A horn blast tears the air in two. The crowd rises as one, and from the high balcony, the voice of the arena master thunders:
“Behold the enemies of Thalyris! Traitors, lawbreakers, mongrels who dared to defy the peace you all bleed to protect. Today, they are unmasked. Today, they are cleansed!”
The crowd answers in a roar. “Cleanse them! Cleanse them!”
My stomach twists.
My eyes drop frantically back to the mass of people below, at Lira and the others preparing to fight for their lives amidst overwhelming numbers. The scale of what's about to happen crashes over me.
“I can't,” I hiss to Zeriel, my voice breaking. “I can't just sit here and watch this. There has to be something?—”
Zeriel finds my arm, his fingers forming an inescapable grip. "Don't," he says, his voice barely audible. "You can't help them."
I open my mouth to argue, but the words die in my throat as aterrible groaning sound echoes across the arena. The ground below suddenly fractures along hidden seams, and metal vents rise from the forest floor, their mechanisms clicking into place.
“What is?—”
The answer comes before I can finish the question. The vents roar to life, spewing columns of brilliant green-blue flame that shoot twenty feet into the air. The heat reaches even our platform, a scorching wave that makes my skin sting.
Below, chaos erupts. People scatter like startled birds, colliding with each other in blind panic. The flames aren't constant. They surge and die in unpredictable patterns, cutting off escape routes, herding the recruits into tighter clusters.
“They're driving them,” I whisper, horror dawning as I recognize the pattern. “Like beasts to slaughter.”
The arena master’s voice bellows again, triumphant:
“Run, traitors! Fight, traitors! Burn, and show your true selves!”
Lira and the other Ironhold recruits have managed to stay together, but they're being pushed steadily toward a central clearing. The green-clad prisoners fare worse, many already sporting angry burns, their screams barely audible over the roar of the province’s native fire.
I lean forward, hands gripping the railing so tight my knuckles blanch white. The iron bands around the recruits' wrists and necks gleam in the firelight, and I notice something I missed before. They're not just restraints. As the flames drive the crowd tighter, the bands begin to pulse with a sickly orange glow.
“The iron,” I rasp. “It's active. Suppression collars.”
I've heard whispers of such things. Devices designed to target and cripple fae blood specifically, through supposedly non-magical means. But whispers don’t prepare me for this. The effect is sickening to watch: recruits staggering as their strength bleeds out, shoulders caving, breath clawing shallow. Some buckle to their knees, gasping like fish on dry land.
Vex stumbles hard, barely caught by Nyx, though Nyxherself looks half-collapsed, her jaw clenched against the weight pressing her down. Lira moves as if through tar, every step dragging.
“They’re being suffocated,” I choke, the words tearing out raw.Physically and magically.
Zeriel doesn’t answer. But his hand grips his blade, knuckles bone-white on the hilt. Not a move to draw. Just that instinct, that urge to cut through what neither of us can touch.
He of all people must know what it’s like to lose part of yourself. Lose what you are.He appears so lost to his cause I don’t know if he’ll ever find himself again. Or let me find him.
A deep, grinding creak sounds, of ancient mechanisms turning. At the far end of the arena, a massive gate begins to rise, darkness yawning behind it.
The crowd falls silent, anticipation thick in the air.
From the shadows emerges a gloamwyrm. Not like the docile mounts that carried us here, but something wilder, hungrier. Its indigo scales gleam with that uncanny mirror-sheen, but its eyes are different: bottomless black pools that reflect only terror. It pauses at the threshold, head swaying as it tastes the air.
Another follows. And another. Until seven of the massive creatures stand at the arena's edge, their bodies sliding forward with the unnerving grace of predators accustomed to the dark.
I can see the chains now. Heavy links binding their necks and flanks, leading up to shadowed galleries where handlers wait. But the creatures don't need direction. The scent of fear and blood has already awakened something primal in them.
The crowd roars its approval, a sound so bloodthirsty it makes my skin crawl. Every cheer feels like a personal blow. Were it not for my detour with the ashblood, I’d be down there too.
Do they even know what they’re cheering? What they’re begging to happen? Are they so lost in the empire’s lies they can’t tell slaughter from justice?They don’t see fellow subjects.They don’t see fae. They see what they’re told to see—enemies of Thalyris—and I can feel the hatred of it slice at my skin.
The recruits scatter again, but there's nowhere to run. Thevents continue their deadly dance, herding them back toward the center while the wyrms advance from the perimeter. It's a perfect killing field.
