"You..." she snarled, the word slicing through the charged air like a whipcrack.
She exploded toward me in a blur of feral speed, her body a coiled spring of lethal intent.
Magic crackled around her fingertips, wild, violet arcs that promised to unravel flesh from bone in a single devastating surge.
Her eyes burned with raw hatred, pupils dilated into bottomless pits of rage. She was done with games, done with the spectacle. This was personal. She meant to end me here and now, to paint the arena floor with my blood and claim whatever twisted glory the crowd would grant her.
I knew, in that frozen heartbeat, that I was doomed.
My muscles screamed in protest, already battered from the previous clashes. The field's sand... once golden and pristine, had turned into a churned mire of blood, sweat, and scorched earth.
She never finished her threat.
