The school’s two on-site Healers had moved in to treat injuries as soon as each match concluded, and the pits were clear again just a few minutes later. Soon after, the ten combatants made their way back up the observation room, entering through the door in the opposite wall. Many showed signs of recent healing, though the front of Caleb’s sweatshirt was wet with slowly drying blood, and Silt was leaning heavily on Orca’s arm.
Nikolai ignored the returning combatants and read the next five pairs off his list. Once again, I hadn’t been called. The four of us who had yet to fight stared each other down, paying very little attention as the next five matches kicked off.
Of my three possible opponents, Alan Jackson was by far the biggest threat. I watched his toaster-sized hands clench slowly into fists, release, and then clench again, the dull crunching sound audible despite the noise from the pits. Second on that list was my new roommate, every bit as large as Alan, but nowhere near as menacing, his bushy, black beard notwithstanding.
They each had a hundred pounds and six or more inches of reach on me, but based on the matchups we’d seen so far, I was pretty sure Nikolai would pair them against each other. That left me the fourth and final first-year; half a foot shorter than I was, pale-eyed and pudgy. He was the student who had thrown up when Santiago broke Caleb’s nose.
Finally, life was throwing me a fucking bone.
•—•—•
As expected, Alan and Jeremiah were dispatched to the first pit. But after calling on the fat kid, who went by the awe-inspiring codename of Prince, Nikolai looked to the first-years who had already fought.
“Olympia, you’re up.”
“I already fought, Professor,” she reminded him. “I shouldn’t have to go again.”
“You quit the moment the door closed,” he growled, “which does absolutely fuck-all for you or any of us. Try again or get out of my class.”
Whatever else you could say about the Lightbringer, it was clear she wanted to be a Cape. She swallowed her protests, shot the professor a silver-eyed glare, and followed Prince down into the pits, slamming the door shut behind her.
I coughed in the sudden silence. “So… do I just get an A or what?”
That cold smile flickered back across Nikolai’s face. “Can’t do that. Wouldn’t be fair to the other first-years.” Beady eyes met mine, and that smile widened as he raised his voice. “Paladin, you’re up again.”
Fucking hell.
I did my best to keep any reaction off my face as I turned and went through the designated door. A long hallway curved around and down to the next level, where five doors led to the individual pits. As I watched, the door to the last pit opened, and two stretchers exited, carrying the groaning forms of the women who’d been paired up. White hair identified one of them as Winter, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention to her fight to know who her opponent had been, or even which of them had won. From the looks of it, neither was going to be feeling much like a victor any time soon.
The first two pits were occupied, but I ignored Nikolai’s orders to enter the third, walking past its door without stopping. The fourth pit got the same treatment, but I stopped at the final pit—the one the stretchers had just left—and stepped in. The concrete floor was splattered with blood—some of it from Caleb’s broken nose, and some of it from Winter and her opponent—and the gruesome décor fit my mood perfectly.
Teacher wanted to see my ass get kicked by a Stalwart?
Fuck if I was going down without a fight.
CHAPTER 19
The pits were bigger than they’d looked on the monitor. Fifteen, maybe twenty feet across, with walls that rose at least that high, making the arena’s ceiling feel impossibly far away. Those walls were rough stone, empty of ornamentation, bare of anything other than the door we’d come through, the door that had shut and locked behind us.
Distant ceiling, locked door, stone walls… and blood. I could see it, dark pools on the floor and glistening geometric patterns across the closest arc of the wall. More than that, I could smell it. People say a lot of things about how blood smells; they say it’s metallic, say it’s coppery, say it’s foul and polluted.
To me, it smells like home on that last day. Smells like the pie in the oven that’s going to burn and burn and keep burning until only ash is left because she’s not there to take it out, because she’ll never be there to take it out, and because everyone else is too busy with why that’s suddenly the case.
Mom’s ghost hadn’t followed me into the arena. I’m not sure if that was the dampeners at work or if she just wasn’t in the mood. Maybe blood made her remember too. Maybe she didn’t want to remember. That was the difference between us, I guess. I didn’t ever want to forget.
I looked around one last time to make sure she was gone. Then I turned to Paladin.
Whatever he saw in my face had him taking a half-step back before he caught himself. Just that tiny flinch, and then he was stoic and unassailable again, but I took it as a victory. He had some portion of his powers; speed, strength, agility… all the shit that mixes together to make a perfect fighter. He had his skill and his training.
All I had was my memory and the thick smell of blood.
It wasn’t going to be enough, couldn’t be enough, but even a dumbass like Caleb had probably figured that much out when Paladin’s name was called.
Can’t doesn’t always mean won’t, and it sure as fuck doesn’t mean don’t.
When Nikolai’s voice came, it rumbled like thunder from the speakers, more sound
