I stayed there, the grit sticking to the blood at my lips, my body refusing me.
Turtanu lifted his hand. The noise cut off. Even the giant froze.
“Enough,” Turtanu said, voice low, steady. His eyes burned into me as I lay there, broken in the dirt. “The lion’s line is ended. His cub is fit only for the pyres.”
The crowd erupted again, and the verdict was passed.
And in that moment—half-conscious, bloodied, the dust choking me—I knew I had lost. Not just the fight. But the name. The shadow of my father. The ghost of my brother.
And something inside me shifted.
If I could not win their honor, I would take it another way. I would make them choke on my name. Not with songs at the fire. But with blood in their throats.
The roar flipped—from jeers to a hard, hungry cheer. I spat blood and forced my head up.
In the other ring, Lazarus was already fighting.
A soldier swung a wooden blade; Lazarus took it on his forearm and drove through, shoulder smashing the man flat into the sand. Another came in fast—Lazarus pivoted, heel grinding dust, and cracked a fist across his jaw. The snap of it rolled the yard. A third tried to circle; Lazarus feinted, slammed an elbow into the ribs, then a knee—air left the man in a grunt.
He wasn’t supposed to look like that. Move like that.
He’d grown up with nothing—no tutors, no training yards, no warlord father barking drills until dawn. Only hunger. Only alley fists. Only years of being outnumbered and choosing to stand anyway.
He didn’t fight pretty. He fought to end things. Each hit landed. Every grab turned into a throw. His body moved like it had been taught by pain and practice the streets never wrote down.
The crowd that had mocked me now slammed shields with their fists.
“Lazarus! Lazarus!”
Sandals pounded the dirt in rhythm to his name.
I watched, ribs blazing where the giant had cracked me, while he tore through men as if the yard itself had been waiting for him. He wasn’t chasing glory. He wasn’t chasing a name. He fought the only way he’d ever learned—by refusing the ground.
My childhood had been war in silken halls, scars hidden beneath linen. Every bruise, every strike, had been meant to hone me into my father’s image.
But all it had made me was hollow.
And Lazarus—raised with nothing—fought with the strength of a man who had lifted himself from dust. His fists swung like hammers. His eyes burned with a fire I had never carried. He fought not for blood, not for legacy, but because he would not bend, would not break.
He was victorious, raw and alive, while I lay in the dirt with ghosts clawing at my chest.
Turtanu watched. Arms crossed. Face unreadable. His scarred eye slid from Lazarus—bloodied, panting, unbroken—to me, sprawled with blood drying at my lips.
A sneer split his ruined mouth. His voice carried without needing to shout.
“Look well, men!” His voice cracked through the yard. “Do you see this? This is no lord’s son. This is no lion’s cub. This—” he stabbed a finger toward Lazarus, who stood tall in the dust—“this is strength. No tutors. No noble halls. No father drilling him bloody. Only hunger. Only fists. Only fire.”
The crowd howled, stamping, pounding shields, the chant of his name shaking the ground.
“And that—” Turtanu’s hand slashed toward me, his voice spitting like venom—“that is the other side. A boy of linen halls. A pampered lamb in a lion’s skin. He bleeds for nothing. His father’s shadow will bury him. His brother’s ghost will haunt him. And when war calls, he will piss dust and die.”
The laughter detonated—louder than fists, filthier than spit. It crawled into my ears, pressed into my skull, until I thought it would split me open. Every sound was scorn. Every face was a sneer carved in dust.
Lazarus stood in the other ring, chest heaving, blood streaking his brow, eyes blazing like he’d swallowed the fucking sun. Men clapped his back, shouted his name until the dust shook loose from the air. They crowned him with their voices while I drowned in mine.
And me—my ribs screamed where the giant had cracked me, my cheek throbbed, blood filled my mouth. I had been trained my whole life to be a lion. And I had been ripped apart by the same men who now sang Lazarus’ name. By the same commander who had stood beside my father and now damned me to shadow.
“Salvatore!”
