Chapter 5
The words hang in the air, settling over us like a suffocating shroud. No one moves. No one speaks. Even breathing seems dangerous in the silence that follows.
“Your training begins today,” Marrek continues, his voice carrying a disturbing air of calm. He gestures to the handlers flanking him. “These are your gods now. Obey them without question. Impress them if you can. But never forget your place.”
With a dismissive wave, he turns and strides from the platform.
The moment he is gone, the handlers’ voices rise in a harsh chorus, barking orders as they divide us into groups.
The chamber heaves and shifts, hundreds of bodies pressing like a tide around me.
I claw for calm, fighting the nausea coiling in my gut.
I am not drowning. I will not be swept away. My feet are on solid stone, the ground that has outlasted empires. I am standing still.
I have known crowds before, but not crowds sharpened to a blade’s edge. Not this press of fae driven together as prey.
A sharp whistle cuts through the chamber as handlers move among us. They don't separate males from females as I expected. Instead, they're grouping us by the numbers on our wrists.
“Four hundreds, this way!” bellows a scarred handler, his voice scraping against the stone as he gestures toward a tunnel yawning on the eastern side.
I move with my group, stomach twisting with hunger.
My last meal had barely been enough to sustain a child, let alone one expected to endure training.
Lira falls in beside me as we're herded down a sloping corridor. “Best stay close,” she murmurs. “First day’s supposed to weed out the easy kills.”
The tunnel opens into a training yard—a massive cavern with a dirt floor and walls that rise into darkness. Weapon racks line the perimeter, though they stand empty now. The air smells of sweat and old blood.
My eyes immediately find Ellis in the crowd, his bright copper hair making him easy to spot. He looks pale but determined. Tomas stands nearby, his aristocratic features set in careful neutrality. Across the yard, I spot Vex and Krall, both scanning the room with predatory focus.
My stomach growls loudly enough for Lira to hear. She grimaces in understanding.
“They'll feed us soon,” Ellis says hopefully, joining our small cluster. “They have to. We can't train without—”
“Silence!” The command echoes through the cavern.
A line of handlers enters, led by a mountain fae whose bulk seems carved straight from the cliffs. His face is weathered like crumpled hide, his nose broken so often it has collapsed into a flattened ridge of scar tissue. Behind him, assistants wheel in carts draped with heavy cloths.
The smell hits me immediately: freshly baked bread. My mouth waters involuntarily. Around me, recruits straighten, nostrils flaring, eyes fixed on those carts.
“I am Trainer Voss,” the mountain fae announces, his voice rough with the grind of gravel.
“I won these games twenty years ago. I killed forty-three men and sixteen dragons before earning my handler’s mark.
” He paces before us, favoring a leg that’s fused stiff at the knee, his bulk carried on sheer stubborn strength.
Mountain fae aren’t often seen in the central provinces anymore; most keep to their high strongholds, far from the empire’s leash. To find one here—broken, branded, serving as the emperor’s tool—makes my stomach turn. What could a man like him have done to be cast down into this place?
“Today,” he continues, voice gruff as rockfall, “we begin the process of discovering which of you are worth the empire’s time.”
He gestures to the covered carts. An assistant bog fae—long-limbed and hollow-cheeked, with skin that looks stretched thin from undernourishment—pulls back the cloth, revealing platters heaped with fresh and warm food. After days of my own near-starvation, the sight is almost painful.
“You’re hungry,” Voss says flatly. “Good. Hunger sharpens the instinct.” His smile splits, showing gaps where teeth should be. “There’s enough here to feed half of you. The strong eat. The weak starve. The rule is simple: everything is permitted.”
For a moment, no one moves. The words hang heavy, absurd and yet all too possible in the empire’s grip.
“Begin!” Voss barks. “Now!”
The order slams through me like a blow, and chaos detonates around us. The crowd surges forward as one desperate mass, colliding with brutal force. A woman goes down beside me, trampled beneath the rush. I hear her scream cut short.
I dart left instead of forward, avoiding the initial crush. My years of street survival taught me that the direct approach often gets you killed. Ellis isn't so savvy. He rushes straight ahead and takes an elbow to the face from Krall, blood spraying from his nose as he stumbles backward.
Lira moves like water through the crowd, slipping between bodies, ducking under swinging arms. I follow her lead, staying low, eyes fixed on the nearest cart.
A hand grabs my ankle. I twist, kicking backward instinctively. My heel connects with someone's jaw—a wiry male I don't recognize—and he releases me with a curse. No time for apologies or regrets. This is survival.
The carts become battlegrounds. Krall has seized an entire platter of bread, holding others at bay with one massive arm while stuffing a loaf into his mouth with the other.
The assassin Vex has claimed a corner position, her back to the wall, methodically eating fruit while keeping attackers at bay with precise, brutal strikes to throats and joints.
I reach the edge of the nearest cart just as Milor shoves a younger recruit face-first into a barrel of drinking water. The boy comes up gasping, water streaming from his nostrils, only to be pushed down again.
“Enough,” I snarl, ramming my shoulder into Milor's ribs. He staggers sideways, surprise flashing across his face before anger replaces it.
“Bad move, street rat,” he hisses, circling me. Around us, the fighting continues, but we've created a small pocket of focused violence.
He lunges, faster than his frame suggests. I sidestep, grabbing a nearby bowl and smashing it across his temple. Ceramic shatters. He reels but doesn't fall.
“You'll regret that,” he promises, blood trickling down his cheek.
I don't waste breath on words. As he comes at me again, I drop low and drive my fist into his groin. Fighting fair is for people who can afford to lose. He doubles over with a wheeze, and I slam my knee into his face, feeling cartilage crunch beneath the impact.
Ellis appears at my side, his face bloodied but his eyes bright with desperate energy. Together, we seize what food we can—half a loaf of bread, several pieces of fruit, a container of some kind of stew—and retreat to a defensible corner.
“Tomas,” Ellis gasps, pointing across the melee.
I follow his gaze to see the former noble standing perfectly still amid the chaos, his arms at his sides, making no move toward the food. His expression is one of cold disgust.
“I will not fight like an animal,” Tomas says, loud enough to be heard over the frenzy.
The words hang in the air for only a moment before Trainer Voss materializes beside him, seemingly from nowhere despite his bulk. The fighting around them stills, attention drawn to this new tension like predators sensing blood.
“What was that?” Voss asks, his voice deceptively soft.
Tomas meets his gaze. “I said I will not fight like an animal for your amusement.”
Voss's scarred face splits into a grotesque smile. “Noble blood. Always thinks it's special.” He looks around at the gathered recruits, many still clutching their hard-won food. “Listen well! This one thinks he's above survival!”
I freeze, bread halfway to my mouth. Beside me, Ellis trembles.
“There are no nobles here,” Voss continues. “No commoners. Only those who live and those who die.” He circles Tomas like a predator. “Which are you, Four-Three-One?”
“I am Tomas Varin of House—”
The blow comes without warning—Voss's massive fist connecting with Tomas's jaw. The former noble staggers but doesn't fall. Blood trickles from his split lip. My gut twists at the mountain fae’s sudden violence.
“Wrong answer,” Voss says pleasantly. “Try again.”
Tomas straightens, dignity in every line of his body. “I will not be reduced to—”
The second blow takes him in the stomach, doubling him over. When he tries to rise, Voss kicks his legs from under him.
“Last chance,” Voss announces. “What are you?”
Tomas remains silent, kneeling in the dirt. His eyes find mine across the training yard—and I see something there beyond pride. Determination. Purpose. He's making a choice.
“I am a man,” he says quietly. “And I am fae. And neither were meant to tear each other apart for scraps.”
“Wrong again.” Voss turns to a handler nearby. “Demonstrate the consequence of refusal.”
It happens in a heartbeat. Tomas is wrenched to his knees, the blade flashes, and the world splits open in a spray of red. One moment he is defying them, the next he is gone—spilled out on the dirt like he never mattered at all.
Ellis makes a strangled sound, and I seize his arm, fingers digging in. My own body lurches forward, desperate to stop it, to undo it, but my legs won’t move. My throat won’t even form a scream. I can only watch as blood pools dark and fast, and his eyes, still fixed open, lose their light.
Something inside me twists, buckles, and won’t right itself again. All I can feel is the hollow where his voice was a moment ago.
“Now eat,” Voss commands the stunned crowd. “While it's still warm.”