“Commander Marrek,” I hear someone whisper in a trembling voice. “Head of the Ironhold training program.”
Marrek surveys the assembled recruits with the dispassionate gaze of a butcher assessing livestock. When he speaks, his voice carries effortlessly through the chamber without shouting.
“Look to your left,” he commands. “Look to your right.”
Heads turn obediently.
“By the end of the month, two out of every three people here will be dead.” His tone is matter-of-fact, devoid of either cruelty or compassion. “This is not a threat. This is not meant to frighten you. This is simply the reality of your situation.” He begins topace, hands clasped behind his back. “For you should now consider your purpose here singular: entertainment.”
Near the front, a burly male with a miner's build shifts nervously. Without breaking stride, Marrek signals to a handler. Before anyone can react, a lightning spear touches the man’s back. He drops to his knees, convulsing.
“Absolute stillness when I speak,” Marrek continues as if nothing happened. “First lesson.”
The man is dragged onto a bench, still twitching.
“Some of you believe you are special. Some of you think your strength, your cunning, or your bloodline will save you.” His gaze sweeps over us, lingering momentarily on Tomas, who still holds himself tall, elegant, even here. “Abandon these delusions,” Marrek’s voice booms, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. “In the Ironhold, you are nothing. You will die screaming, or you will make them scream for you.”
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, hisvoice 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 provincesanymore; 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.”
