I stood on my feet after one of the sentinels lifted me up, their rough hands gripping my arms like iron clamps.
At least, I tried to.
I straightened with everything I had left, forcing my spine to lock into place, lifting my chin high as if the world hadn't just watched me bleed and fight and nearly die in front of a roaring, crowd. I tried to pretend everything was okay, that my body would obey the way it always had before, strong, reliable, mine.
It didn't.
My body refused to play this game any longer.
Everything stopped at once.
The deafening noise of the field, the savage shouting, the chaotic movement around me, it all faded and drifted away. The world didn't vanish; it simply receded, like I was sinking slowly underwater. Sounds stretched and warped into distant echoes, light bent into smeared, hazy patches of torchfire and shadow. The blood-soaked sand beneath my feet, the sentinels, the entire field blurred into something unreal and far away.
My body surrendered before my mind could catch up.
The adrenaline that had kept me upright drained out in one brutal, final rush, like a heavy door slamming shut behind me. It left nothing in its wake, no strength, no lingering anger, not even the sharp edge of fear. Only a vast, hollow stillness that felt strangely gentle, almost peaceful in its emptiness.
My legs buckled without warning. My knees slammed hard into the ground, the impact jarring through bone, yet somehow muted and distant, as if it were happening to someone else entirely.
I remember thinking, with strange, crystal clarity in that final moment,
"So this is what peace feels like."
Then the world went black.
---
I woke to a soft, enveloping darkness.
Not the violent kind I had grown used to. No blaring alarms tearing through my skull, no screaming pain ripping me apart from the inside. Just quiet... thick, heavy, and strangely comforting, like a warm blanket pressed gently over my eyelids.
It was night.
It took me several long, disoriented heartbeats to register that simple fact.
The air had cooled considerably, brushing against my exposed skin with a faint, soothing chill. It carried the muted, layered scent of lamp oil mixed with crushed healing herbs, something sharp and medicinal yet oddly grounding, like a quiet promise that the worst had passed. My body ached everywhere in a deep, persistent soreness that radiated from every joint and muscle, but the pain felt dull now.
I tried to move, testing the limits of whatever fragile recovery my body had managed.
I failed.
"Don't," a soft voice said immediately, calm but firm. "You'll tear something if you keep pushing like that."
I turned my head slowly, every small motion slow and careful, as if my neck might shatter under the weight of its own effort.
Liora.
She sat beside the narrow cot, knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped loosely around them in a protective curl. Her long black hair spilled freely over her shoulders, catching the faint, flickering glow of a single lantern hanging on the nearby wall. Shadows clung heavily beneath her eyes, exhaustion carved plainly across her delicate features, but the moment she saw me awake, a wave of genuine relief softened everything, warming her expression like dawn breaking through storm clouds.
"What happened?" I rasped, the words scraping against my dry, tight throat.
"You fainted," she said gently, her voice carrying the kind of quiet patience that made the room feel a little less heavy.
My pulse quickened with the realization. "How long?"
"Most of the day." she said
I had missed everything, the rest of the trials, the final culls, the brutal victories that decided who lived and who didn't.
"So… I missed it all… and you won your fights?" I asked, the question tasting bitter on my tongue.
She nodded once, then offered a small, wry smile. "If I hadn't, would I be sitting here right now?"
I realized then how foolish the question had sounded, but the fog in my mind made it hard to care.
We moved past it.
I stared up at the cracked ceiling, tracing the faint, spiderweb lines in the dim light while fragmented memories rushed back in jagged pieces: the press of bodies in the field, the flash of steel, the hot spill of my own blood across the sand, the sudden intervention of the knife.
"…I hope I didn't cause you any trouble?" I whispered, guilt threading through the exhaustion.
"You survived," Liora said firmly, a small but genuine smile breaking through the weariness on her face. "That's what matters right now."
Silence stretched between us, thick and heavy but not uncomfortable, like a shared breath in the quiet dark.
Then curiosity crept in anyway, unwanted, sharp, and insistent.
"The others…?"
Her jaw tightened just a fraction. "Most of them didn't last long. Quick ends, for the most part. Cleaner than some of the others I've seen."
She shifted closer on the stool, leaning in slightly. "But your last opponent... people won't stop talking about that one. They say no one's ever taken down a hybrid that fast without calling on forbidden magic."
I said nothing, letting the words hang. My fingers twitched restlessly against the coarse blanket.
I had only survived because someone, for whatever reason, had decided I was worth stepping in for. Before I could even form the question about that shadowed figure with the knife, Liora spoke again, as if she could read the thought straight from my racing mind.
"And the one who helped you," she continued quietly, her tone careful. "The one with the knife."
My fingers tightened on the blanket.
"What happened to him?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Liora exhaled slowly, the sound heavy with reluctance. "After he won his own fight… they punished him for interfering."
My stomach dropped, a cold weight settling in. "How?"
She looked away for a moment, toward the shadowed corner of the room. "Ten strokes."
"…With what?"
She hesitated, then answered. "A flat rod. The old discipline canes, the kind used in the ancient trials." Her voice carried the weight of someone sharing difficult news rather than gossip, no spark of excitement in her eyes, only quiet gravity.
I closed my eyes, the image forming too clearly behind my lids: a strong frame forced down onto cold stone, back and lower body exposed to measured, merciless blows.
"They made him lie flat on his stomach," she added softly. "Didn't matter that he had already won. Didn't matter that he had survived the field. Helping you broke the sacred rules."
My chest tightened painfully, a sharp twist of guilt and something deeper I didn't want to name.
"Did he..." My voice cracked, raw and unsteady. "Did he pass out? Is he alright?"
"Yes, he is alright. And no, he didn't pass out," Liora said, her tone softening even further. "He didn't even make a single sound the whole time…"
That hurt worse somehow, the thought of silent, unbroken endurance cutting deeper than any blade.
Then, suddenly shifting, almost like a young girl sharing a secret, she added with a faint, breathless note, "Gosh… he is so handsome."
I swallowed hard against the unexpected flutter in my chest. "Ashriel? You know him?" The name slipped out before I could stop it, and I didn't even fully understand why I had asked.
Her expression changed subtly, something guarded flickering across her face.
"He didn't fight," she said quietly.
I turned my head to look at her more fully, ignoring the dull pull in my side. "What do you mean? Did he get a pass because he has a brother here?"
"Ashriel stepped onto the field, looked his opponent straight in the eye, and spoke to him." Her voice lowered, almost reverent. "I don't know what he said. No one does."
She paused, as if reliving the moment in her mind's eye.
"The other man turned his own blade on himself."
My breath caught sharply in my throat.
"No struggle," Liora went on, her words measured and quiet. "No hesitation at all. He just… obeyed and died on the spot. But there's something about Ashriel… he looked like a Greek god standing there, one hand casually in his pocket, radiating that kind of control that doesn't need steel or fists."
A chill crawled slowly up my spine, cold and lingering, raising the fine hairs on my arms.
I stared into the thick darkness beyond the lantern's glow, my body still aching, my mind spinning with uneasy thoughts.
Power came in many forms in this place.
Mine had come at the cost of blood and broken bones.
Others, it seemed, needed nothing so crude.
Liora reached out and gently adjusted the blanket higher around my shoulders, her touch light and surprisingly warm against my chilled skin.
"You should sleep," she said softly, the kindness in her voice wrapping around me like the fabric itself. "You've done enough for one lifetime already."
I didn't answer right away.
As my eyes drifted closed once more, one thought lingered, quiet, insistent, and terrifying in its simplicity.
I had survived today.
But survival here always carried a price.
And sooner or later, someone would come to collect it.
Then something struck me, sharp and sudden, cutting through the growing haze of sleep.
How did Liora know all this in such vivid detail?
She should have been busy fighting her own opponents today. Yet she didn't carry a single obvious mark, no fresh bruises blooming across her skin, no cuts or gashes, no heavy exhaustion clinging to her the way it clung to every other survivor I had seen. And she looked so completely, deceptively human. No unnatural glow beneath her skin, no sharp predatory edges, no inhuman presence lurking behind her warm eyes and soft features, just an ordinary body that made the questions multiply in my mind.
"How did you know all this?" I asked, forcing my eyes open again, suspicion threading through my weary voice. "Weren't you fighting too?"
Liora paused, her fingers stilling on the edge of the blanket.
"I was exempt," she said simply.
"Why?" I asked, genuine surprise sharpening my tone.
Why would anyone be granted exemption in these deadly trials? Unless she has someone here?…