The pit had seen men rise before.

  Some came in like wild dogs, all teeth and rage, gnashing at anything that moved. They lasted until their anger turned to exhaustion, until their unchecked fury left them slow, predictable, dead.

  Some were crafty, slinking between opponents, learning their weaknesses, adapting—until they ran into a man stronger, faster, sharper than them, a man who did not let them slink away.

  Some were monsters, creatures bred for blood, their bodies built like temples of violence, their fists and steel carving paths through the sand. But monsters could be felled. Their strength could be spent, their power overestimated, their legend crushed beneath a single well-placed blade.

  The Red Blade was something else.

  The gamblers were starting to take him seriously now. Not just as a spectacle, but as a reliable bet. His name—**not his true name, not yet, but the one they had given him—**was beginning to carry weight.

  And it was beginning to cost men their lives.

  His fourth fight came just three days after the last, and the pit wanted to see blood.

  They threw him into the ring against two men this time, a pairing meant to drag him down, to remind the gamblers that no one climbed forever.

  The first was a southern duelist, sleek and fluid, a man with more charm than common sense. He fought with a pair of curved daggers, his movements sharp, almost dancing through the dust.

  The second was a brute, shorter than the boy but twice as thick, his fists wrapped in iron-studded leather. He had no grace, only force, and he grinned as the fight began.

  They expected it to be quick.

  The crowd expected the boy to fall.

  And in the opening moments, it almost seemed like he would.

  The duelist cut him twice before he had even landed his first blow.

  The brute caught him with a hammering punch to the ribs that sent him staggering.

  For a moment, the gamblers thought they had misjudged him.

  For a moment, the pit believed in failure.

  Then the duelist lunged, expecting another easy cut—

  And the boy let him.

  He took the blade in the arm, felt the bite of steel, but did not let the man escape.

  The counter-strike came too fast, too hard.

  His fist cracked against the duelist’s skull, sent him reeling—and then the boy took his blade.

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  He did not fight with elegance.

  He did not move like the men trained to wield such weapons.

  But he was fast.

  And fast was enough.

  The second opponent moved in, but by then, the fight was over.

  The boy stabbed the brute in the throat before the crowd had even processed what had happened.

  The duelist tried to scramble away, but there was nowhere to go.

  The boy cut him apart in the sand.

  When it was over, the crowd erupted.

  Not just because he had won.

  But because they had seen the moment something clicked.

  He was not just learning how to survive.

  He was learning how to kill.

  The fifth fight was uglier.

  Marion had seen fighters rise before. He had seen men become legends in the pit. But none of them had done it like this.

  The Red Blade was not performing.

  He was not fighting for the crowd, not flexing his muscles between kills, not preening for the gamblers placing ever-larger bets on his survival.

  He fought like a man being hunted, every match another desperate struggle to stay above water.

  And that was what made him terrifying.

  His fifth opponent was a veteran, one of the pit’s favorites, a showman called Karvin the Storm.

  Karvin was a fighter built for the spectacle of it all. He wielded a massive two-handed sword, carried himself with the presence of a warrior who had already earned his fame.

  He had his own chant.

  The pit loved him.

  And that was why they wanted him to kill the boy.

  The match lasted longer than any of the others.

  Karvin was better.

  He was stronger, faster, had experience that should have made this a slaughter.

  And yet—

  The boy kept coming.

  He fought messy, close, desperate. He refused to stay at a distance where Karvin’s reach could overwhelm him.

  The fight became a slog.

  For every injury the boy took, he gave one in return.

  For every cut that should have slowed him, he found a way to turn the fight against Karvin instead.

  By the time it was over, Karvin was barely standing, bloodied, breathing ragged.

  The boy had won.

  But he had taken more wounds than ever before.

  Marion watched him stagger away from the sand, something hard settling in his gut.

  Loric exhaled. “He’s pushing too hard.”

  “He doesn’t know how to stop.”

  Loric was silent for a long moment.

  Then: “You need to rein him in, Vex. He’s going to burn out before he ever reaches the top.”

  Marion said nothing.

  Because part of him wasn’t sure the boy would let himself be reined in at all.

  The sixth fight was not a fight.

  It was a massacre.

  After Karvin, the pit wanted to see the boy break.

  They wanted to see him fall under the weight of his own exhaustion, his own hubris.

  They sent in a man called Rogan.

  A killer with a history of ending hopeful champions before they could rise too high.

  A man who had never taken his time with a kill.

  But the boy had stopped fighting like a wild animal.

  Now, he fought with something else.

  Not just instinct.

  Not just survival.

  Intent.

  When the bell rang, the boy was already moving.

  Before the fight had even started, he had already chosen his kill.

  The strike was so fast, so sudden, so brutal that the crowd barely had time to react.

  By the time they understood what had happened, Rogan was on the ground, his throat a ruined mess of red.

  The boy did not lift his arms.

  He did not bask in the victory.

  He simply turned, dripping in blood, and left the sand.

  The silence did not last as long this time.

  The gamblers recovered. The crowd screamed. The pit roared.

  But it was different now.

  Marion could hear it coming.

  Loric saw it too.

  “It’s happening,” he murmured.

  Marion leaned back, smiling to himself.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is.”

  The pit had seen men rise before.

  Some had come as wild dogs, as monsters, as butchers dressed in flesh.

  But none of them had come like this.

  And none of them had lasted.

  He would, though.

  Marion knew it now.

  And so did the pit.

  Korrak sees your admiration.

  And he hates it.

  He is not a hero. Not a legend. Not some specter that walks between myth and reality, meant to be whispered about in awe. He does not care for the songs, the stories, the drunken retellings of his deeds that twist and swell with each passing tongue.

  If you had stood before him, clutching your reverence like a fool clutching a dull blade, he would have only stared. And then he would have walked past you.

  Because to Korrak, it was never about glory.

  It was about the hunt.

  And if he still lives, it is only because there is always another chase.