The first day after winning felt like being run over by a cart, backed up over for good measure, then set on fire just to make sure the point landed.

Pyra spent most of it sprawled on the stone floor of her cage, cataloging the various ways her body had decided to express its displeasure with recent life choices. Bruised ribs that screamed whenever she breathed. Shoulder that felt like someone had replaced the joint with broken glass. Face that looked like she'd tried to kiss a brick wall and the wall had objected violently.

The healer—a grumpy woman named Merra who treated arena fighters with the enthusiasm of someone cleaning public toilets—had wrapped her ribs, slapped something that smelled like rotting vegetation on her face, and declared her "good enough for another beating."

Comforting.

Ranth, from his neighboring cage, offered running commentary throughout the day. Tips on managing injuries without proper supplies. Advice on exercises that kept muscles from seizing up completely. Stories about fighters he'd known who'd survived longer than three matches, which he delivered with the tone of someone sharing fairy tales about unicorns and functional government.

"The trick," he said during one particularly philosophical moment, "is accepting that everything hurts. Once you stop expecting comfort, the pain becomes just another thing that is."

"That's depressing," Pyra replied, trying to stretch her shoulder without screaming.

"That's survival."

Other fighters came and went from the cages around them. Some left for matches and returned bleeding. Some left and didn't return at all. Guards dragged bodies through the corridors with the efficiency of people following routine procedures, and the other prisoners barely looked up from whatever small comforts they'd managed to scrape together.

This was normal for them. The baseline of existence.

Pyra hated it with an intensity that would have made Cinder proud.

The second day brought her second fight.

The accountant-pirate (whose name, she'd learned, was Ross) summoned her to the holding area with the same clinical disinterest he'd shown before. Her opponent was a wiry woman with knives and a smile that would have made sharks reconsider their career choices.

The fight lasted maybe two minutes.

Pyra had learned things from the first match. Learned that overwhelming force didn't work when you didn't have overwhelming force. Learned that watching feet telegraphed intentions better than watching hands. Learned that the crowd appreciated creativity more than raw power.

She used all of it.

When Knife-Woman (the announcer called her "The Viper") lunged with both blades extended, Pyra didn't try to dodge or block. She stepped into the attack—closer than the woman expected—and grabbed both wrists, flames sputtering against the leather wrappings but doing enough to make her opponent yelp and drop one knife.

Then Pyra swept the woman's legs, used her momentum to slam her into the sand, and finished with a knee to the gut that knocked all the fight out in one gasping wheeze.

The crowd went wild.

Pyra stood there, breathing hard, and realized she'd just won a fight through actual tactics instead of blind panic.

It felt... weird. Good-weird, but definitely weird.

Back in the cage, Ranth nodded approval. "You're learning. Faster than most."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation. Take it however you want."

The third day brought her third fight, and this one mattered.

Ross summoned her with the rest of the scheduled fighters, running through his list with bureaucratic precision. "You'll face Torvin the Stone. Popular veteran. Crowd favorite. Try to make it entertaining before you die."

"Your motivational speeches need work," Pyra muttered.

"My job is scheduling, not encouragement."

The holding area buzzed with more energy than usual. Guards moved with sharper attention. Fighters whispered among themselves about "special guests" and "buyers in the boxes."

Ranth caught her arm before she headed toward the arena entrance.

"Tonight's different," he said quietly. "The masked ones are here. The ones who buy fighters."

Pyra's stomach did an uncomfortable flip. The first thought that came to mind when picturing a masked person associating with a place like this was the Silent Hand.

"The Silent Hand?" She kept her tone casual. Didn't hurt to ask, right?

Ranth's eyebrows rose. "You know the name?"

Oh... oh shit. They were here.

"I, ah, heard things. Before." She waved vaguely. "Is that bad?"

"Bad? Depends how much you value your current situation." Ranth's voice dropped even lower. "Interesting gets you bought. Bought gets you disappeared."

"What if I want to be bought?"

"Then you're stupider than you look, and that's saying something considering how you fight."

The corridor to the arena felt shorter this time. Familiar. The crowd noise hit her like a wave, but instead of overwhelming, it felt almost... routine.

Three fights. She'd survived three whole fights. That was practically a career in this place.

The arena looked exactly as before—sand, blood, torches, shouting spectators. But Pyra's attention caught on the upper boxes, where figures in dark clothing and silver masks watched the proceedings with the stillness of predators deciding which prey looked tastiest.

The Silent Hand. Had to be. Slightly different from the masks she'd encountered back then, more angular, with a stylized handprint over the mouth area and elaborate symbols carved into the cheekbones. But same shape, same aura of ominous anonymity.

Pyra's fists clenched.

Her opponent emerged from the opposite gate. A mountain of muscle named Torvin, who looked like someone had carved him from actual stone and decided personality was optional. His fists were the size of melons, his arms thick as tree trunks, and his expression made Crusher Dane look like a friendly puppy.

Great. More brutes.

The referee gave his standard speech—rules, submissions, try not to die—and scrambled clear.

Torvin moved.

Not charging like Crusher had. Not rushing like most fighters did. He advanced deliberately, swinging those melon-hands in slow, measured strikes that looked lazy but were anything but. This man had technique. Patience.

Pyra circled, looking for openings, and found none. Every time she tried to sidestep, he shifted, cutting her off, advancing implacably.

She threw weak flames at his face—testing, probing, hoping for a reaction. Torvin blinked, adjusted his position slightly, and kept coming. The fire didn't bother him. Didn't distract him. Might as well have been throwing confetti.

They circled each other like this for long minutes, the crowd's initial excitement shifting to boredom. Jeers rained down on them. "Get on with it!" and "Just punch him, fool!"

Pyra needed to do something. Anything. Standing around looking nervous wasn't entertaining, and not entertaining meant losing crowd favor, and losing crowd favor meant—

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Torvin struck.

A jab that came faster than she'd given him credit for. Pyra barely dodged, felt the wind of his fist passing her ear. She countered with a low kick aimed at his knee—textbook targeting of joints like Ranth had taught her.

Torvin's leg didn't budge. Might as well have kicked a tree.

He punished the attempt with a hook that caught her ribs—the same ribs she'd bruised three days ago. Pain exploded fresh and sharp. Pyra stumbled, gasping, and Torvin pressed the advantage.

A combination of punches, methodical and relentless, each strike perfectly placed, no emotion behind those eyes, just the cold certainty that he was winning and she wasn't.

Pyra blocked what she could, dodged what she couldn't, and took hits that left her seeing stars. Her flames sputtered weakly, barely enough to sting when they connected.

This was going badly.

The crowd sensed blood. Cheers rose as Torvin backed her toward the arena wall, cutting off escape routes, wearing her down one precise blow at a time. Boos turned to exultation at the impending violence. The spectators wanted a finish, and the masked figures in the boxes watched without moving.

Pyra's brain screamed solutions that wouldn't work—run faster (can't), hit harder (can't), set everything on fire (definitely can't). Nothing in her usual playbook applied when the playbook had been written for someone with actual powers.

She needed something else. Something unexpected.

Torvin threw a straight punch aimed at her face. Pyra dropped into a crouch, letting the fist sail over her head, and drove her shoulder into his midsection with everything she had.

It was like hitting a wall. Torvin didn't budge.

But she'd gotten inside his guard, close enough that his size became a disadvantage. She drove weak flames against his ribs, his gut, anywhere she could reach, not trying for damage but for distraction.

Torvin grunted, grabbed her by the shoulders, and threw her across the arena.

Pyra hit the sand hard, rolled, came up coughing. Every part of her hurt. Her vision swam. Her body begged her to just stay down, accept defeat, let this be over.

But staying down meant dying, and dying alone meant staying dead, and she'd promised Ranth she'd last more than three fights, and dammit, she'd survived worse than one oversized fighter who thought punching was personality.

She pushed upright, legs shaking, and raised her fists.

The crowd went absolutely berserk.

Torvin paused, something flickering across his stoic face. Respect, maybe. Or pity. Hard to tell with faces made of granite.

He came at her again, but this time Pyra noticed something. His breathing had changed—slightly deeper, slightly faster. His movements had lost a fraction of their precision. The sustained offensive had cost him energy, and his age (probably mid-forties) meant recovery took longer.

He was getting tired.

Not much. Not enough to level the playing field. But enough that tactics might work where power wouldn't.

Pyra didn't engage. She retreated, making him chase, forcing him to burn energy closing distance. Every time he swung, she dodged just enough to make him miss, letting his momentum carry him past. She threw flames not at him but at the sand around him, creating small bursts that made him blink and adjust.

Death by a thousand irritations.

Torvin's frustration showed in increasingly wild swings. His footwork got sloppy. His guard dropped incrementally.

Pyra waited for her moment.

When it came—Torvin overextending on a hook that would have decapitated her if it landed—she moved. Inside his guard again, flames concentrated on both hands, driving them into his solar plexus with precision Ash would have been proud of.

The big man gasped. His knees buckled.

Pyra swept his legs, used his falling momentum to slam him face-first into the sand, and pressed her knee into his back while weak flames sputtered against his neck.

"Yield," she said, loud enough for the referee to hear. "Don't make me burn you."

Empty threat. She didn't have the power left to do more than singe his skin. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt.

But Torvin didn't know that. And neither did the crowd, who erupted in wild, deafening cheers at the prospect of an upset.

A long moment stretched. The crowd held its breath.

Then Torvin's hand slapped the sand twice.

Submission.

The referee rushed in, calling the match. "Winner by submission—the Flame-Haired Stranger!"

The arena exploded with noise. Pyra collapsed onto her back, chest heaving, everything hurting, brain too exhausted to process what had just happened.

She'd won.

Through strategy. Through patience. Through making an opponent exhaust himself and exploiting the opening.

Through thinking instead of just hitting things until they stopped moving.

Guards appeared to escort her out. The crowd's cheers followed her down the corridor, and for the first time since waking in that cage, Pyra felt something other than fear or desperation.

She felt proud.

Back in the holding area, Ranth greeted her with actual surprise on his scarred face.

"Well," he said. "Didn't expect that."

"Me neither." Pyra accepted water from a guard, gulped it down like she'd been lost in a desert. "Is Torvin okay?"

"He'll live. Ego's probably hurt worse than his body." Ranth studied her with new interest. "You fought smart tonight. Really smart. Where'd that come from?"

"Trial and error. Heavy on the error."

"Could've fooled me."

The healer arrived to assess damage—more bruises, more scrapes, ribs that would hurt for another week minimum. Nothing serious. Nothing that would keep her from the next fight.

Merra slapped more rotting-vegetable paste on her face. "You're getting good at not dying. Try to keep the streak going."

"Working on it."

As guards herded fighters back toward their cages, Pyra let her attention drift over the departing crowd. Most spectators filed out through main exits, but the private boxes—where the masked figures had been—remained occupied. The Silent Hand representatives hadn't left yet.

Were they discussing fighters? Making selections? Deciding who showed enough "promise" to purchase?

Pyra's gaze swept across the boxes, half-curious, half-terrified she might have made herself interesting enough to warrant attention—

And locked onto a figure that didn't belong.

Not masked. Not dressed like wealthy patrons. Just a man in simple traveling clothes with a lute case slung over his shoulder, standing at the edge of one box and watching the arena floor with the focused attention of someone studying a puzzle.

Even from this distance, even in torchlight, Pyra recognized that profile.

Malik Renard.

The bard from the caravan. The sonic archivist who'd helped them fight Mistfangs in the Shimmerwood months ago and told them about the Mnemonsynes.

What the hell was he doing here?

Their eyes met across the distance. Malik's expression didn't change, but he nodded once—barely perceptible acknowledgment.

Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Pyra's mind raced. Coincidence? Had to be. Except she'd stopped believing in coincidence around the same time she'd woken up in a cage.

Back in her cell, Pyra couldn't sleep. Her body demanded rest, but her brain refused to cooperate, spinning through possibilities and implications like a hamster on a wheel made of anxiety.

Malik was here. In Dugales. Watching arena fights.

Why?

The bard had been tracking magical phenomena when they'd met him on the caravan. Something about documenting unusual occurrences, preserving histories, or whatever bardic archivists did. Had he tracked them here? Was he looking for them specifically?

Or, much less comforting thought, was he working with the people who'd captured her?

Pyra rolled over on her stone floor, which did nothing for her bruised ribs. Ranth's snoring from the adjacent cage provided background noise that somehow made the silence worse.

She needed to talk to Malik. Needed to figure out what he knew, what he wanted, whether he was friend or threat.

But how? She was locked in a cage underground, and he was free to wander wherever bards wandered.

Footsteps interrupted her spiraling thoughts—light, quick, not the heavy guard tread she'd grown accustomed to. Pyra sat up, wincing at the protest from basically every muscle, and pressed against the bars.

A figure moved through the darkened corridor, stopping just outside her cage. Too small to be a guard. Too careful to be a prisoner.

"Don't react," a familiar voice whispered. "And definitely don't set me on fire."

Malik Renard stood there, dressed in the rough clothing of arena staff, carrying a bucket and mop like he belonged. He slipped a folded piece of paper through the bars.

"Read this." His whisper barely carried past the bars. "I'll talk to you soon."

If this was what he thought her idea of investigating looked like, he needed better sources. Or eyes.

Before Pyra could respond, he turned and walked away, whistling tunelessly, just another worker doing late-night cleaning.

She waited until the footsteps faded completely, until silence reclaimed the corridor, until she was absolutely certain no guards were lurking nearby.

Then she unfolded the note.

The handwriting was neat, precise, and designed for readability in poor light:

Stay put. I'll come to you during the guard shift change, a few hours past midnight. Pretend to be asleep if anyone else is around. We need to talk about the shadow merchants and why you're really here.

—M

Shadow merchants.

The Silent Hand buyers, probably. And Malik knew about them. Was investigating them. Had somehow gotten himself hired as arena staff to do it.

But the doofus thought she was investigating them, too. That her presence in the fighting cages was part of some clever undercover scheme and not the product of shitty luck combined with a forced separation gone wrong.

Pyra refolded the note, tucked it into her rough prison clothes, and lay back down.

Sleep didn't come easier, but at least now her brain had something productive to chew on instead of just spiraling through worst-case scenarios.

Tomorrow evening. Shift change. East storage.

She could do that.

Probably.

Maybe.

If she didn't die first.

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