flashed close enough to feel their breath, then slipped away before I could grasp them. Centuries folded inward and settled across my shoulders.

  My chest tightened. I pressed a hand against it, as if I could keep something from breaking loose. The ground rushed up and I caught myself on one knee, air ripped from my lungs. The surge threatened to split me open from the inside.

  I caught Amelia’s eyes for a split second. Concern was written plainly across her face.

  No one else noticed.

  The crowd had already turned away, focused on the panicking assistants.

  The mound heaved.

  A crack split it from crown to base. Purple ooze burst through the seam and sprayed across the ground. Clay blew outward in jagged chunks, slamming into the arena floor and shattering into shards.

  A slab caught an assistant in the chest and sent him sprawling. Another slipped in the spreading sludge, boots kicking as he fought for purchase.

  The stands erupted. A scream tore through the noise, then another. People climbed over one another.

  I tried to rise.

  My arms trembled and failed. The blowback pinned me where I knelt. Battlefields flashed across my vision. Steel rang in my ears. Faces I did not know leaned close enough to breathe against my skin before tearing away again.

  The ground split wider.

  The fissure yawned open with a grinding crack. Stone sheared. More clay collapsed inward as if the earth were inhaling.

  Then something punched up from below.

  A claw tore free, ridged and immense, thick as a mountain troll’s body, dripping with violet sludge as it seized the air above the arena.