The sand was hot enough to cook meat.

  I knew because I'd actually done it once. Stole a sausage from a guard's lunch, pressed it against the arena floor during a match, let the blood and sun do the rest. The crowd booed for ten minutes straight. Called me disgusting. Called me a lot of other things too.

  They never got it. The difference between spectacle and survival I mean.

  To them it was all performance. To me it was the chance to have one more dinner.

  I was standing in that same arena now, ten years older, watching the floating brass orbs broadcast everything to noble parlors across the city. I could picture them up there in the Upper Terraces, lounging on silk cushions with their chilled wine, arguing about my kill-to-style ratio like it was something that mattered.

  "Place your bets!" The Arena Master's voice bounced off the walls. "The Cursed Boy versus the Red Butcher! Odds are four-to-one!"

  Against me. Obviously. They haven't learned shit the last decade.

  I rolled my shoulders and felt my ribs click. They'd healed wrong after a fight two years back. At eighteen my body felt fifty. My left knee locked up when it got cold. My fingers didn't quite straighten anymore. I couldn't remember what it felt like to wake up without something hurting.

  Terrible gladiator, really. But I kept winning. So there was that.

  The western gate groaned open and the Red Butcher walked out.

  Big guy. Six and a half feet, maybe more. His eyes had that glow to them, like embers that hadn't quite died. Enhancement work. Probably mana-fuel injections.

  Enhanced fighters put on good shows. They also tended to die spectacularly when the enhancement burned through their nervous systems. Good for business.

  I did some quick math. Six minutes. Maybe less if he pushed hard.

  "BEGIN!"

  The crowd roared. The Butcher charged. I ran.

  Not toward him. Away. Along the wall, keeping distance.

  The crowd went quiet. Confused.

  "Coward!" someone screamed. Others joined in.

  The Butcher came after me, those enhanced legs eating up the sand. I kept running. Watched him over my shoulder.

  "Three hundred sixty seconds," I said. Loud enough for him to hear.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He swung. I wasn't there anymore.

  "That's how long you have. Enhancement burns through your system at a predictable rate. I can see the vein in your neck pulsing from here."

  He roared and charged again. I sidestepped. Let him blow past me. He skidded in the sand, turned, came back.

  "Three hundred forty."

  "Stand still and fight!"

  "Nope."

  The crowd was throwing things now. The Butcher swung that massive club overhead. I stepped back. Exactly far enough. The club buried itself in sand.

  "Three hundred twenty. Your pupils are dilating unevenly. That's the mana fuel hitting your brain."

  He swung horizontal. I ducked.

  "You're swinging slower already. Did you notice?"

  "Shut up!"

  He came at me in a fury. Wild swings, no pattern. I let him chase me in circles while I counted seconds.

  "Two hundred eighty. Your right hand is shaking. The tremors start in the extremities. Eventually your heart."

  The Butcher stopped. Stood there breathing like a bellows. The glow in his eyes was flickering now.

  "What are you?" he asked.

  "Patient."

  He screamed and charged one more time. Everything he had left.

  I stood there and waited.

  At the last second I stepped left. A quarter step.

  He stumbled past me. His legs weren't working right anymore. He went down on one knee.

  "Two hundred forty. But you won't need that long."

  I walked up behind him. He tried to swing, but his arms wouldn't cooperate. The tremors had spread everywhere.

  I climbed up his shoulders and put my hands around his throat.

  He couldn't fight back. All that power, and he couldn't peel my fingers off his neck. The borrowed strength had left nothing behind.

  Forty three seconds. That's how long it took.

  The glow in his eyes flickered once, twice, three times. Then it went out.

  I stood up. Brushed sand off my knees. My hands were shaking.

  The crowd was quiet. The disgusted kind.

  I didn't care. I was alive. He wasn't.

  "REFUND!" someone screamed.

  The Arena Master's voice cut through. "Winner. The Cursed Boy. As always."

  He didn't sound happy about it.

  Two guards came out. "The Master wants to see you. Right now."

  The tunnels under the arena smelled like copper and old sweat. The Master's office was smaller than I'd expected. Just a desk, some chairs, a wall covered in betting charts.

  "Sit," he said.

  I sat.

  "How long have you been with us?"

  "Eleven years. Four months. Six days."

  "You count."

  "I count everything."

  "Do you know why I bought you? All those years ago?"

  "You said I had potential."

  "I lied. You were cheap and expendable. I figured you'd die in your first fight. Tax purposes."

  I didn't say anything.

  "But you didn't die. You kept winning." He shook his head. "And eventually I figured out what made you different. You don't fight to win. You fight to not lose."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Winners take risks. They give the crowd something to cheer about." He waved his hand at me. "You're just relentless. Efficient. Boring."

  "I'm alive."

  "For now." He slid a piece of paper across the desk. A contract. The buyer's name: Cassius Black. Combat Exhibitions Inc.

  My blood went cold.

  Combat Exhibitions didn't buy fighters. They bought bodies. Gladiators tossed into impossible matches so rich people could watch them die in creative ways.

  "This is an execution," I said.

  "It's business. You've outlived your usefulness. Cassius pays well for a good death."

  "No."

  "That wasn't a request."

  The guards behind me moved closer.

  "Here's how this works. You sign the contract and get a few more hours. Or you refuse, I have you killed right now, and I sell your body to the medical college instead."

  I looked at the contract. Looked at him. Looked at the guards.

  I was fast. Fast enough to kill one of them, probably. Maybe both.

  Then what? Two hundred guards in this building. No weapons. No plan.

  The math didn't work.

  "When's the fight?" I asked.

  He smiled. "Tonight. Twelve-to-one odds against you."

  "Who am I fighting?"

  "Does it matter? You'll be dead either way."

  He had a point.