The Sergeant’s voice is a hammer. “To the line.”

  Gai puts one foot forward and the world shrinks to the white chalk arc on the dirt, the half-moon that splits the coliseum’s killing ground into his and Mack’s. There are rules here, but every muscle in Gai’s arms braces for the moment those rules break. Mack steps up to his own mark, feet planted, chin raised: the same as he was in training, but none of the swagger survives in this air. His stare is fever-hot; Gai recognizes it because it’s a perfect match for the one burning behind his own eyes.

  The crowd presses in, thousands of bodies packed into the stands. The air tastes like rain and old sweat, salt from the harbour and smoke from the torches flaring in the galleries. Somewhere above the din, a bell rings twice—sharp and final. Gai studies Mack in the moment between, noting every muscle, every tell: the way his left hand flexes, the way his jaw sets, the way his stance favours the back leg so he can move fast.

  The Sergeant doesn’t waste time. “First to knockout or submission. No killing. No maiming. You know the consequences.” He turns to Gai, voice a notch lower. “Royal eyes on you, Guard. Don’t embarrass your House.”

  Gai feels the bracers on his wrists, sudden and heavy. The blue filaments pulse in time with his heart.

  A voice booms from the crowd, loud enough to startle the front rows, a ripple of magic woven through the sound. It vibrates the boards under Gai's boots. “Honoured guests and citizens of Bodubania, the Council of Arieruro brings you today’s opening match!” The rest of the words are lost under a fresh tide of noise, but Gai feels the pressure of every face in the stands, every hope for a spectacle that won’t end clean.

  There’s no clear source for the voice. Gai looks up, hunting for a flag or horn, but all he sees are the packed rows of the stands—city folk in patched coats, a few merchant lords braving the rain in velvet, and higher up, the glitter of council seats under a canopy of gold brocade. At the edge of that canopy, he marks the blue of Elle’s dress. She leans in, whispering to a woman beside her, but even from here, Gai can tell she’s watching only him. Her face is blank, but her eyes are gold and wide and impossible to misread. She sees him. He stands up straighter, bracers cold on his wrists.

  Next to Elle—there, unmistakably, is Lionel. The General’s hair is trimmed harsh, his jaw set at a sceptical angle, but he wears the city’s formal blue uniform—no rank, no medals, just plain cut and a white sash. He’s bigger than Gai remembers, and older, and for a moment Gai feels the urge to turn away before something in Lionel’s look holds him there. No nod. No sign. But the message is clear: stand your ground.

  The crowd hushes again as the announcer’s magic rides a gust of wind through the stadium. “Guard Gai, son of General Lionel, representing the Royal Host!” The words clang across the pit, and Gai sees Mack’s eyebrows climb. “Facing Mack, Fleet Recruit of the Bodubanian Navy!” Another cheer, muddier this time—a few baritone shouts, the rest drowned by the scrape of boots. It’s almost funny. Gai wonders if Mack would have said something about it, if things were normal.

  Mack looks at Gai with a different evaluation now, eyes darker, jaw working hard. “So that’s how it is,” he mutters, voice pitched for Gai alone. "Nepotism, then. All along."

  Gai lets the accusation hang. He wants to spit it back—wants to say, You know that’s not true; you know I’m just here like you, just a body in the line—but the words taste like mud and he doesn’t trust his tongue not to stumble. He rolls his shoulders, shrugs the charge off, and settles into the stance Lionel drilled into him on a hundred muddy mornings. Maybe that’s all he’ll ever be: the guy who stands up, takes the first hit, and keeps going until someone calls it.

  The Sergeant’s hand slices the air. “Bow. Begin.”

  The bell rings for the last time. A hush drops—not silence, but a tightening, a coil of every eye on the field, every muscle waiting. Gai bows. Mack bows lower, never breaking his stare.

  Gai expects a testing step, maybe a feint or the old wrestler's handshake Mack always tried on him in barracks. Instead, Mack closes the distance in two short strides and slams his shoulder right into—

  No. Gai's already moving, reading the charge in the set of Mack's shoulders. He pivots on his left foot, letting momentum carry him aside while his right hand shoves against Mack's back, using his friend's own force to send him stumbling past. The bracers pulse faintly at his wrists—untested, waiting.

  Gai shakes out his arms and grins. "You always had a shit sense of timing," he says, mostly to steady himself.

  Mack doesn’t smile. “Did you always have a shit sense of loyalty?” he snaps, grinding his heel into the chalk. “You didn’t tell me about your father.”

  Gai blinks, caught off guard. “Didn’t know until yesterday.”

  “Oh, so it just slipped your mind?” Mack’s face is all sharp edges—harder than it ever was in training. “They say you’re getting a commission. That you’re in the Princess’s pocket. Is that how it works now?”

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  Gai wants to tell him about the council, the secret, the feeling of being a pawn in two games he never asked to play. He wants to say, I’m still me, you idiot. But the words aren’t there. “Doesn’t matter,” he says instead. “We’re both in the ring, Mack. That’s all that counts.”

  “It matters to me.” Mack spits on the line, just beside Gai’s toe. Then he’s moving—low and fast, left hand jabbing for Gai’s throat while the right comes around with a fistful of powdery ice, conjured from nothing. Gai ducks the punch and takes the cold slap across the cheek. It stings, but not as much as the next elbow, aimed at his ear. Gai rolls with it, lets Mack over-commit, and pivots to get behind him.

  Mack is heavier, but Gai’s always been more stubborn. He grapples Mack’s waist, tries to sweep the leg, but Mack plants and pivots. They’re locked, knee to knee, breath steaming in each other’s faces. Gai tastes copper and rain. The crowd’s roar blurs to a white noise, background for the violence of the moment.

  Mack grinds his forearm into Gai’s neck and hisses, “You’re not the only one who gets left behind, you know. The fleet ships out tomorrow. They put me in the first wave. You get your parade, I get to die in Claymond.”

  Gai tries to break the hold, but Mack’s grip is a vice. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  “Neither did I.” Mack shoves hard. Gai stumbles, almost falls, and in the moment it takes to recover, Mack is already drawing from the air—hands pale, breath coming fast, sweat beading on his temple. The temperature drops so fast that Gai’s skin tightens, every breath burning cold.

  Mack exhales, and the space between them goes dead, all the humidity in the air gone sharp, gone brittle, in the time it takes a heart to beat. The sand at Mack’s feet ices over, slick and glassy, and Gai has just enough time to register the frost climbing his boots before needles of frozen rain explode from every direction—horizontal, vertical, swirling in a spiral that cages him in. It’s beautiful, in the way a breaking bone is beautiful: elegant lines, perfect structure, designed for pain.

  Gai ducks. He’s too slow, and the first wave of ice slices his ear, blood instantly numbed by the cold. He tears off his cloak at the shoulder and yanks it up, the old wool catching most of the barrage, the rest punching through to leave bright, blooming marks on his forearms and neck. The bracers hum, the blue lines flaring as they absorb the worst of a direct hit, but even so, the force of impact drives him to his knees.

  He grits his teeth and rolls sideways, cloak still raised, catching the next volley as Mack adjusts his footing and makes a fist. The crowd loves it; the noise is a living thing, hungry for escalation. Gai knows Mack’s fighting to win, but this is something else—there’s real heat in it, the kind that says, I want you to feel this.

  He bails out of the teeth of the storm, rolling to the edge of the pit, buying a half-second of quiet. Mack stalks him, boots carving furrows in the frost, already shaping a new trick. He’s always been like this—learns fast, improvises faster, never lets you play the same game twice.

  Gai circles, giving ground, letting Mack own the centre. There’s a shallow wash at the edge of the pit, rainwater pooling blue-black in the shadow of the stands. Mack sees it at the same time, wades in up to his ankles, and reaches down. The pond answers: a spear of ice, long as a pike and honed to a shimmer, blooms from the surface, spinning up into Mack’s palm with a crack like breaking bones.

  “Don’t look away,” Mack barks, and he hurls the spear with both fists, aiming dead for Gai’s heart.

  The rules say no killing. The crowd says otherwise.

  Gai throws himself sideways, the ice spear barely missing his ribs. There’s a whip of wind and a spray of freezing mist. Mack shouts after him, “As nimble as ever, squid!”—the old insult, spat with new venom. Gai’s boots slip on the glazed-over sand, legs buckling. He lands hard, the breath punched from his lungs, looking at where the ice spear is buried a solid metre into the ground where his heart would’ve been, the shaft still humming with cold.

  The second spear forms without warning—pulled into existence by trembling rain and the sharp flick of Mack's wrist. No wind-up, just pure acceleration as it blurs through the air, its point glittering like a falling star. The crowd howls as it plummets straight down, a stake meant for monsters.

  Gai’s arms cross on instinct. The bracers meet the strike with a soundless impact, blue filaments shattering the ice into a cloud of steam and hail. The force hammers through bone and tendon; for a second his hands go numb. Light blinds him, not white but that drowned blue of deep water, and the veins on his forearms stand out, the bracers’ charge working through the meat of him before fading.

  He staggers, but stays up. Mack’s face is wild—caught somewhere between triumph and disbelief—but he’s already moving, arms up, calling the freeze. A new volley of crystal darts, dozens at once, ripples the air. Not for show: aimed at the face, the soft parts, the places where scars grow slow. Gai doesn't think, just yanks both hands up and triggers the bracers’ release. The world clicks into slow motion. A blast of blue shockwave peels outward, smashing the darts into powder and knocking Mack off his feet. The afterblast makes Gai’s ears ring and strips the wet layer clean off the sand for a meter radius.

  He runs and drops, letting his knees slide through the slurry, momentum carrying him forward. Mack is sprawled and dazed on his back, arms pinwheeling for purchase but finding none on the glassy mud. Gai’s blade is in his hand—he doesn’t remember drawing it, but it’s there, pressed firm to the curve of Mack’s windpipe as Gai kneels over him.

  “Yield,” Gai spits, breathing rough. His own vision tunnels, every heartbeat a flash of blue behind his eyelids.

  Mack freezes. For a moment, nothing but the sound of the crowd and the hush of rain. Then, sharp as a snapped branch: “You first,” Mack croaks, his neck arched like he wants to bite the knife. But he doesn’t move.

  The Sergeant is already stomping over, boots tearing ruts through the ice and sand. “Didn’t know you could hit that hard, squid,” Mack rasps, blinking salt and rain from his eyes. He tries to rise and fails, flopping onto his side as the Sergeant hauls Gai upright by the bracers, nearly popping his still-numb shoulder out of joint.

  The crowd is a solid wall of noise now, the kind that shudders the teeth. Mack grins, ugly and blood-specked, and hisses, “Next time, you won’t have those bracers. Or me holding back.” His voice is warbling, and Gai sees the truth in it: Mack didn’t want to lose, but some part of him is glad it’s over and he won’t have to carry the weight another step.

  The Sergeant yanks Mack up by the scruff, shakes him once to see if he’ll stay standing, then plants him shoulder-to-shoulder with Gai. “Shake,” he commands. “Let them see you’re not animals.”

  Mack spits blood to the side—deliberate, right in front of the nobility section—and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He sticks out a fist. Gai bumps it. There’s a squeeze, then a tiny, mean twist that almost breaks Gai’s thumb. The old games, dressed up for a new world. But this time, Mack’s grip lingers, not letting go until he’s sure Gai won’t stumble.

  “Don’t get soft, Gai,” Mack says, voice barely above the stadium’s roar. “Next time, I’m not holding back.” His face cracks, the usual joking mask returned for a breath, but the eyes underneath are hollowed out and older than the last time Gai saw them.

  The Sergeant raises both their arms, then drops Mack’s like a spent tool. With his free hand, Mack tugs Gai down until their heads nearly touch. “Look, I’m only pissed ‘cause you’re stuck here in velvet and wine while the rest of us get shipped off to die in a swamp. We—me, Sorren, Louis—we were supposed to be out together. Now they’ve got us split three ways and you’re the parade boy.” He lets it go and shoves Gai back, hard enough to sting, but not to hurt.

  “I didn’t choose it,” Gai huffs, but Mack’s already turning, face to the grandstand, already moving ahead of the escort who’s supposed to drag him off.

  The Sergeant gives Gai a look that’s equal parts caution and approval, then releases his grip. “Move it. Don’t stand around gawking.” Gai watches Mack’s retreating back, jaw set tight. The noise from the stands dulls in his ears as he turns and heads for the exit, doing exactly as he’s told.