Seven years in a pit turned you into one of two things...
Meat.
Or steel.
Asha had become steel.
Thirteen now, and wiry as a coiled whip. Her body was cut with muscle earned in blood and bruises. Her face had sharpened, features angular and unreadable. The softness of girlhood was gone, buried in the sand with the name she once had.
Now, there was only Ash.
No one knew she was a girl. Not the audience. Not the announcers. Not even most of the trainees. Just Kael. Just Dagon. And her pack.
Keeping the secret had gotten harder lately. Especially now.
She stood in the gloom of her cell, bare-chested, struggling with a length of linen and enough frustration to punch through stone.
"Dammit... hold still, you traitorous flesh sacks...!"
Her voice came out a hiss as she yanked the cloth tighter around her chest, binding it flat. It wasn't painful, exactly. Just undignified. Awkward. And sweat-inducing.
The door creaked open behind her.
"You done strangling yourself?" Dagon's voice, gruff, dry.
Asha whipped around, clutching the linen like a shield. "How long have you been standing there?!"
Dagon leaned against the wall, arms folded, a smirk twitching behind his beard. "Long enough to be concerned about your strategy. You're gonna pass out mid-fight if you keep wrapping like that."
"Well, unless you've got a magic gender-erasing helmet, I don't have a lot of options."
Dagon tossed her a tunic. "Just don't die in that mess. We've got bets running."
Asha groaned. "Tell Kael I want royalties if I survive."
"He said if you survive, you can have a cup of watered wine and half a peach."
"Generous," she muttered, dragging on her tunic and lacing it tight.
They walked together down the stone corridors, footsteps echoing through the underground tunnels of Daltarein's lower arena, the Black Maw, as the locals called it.
Above them, the roar of the crowd was already rumbling like distant thunder.
It was time.
The four of them stood together behind the iron gate. Beyond it, sand and death.
Corin was sharpening a blade smaller than his smile.
Tennic was stretching, cracking his knuckles and humming something vulgar under his breath.
Skarn was chewing on what looked like a bird skull.
Asha rolled her shoulders and bounced lightly on the balls of her feet.
"Nervous?" Corin asked.
"About the fight? No."
"Then what?"
"I think one of my ribs has permanently rearranged itself thanks to this damned cloth."
"Lovely," he muttered. "Let's just hope it rearranges back after the fight."
Tennic clapped her on the back. "Cheer up! First public match! We're finally part of the grand blood-circus of Merosia!"
"As the warm-up act," Asha muttered.
"Starter show," he corrected. "We're the appetizer. The meat-skewer before the real slaughter. The..."
"...dead men walking?" Corin offered.
"Exactly!"
Skarn hissed quietly, pupils dilating. "They smell like cheap oil and piss. The other team."
A trumpet blared.
The gates began to rise.
Sunlight blasted into the tunnel.
And the crowd erupted.
The arena was a stone-ringed coliseum crammed with thousands of screaming Merosian citizens. Red banners snapped in the wind. Drums pounded. Blood from previous matches still stained the sand like forgotten memories.
Above them, painted announcers howled into horns:
"Welcome to Daltarein's Maw! Where steel meets soul! And today, our opening spectacle, a friendly bout between two of the city's finest training schools! It's House Kael's mutts versus Lord Calvus's pampered pets!"
Boos and cheers.
Across the arena, the enemy team emerged, six boys, older, bulkier, polished like weapons. They wore matching blue sashes and sneers.
"This'll be easy," Tennic muttered. "They're practically begging for humiliation."
Corin didn't respond. His eyes were locked on the tallest opponent, a boy with thick arms and dead eyes.
"I know that one," he murmured. "Crix. He cuts tendons first."
Asha cracked her neck.
"Then we don't give him the chance."
Kael's voice rang out from the viewing box: "No killing! Just blood. Make it look good."
Tennic smirked. "But not too good. We wouldn't want to hurt Lord Calvus's feelings."
Asha drew her short blades.
The horn sounded.
And hell opened its jaws.
They moved like wolves.
Asha ducked a spear thrust, slashed low, kicked high. Her blade danced, fueled by instinct and rage.
Corin flanked, fast and surgical, carving through defenses.
Tennic wheeled through the chaos, knives flashing like light.
Skarn—Skarn roared, throwing one opponent clear across the sand with a shoulder charge that cracked bone.
They weren't supposed to win. Not against older boys. Not as the "starter show."
But they didn't just win.
They performed.
The crowd gasped when Asha flipped over her opponent and slammed him face-first into the ground.
They cheered when Tennic disarmed two fighters at once with a whirlwind spin and a wink.
And when Skarn pinned the largest boy down and bit a chunk out of his shoulder before spitting it on the sand?
The coliseum exploded.
When the horn blared again, it was over.
Their opponents lay groaning, bleeding, broken.
Asha stood in the center of the sand, panting, blades slick with sweat.
Corin approached, quiet. "Still worried about your bindings?"
"Honestly?" she wheezed. "I can't feel anything below my neck."
Tennic flopped down beside her. "That was beautiful. Did you see the way the crowd reacted when I..."
Skarn dropped a tooth into his hand.
"What the, Skarn, is this mine?!"
Skarn just smiled, fangs red.
In the stands, Kael leaned back, arms crossed, brow raised.
Dagon beside him simply muttered, "Well. The knives stayed sharp."
Kael grunted. "Sharpened themselves on live prey."
Victory tasted like sweat, bruises, and something dangerously close to hope.
Back at House Kael's training compound, the mood was electric. The sun had barely dipped below the horizon before someone, probably Lira, smuggled in a jug of fermented plum wine and half a wheel of soft goat cheese from the kitchens.
They didn't have much.
But tonight, they were not meat.
They were knives.
And knives deserved to shine.
The celebration was held in the old laundry courtyard, half-collapsed and usually abandoned, which made it perfect. Lira had lit a few stolen candles and perched on a broken washbasin like a queen on a cracked throne.
Tennic had somehow scavenged a dented lute, strumming it with all the grace of a drunk goat, crooning improvised songs at the top of his lungs...
"We fought like wolves, we danced like fire,
Skarn bit a man and felt no reeeegret..."
Skarn clapped enthusiastically. "Sing again about the ear part!"
"No one lost an ear this time," Asha pointed out, dunking her feet in a nearby water trough.
Tennic grinned. "Not yet. Night's still young."
Corin was off to the side, sipping watered wine from a clay cup and watching the chaos with his usual quiet suspicion.
"Enjoying yourself?" Asha asked, flopping down beside him.
He didn't look over. "This is the first time I've seen Skarn smile without blood on his teeth."
Skarn, currently trying to balance a lit candle on his horn while Lira dared him not to blink, let out a triumphant grunt.
"There. Entertainment. Culture." Corin raised his cup in mock salute.
Lira passed around scraps of bread slathered in some kind of spiced tomato paste. "Not bad for prison food," she announced. "Don't ask how I got the paste."
"Was it poison?" Tennic asked hopefully.
"No."
"Disappointing."
For a brief, impossible moment, the arena felt far away. The knives were just… kids again. Tired, wild, laughing.
Skarn challenged Dagon to an arm wrestling contest and nearly dislocated the man's shoulder. Dagon cursed, threatened to throw him into the latrine pit, then poured them both a drink.
Tennic tried to teach Asha a Vaelin dancing step, failed miserably, then tripped and crashed into a crate. She threw a chunk of bread at his face.
He caught it in his mouth.
"See?" he said around crumbs. "Grace."
Asha was laughing so hard she nearly forgot she was supposed to be steel.
Later, they sprawled across cracked tiles and worn blankets, bellies full and limbs heavy with exhaustion. The stars above Daltarein were dim, drowned in smoke and city light, but they could still see a few, flickering like tiny gods refusing to die.
Asha lay beside Corin and Tennic, her head on a bundled cloak. Lira snored softly nearby, curled like a cat. Skarn was humming something low and strange, a melody that sounded like winter wind through trees.
Tennic turned toward the sky. "Think we'll still be here a year from now?"
Asha didn't answer immediately.
"No," Corin said.
There was a pause.
Tennic grinned. "Good."
And for one night, beneath those defiant stars and the scent of spiced bread, blood, and stolen wine…
The knives rested.
Ready to cut again tomorrow.