He doesn't even look up as he grabs the next prisoner. “Not anymore.”
One by one, the other fae receive their marks. Ellis gives a thin, high whimper when the needles touch, the sound more like a wounded bird than a boy. Tomas takes his marking in silence, jaw locked so tight the muscle leaps beneath his pale skin like a trapped thing. Dren spits a curse, only to earn a blow to the gut that folds him in half, his breath leaving in a ragged hiss. Lira doesn’t flinch. She watches the needles slide into her flesh with the distant calm of someone watching rain strike glass, as though pain were happening to another body altogether. I only wonder what she’s been through.
The final station offers our only mercy: clothing. Plain gray tunics and loose pants, fabric rough but clean. Hard-soled shoes that weigh down my feet, but at least they're better than nothing.
As I pull the tunic over my head, I catch movement from the corner of my eye. Standing on the upper walkway is a figure different from the others: a lady in a fitted black regalia with red piping along the seams. Unlike the guards, she wears no helmet,revealing a sharp-featured face framed by close-cropped silver hair. A thin scar traces her jawline like a second smile.
Her eyes—bright teal, unsettling in their clarity—meet mine across the distance. She doesn't look away. Instead, she studies me with cold intensity, then writes a note in the small, brown ledger in her hand.
“Any idea who that is?” I ask Nyx beside me.
Nyx follows my gaze and immediately lowers her indigo eyes. “Maybe a handler,” she whispers. “A trainer for the female recruits. Better not to give her a reason to learn our numbers.”
Guards begin herding us toward one of the iron doors. It swings open with a groan to reveal a long, descending corridor carved into black stone. Torches cast dancing shadows that seem to reach for us like grasping hands.
“Women to the east barracks,” announces a guard. “Men to the west. Move!”
They separate us, pushing Ellis and Tomas and Dren through a different doorway. Ellis looks back, panic in his eyes, and for a moment I feel an irrational urge to protect him. But there's nothing I can do as they disappear from view.
Our group is marched down winding passages that descend deeper into the mountain. The air grows warmer, more humid. That same musky, reptilian scent grows stronger. Beneath it lies another smell—charred flesh.
“First rule,” says a guard as we walk. “Obedience is immediate or punishment is severe. Second rule: You fight when ordered, how ordered. Third rule: The only way out is to win or die.”
“What about the champions?” asks a female near the back. “They go free, don't they?”
The guard laughs, the sound hollow inside his helmet. “Free to serve the emperor in the royal arenas. Free to die for a better class of audience.” He cuffs her across the back of the head. “You’ve only yourself to blame for being here. Now shut up and walk.”
We emerge into a vast cavern honeycombed with small cells.Each one barely large enough for a narrow cot and a waste bucket. Bars form the front wall of every cell, offering no privacy.
“Your accommodations,” the guard announces with mocking formality. “One recruit per cell. Mess call is twice daily. Training begins at dawn.”
They assign us cells seemingly at random. Mine is near the middle of the cavern, flanked by Lira's cell on one side and an empty one on the other. The cot smells of sweat and despair. Previous occupants have carved tallies and crude messages into the stone walls.
43 daysreads one set of marks.Remember the skysays another.THEY LIEis gouged deeply above the cot.
As the guards retreat, leaving only two posted at the cavern entrance, the women begin to speak quietly among themselves, voices carrying from cell to cell.
“How long is training?” someone asks.
“Until half of us are dead,” answers another voice. “Then the survivors get dragons.”
“I heard they feed the weak ones to the hatchlings,” says a third.
Lira snorts from her cell. “They’re unlikely to waste meat like that. The weak ones will probably go to the beast pits. Entertainment for the trainers.”
A cold silence falls. In the distance, metal screams against stone, followed by a roar that makes the very air vibrate.
“We're probably beneath the hatchery,” Lira murmurs, seeing my startled expression. “Makes sense to keep the eggs and young ones down here where it's hottest. The fighting pits are also above us. The real arena is built into the mountain's crater.”
“You know something about this place?” I ask, moving closer to the bars that separate our cells.
She shrugs. “Not much. My cousin was caught three years ago. Never came back, of course. For all I know, a spine-tail took his head off before the lower-tier games began. But since then, I… tried to scrape up as much information as I could about this place. Mostly rumors.” Her fingers trace one of the tattoos on her neck—a stylized dragon claw, I realize now. “I always figured they'd come for me eventually.”
I swallow. “And now they have.”
“And now they have,” she agrees darkly.
I sit on the edge of my cot, wincing as my newly marked wrist throbs. “So what's the trick to surviving this place?”
