…
Quinlan woke to the sound of dripping water.
Not a rush. Not a storm. Just the slow fall of droplets hitting stone.
*Drip. Drip. Drip.*
His skull pulsed like someone had slammed a war drum inside it. There was a metallic tang in his mouth… blood. His lips were cracked. His limbs felt heavier than they had any right to. He couldn't move right away. Not because he was chained, but because everything hurt in quiet, lingering ways. The kind of pain that whispered, 'You lost. Sit with that for a while.'
His breath came in shallow, ragged pulls, and even that felt like work. His back was cold. Stone. He was lying on it. Damp, uneven, with jagged ridges pressing through his sacks of clothes into his spine. He didn't know what happened to his old black robes, but it had been replaced by clothes that reminded him of how Ayame looked when he bought her on the second day of his transmigration.
The air was cooler than the arena. No fire. No crowd. No clash of fists and flame.
