There’s another pulse, sharper this time. A second chime. It feels like a warning. Get in or get out. I cross my arms. A beat later, a voice speaks up—not from the ring, but from the group still gathered near the far wall.
“It’s just a bout,” someone says. They sound bored. Not cruel, impatient. “You don’t have to fight. Just step in. We can’t move forward until you do.”
I glance toward the voice. It’s the one in layered shadow. A mask covers the lower half of their face. It reminds me of the kind I wear when I assist with the spay and neuter clinic at work. Except when I look closer it doesn’t look like paper or fabric at all. Obsidian-smooth, featureless. Body like smoke and shadow, always wavering at the edges. No breath. No sound. I can’t tell if they’re watching me or not. That sends a chill down my spine, and I turn back to the circle.
The woman inside it hasn’t moved. She’s waiting. Calm as a coiled wire.
This is stupid. This is so stupid.
I’m not a contender. I didn’t volunteer for this. I’m not branded. I don’t have armor or a rulebook. I haven’t trained. I haven’t fought. I’m not from here. I don’t belong in this place, in this story, in this goddamned ring…
The floor pulses again beneath my boots. A warning. I flinch.
The glow deepens. The pressure sharpens. They’re going to make me perform, brand or not. Sarai warned me. No one’s asking anymore. I could run, but I don’t even know where the doors lead, and something tells me turning away now would be worse than letting them beat me down. It would probably end the same way. I step forward slowly. Each inch feels heavier than the last. When I cross the glowing edge of the ring, the air shifts—denser, hotter, like it recognizes me now.
I stand inside the boundary and keep my arms at my sides.
Then the weapon appears out of nowhere, floating between us. Long, lean, fire forged. Something between a spear and a blade, its edges shimmer faintly with heat. Waiting.
The woman doesn’t reach for it. She’s waiting for me. I wonder if she just a good sport or if it’s a rule I don’t know. I look at the weapon. Then at her. Then down at my hands. And do nothing. I won’t pick it up. I’m not making this easier for them. For anyone. Knowing my luck reaching for the blade would automatically be signing on the dotted line. No thank you. Someone else can be good old, cursed number thirteen. It won’t be me.
The pressure builds in the silence. I feel the weight of eyes on my skin. Every contender watching. My limbs feel heavy, and I have the oddest thought that if I reached for the sword, they’d feel light again. Magical coercion. I keep my arms loose at my sides and say nothing. No. This is the only choice I have left. No. The last piece of control. No! I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t agree to play. No no no! If I’m going to lose, it’ll be on my terms. If I’m going to die, they’ll know I didn’t do it politely.
The blade flickers, waits, and then disappears. The ring dims. The bout ends. The other woman still hasn’t moved.
Neither have I.
I turn slowly and step out of the ring. There’s no applause. No laughter. Just silence and the subtle shift of people recalculating what I am. I know what they’re thinking. Coward. Disruption. Waste of a slot. They’re not entirely wrong. But they’re not entirely right either. Because that wasn’t fear. That was refusal. And it might be the last one I get.
The second bout is the same. My name echoing in my frontal cortex. Another glowing ring and a partner I don’t know. This one is scrawny, young, with curls that don’t behave. He smirks like he thinks he’s funny—but his hands twitch like he’s nervous under it. I think I could almost like him if he wasn’t so smug about it. Another blade suspended in air. I step in. Don’t move. Let the weapon vanish before the magic decides to make the choice for me.
The third time, there’s a beat of laughter from someone near theback when I don’t reach again. Not cruel, surprised. Bemused. Like they think this is my strategy. Or a bit. I don’t explain. Let them wonder.
Let them label me however they want. Coward. Protestor. Tactician. They’re all just words until someone draws blood.
The next ring flares before I’m ready. I step in slower this time. I’m not resisting, but something feels… off. The glow’s different. Brighter. Sharper. Like it knows something I don’t. It can get in line.
My opponent is already there. A tall figure—lean, confident, with a straight back and a practiced stillness that says this isn’t his first time with a blade. He’s the one who had the thick velvet cloak fastened with an ornate gold sigil. I wonder where he put it.
He watches me. Doesn’t speak. Just tilts his head and then, without warning, he reaches for the weapon. It splits the second his hand touches it. Not waiting for me. Not offering the choice. Is this the flame making a choice for me? Or some unseen power goosing me along.
The ring shudders and the match begins.
I freeze, trying desperately to clear my head. This time, I wasn’t given the option. This time, they started without me. And I feel it in my gut, like something sacred just got taken. Like the last thread of control I was clutching just snapped.
I lunge for the edge of the ring—toward a nearby rack. My opponent is clutching both weapons in curled fists. I’m not getting one of his and I’m not about to go out like a…like a human. I grab the first thing that looks remotely wieldable. It’s a blunt, training- sword, made of some dark metal. Too long, too heavy, but it’s something.
He’s already moving. Closing the distance fast. He’s not trying to kill me, at least I don’t think so, but he’s fast enough that it doesn’t matter. A hit from him will hurt. For a second I wonder if I should lean into the contact. A baseball player trying to get walked on base, but my body moves before I can make it.
I try to pivot. Try to lift the blade, needing both hands, but it catches wrong in my grip. Too slow. Too awkward. I try to block, it slips in my fingers, stinging my skin as I try to grab it. The sword hits the floor with a horrible metal clang and skitters out of reach. I stagger. Try to run. My heart is pounding. Time is both hurtling out of control and seeping along in ways I can’t explain.
My opponent’s weapon sweeps low—controlled, deliberate—and takes my feet out from under me. I hit the stone hard enough that stars explode behind my eyes. My breath punches out of my lungs. The match ends a moment later, the light dies, but the sound of the fall echoes longer.
I stay there for a second as the other contender seems to bow in my direction as he leaves the ring. I’m not hurt. I’m angry. And afraid.
Not of him, not of the fight, but of what it meant. They—the rite, the flame, the mystical-unnameable they—didn’t wait. They didn’t ask. They just started. Like my silence finally expired. As if I stalled too long and now my choices don’t count anymore.
I roll onto my side and push myself upright, blood buzzing in my ears. No one laughs. No one cheers, and maybe that’s worse. Now I don’t know what I am to them. A threat? A toy? A mistake? My heart tried to claw its way out of my chest back there. I thought I was facing down my own death. I thought my fall was the end. And then… I’m a little embarrassed I as that scared. This is training. If I can’t make it through one friendly match, I’m fucked.
