Chapter Sixteen:

  “To Challenge Gods”

  The sun was sinking low by the time they returned to the upper tiers of Nerathe.

  The guards did not follow. The gates behind them sealed with a groan of ancient stone, as if the coliseum itself was content to spit them out.

  They paused on a crumbling stairway that overlooked the ruined plazas and empty temples of the city. The light was brittle, sharp, painting the marble in hues of blood and ash.

  John leaned heavily against the railing, his arms folded tight. The blood still soaked into the soles of his boots. He could feel it.

  Helen sat down on the broken steps, sword across her lap. She didn’t look at anyone. Her disgust was carved into every line of her body.

  Dorian paced a short distance away, muttering to himself, kicking small stones off the edge without watching them fall.

  RW perched nearby, tail curled tight around her paws, her eyes unblinking.

  Rai stood slightly apart from them all, staring at the city stretched out below. The breeze stirred her hair, but she didn’t move.

  For a long time, no one spoke.

  Then Roland said it.

  "He died because of me."

  The words fell like a stone into water.

  John turned. Slowly.

  "No," he said. "He died because they demanded it."

  Roland’s hands tightened at his sides. "They said it was balance. Blood for breath."

  "They lied," Helen said without looking up.

  "They always lie," RW added, voice low.

  Dorian stopped pacing. "They killed him because we made them bleed pride. That's all."

  Roland’s eyes stayed fixed on the horizon.

  "It still happened."

  John stepped forward, the weight of everything they’d endured pressing down on his spine, but not breaking it.

  "It happened," John said. "But it’s not on you. It’s on them. And we're going to make damn sure they don't get to weigh life like coins again."

  Rai finally turned from the view. Her voice was quiet, but sure.

  "We end them."

  No arguments followed.

  The last of the sun bled out of the sky.

  And the city of Nerathe waited in the growing dark.

  The city did not sleep.

  Not truly.

  Even with the trials paused and the crowds vanished, Nerathe throbbed with the mean, expectant silence of a thing that wanted to be fed and was growing impatient. Fires burned low in stone braziers. Guard patrols stalked rooftops and alley shadows like echoes that hadn't faded. The coliseum behind them loomed black against the horizon, its arches empty but watching.

  The group found shelter in the ruins of an old temple, its roof long collapsed, its pillars carved with forgotten names. Crumbled murals—frescoes, painted directly onto plaster centuries ago—showed warriors in tangled battle, gods offering weapons to mortals whose faces had eroded with time.

  John built a fire in the hollow of a shattered altar, the flint scraping loud against the quiet. Sparks flared, and still the others only watched, each tangled in their own storm of thought.

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  Rai sat near the edge, cross-legged, eyes scanning the ruined courtyard beyond. Dorian leaned against a broken column, arms folded, jaw tense.

  Helen unrolled a length of cloth and cleaned her blade in silence. The sound of metal whispering against linen was the only rhythm in the dark.

  RW curled in a patch of moonlight. Watching. Listening.

  And Roland stared into the fire like he expected it to answer him.

  It was Dorian who spoke first.

  "So what now?"

  No one answered.

  "We’re not going back to the games," he added. "That part’s done. So what’s the next move?"

  John finally broke the tension. “We take the fight to them. And we don’t just walk—if we need to, we burn our way out. We still have Realmweaver. If this place closes its gates, we open our own.”

  Rai looked over her shoulder. “The Triarchs?”

  He nodded once. “They killed that boy. They made the rules. Time we break them.”

  Dorian uncrossed his arms. “You’re saying we challenge gods?”

  “No,” RW said from the shadows. “You challenge tyrants who think they are.”

  Helen lifted her blade, now clean. “Then we draw them out. Force their hand.”

  Rai’s voice was low but sure. “We do it loud. Public. Make the city watch them bleed.”

  RW’s tail flicked. “And after they bleed, we use Realmweaver. Let them hide their doors—we brought our own.”

  The fire cracked. The wind shifted.

  Far in the distance, a bell rang once.

  Not for them.

  But it reminded them that someone was still keeping time.

  John looked around the circle. "We move at dawn."

  No one disagreed.

  Night clung to Nerathe.

  But they would not let it hold them.

  Dawn rose bloodless.

  No trumpet. No chimes. Just the slow burn of light behind hills and a wind that smelled faintly of old iron. The streets of Nerathe were nearly empty, but not dead. Doors were closed. Banners were lowered. And the guards were already watching.

  The six walked in plain sight. No disguises. No pretense. Boots on stone. Blades at their backs. Eyes forward.

  John led. RW padded silently at his side.

  They passed the outer temples first, those still untouched by blood. Statues of gods with chipped mouths and vine-bound arms. Cracked urns filled with half-burned prayers.

  Helen eyed the offerings. "Do you think any of them listen?"

  "They listen," RW said. "They just don’t care."

  Dorian gave a tight shrug. "Then it’s time someone made them."

  They moved deeper.

  Roland stayed near the back, but not silent. His eyes tracked the statues and scorched banners with a simmering clarity.

  “This place feels wrong,” he said quietly. “Not just evil, but somehow familiar. Like I walked through ruins like these in a nightmare.”

  Helen glanced back at him. “Who knows what you endured in that place. Are you starting to remember?”

  Roland nodded. “Not all of it. Just enough to know it sucked.”

  At the edge of the judicial tier—a raised plaza beneath the highest step of the Triarchs’ spire—RW stopped.

  “There,” she said.

  A circular recess had been carved into the stone, long filled with rubble and sand. Faint carvings ringed its edge—three crowns, a spiral, a gate with no key.

  Rai crouched beside it. "This used to be something."

  RW nodded. "A transit chamber. Very old. Older than Nerathe. They buried it after the uprising. Sealed it during the reign of the last divine."

  John stepped forward. “Can you open it?”

  RW’s eyes glowed faintly. “Yes. But once it opens, they’ll come.”

  Helen rolled her shoulders. “Let them.”

  John gave the nod.

  RW’s paw pressed into a weathered glyph. It flared blue, then white.

  Stone groaned.

  The platform sank.

  A spiral stairway unraveled beneath them. Warm air rushed up.

  The moment they stepped onto the first stair, horns sounded in the distance.

  The city was no longer watching.

  It was answering.

  And above them, the Triarchs stirred.

  RW’s paw hovered over the final glyph.

  “Once I touch this,” she said, “they’ll feel it.”

  John gave the nod. “Good.”

  She pressed her paw flat against the stone.

  The glyph flared—bright, blue-white.

  And the world changed.

  The air split.

  In a blink, the chamber, the stairs, the city—all of it vanished.

  They were no longer underground.

  They were back in the coliseum.

  But not in the arena.

  They stood directly beneath the Triarchs’ high seat, on the sacred marble dais no one had touched in centuries. The arena floor was empty. The sky above bruised with storm.

  A hum filled the air—power, rising and coiling. Then, with a flicker like fire catching oil, the Triarchs appeared.

  Damarion stood first, arms folded, eyes sharp as cut obsidian. Thessala drifted beside him, her porcelain mask newly gilded, the cracks lit from within. Calix appeared last, lounging in the air as though gravity were a toy. All three stared down at the six below.

  “You should not be here,” Thessala said. No anger. Just simple truth.

  Calix’s smile held more teeth than mirth. “We let you go. Why crawl back into the jaws of a beast you barely escaped?”

  Roland stepped forward.

  His voice didn’t tremble.

  “We’re not here to crawl.”

  He raised his chin.

  “We’re here to end you.”

  The words echoed, vast and defiant.

  John moved to his side. Then Rai. Then Helen. Dorian cracked his knuckles. RW growled, low and certain.

  Calix arched an eyebrow. “End us? Bold. But disappointing.”

  Damarion leaned forward. “You believe you’ve found strength. What you’ve found is the limit of your reach.”

  “We’re not asking,” John said. “We’re challenging you. Mortal combat. Us against you.”

  The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

  It was hungry.

  Thessala tilted her head. “You dare to invoke the Rite?”

  Dorian stepped up. “We don’t need to know your rules to tear you down.”

  Calix laughed, low and rich. “A challenge. Formal. Final. Mortal.”

  He turned to the others. “Shall we entertain them?”

  Damarion’s smile was slow, savage. “I have not stretched my blade in centuries.”

  Thessala’s voice was a whisper of silk. “Let them bleed their truth, if they wish.”

  Calix’s eyes lit with silver. “Then let it be heard. The Rite is accepted.”

  Thunder rolled above.

  And below, the marble trembled beneath their feet.