The wind howled through the gorge, a bitter rasp against the raw, jagged scars of the Blood-Iron Pits. Tavira ignored it, her focus locked on the ash-slave. Karnal stood before her, a raw, shivering mass of muscle and bone, his eyes still holding that unsettling, nascent possessiveness. The five-year timer pulsed faintly on her wrist, a hot ember beneath her skin.
“Right,” she said, her voice flat, cutting through the ravine’s moan. “Here’s the deal, new pet. You want to live? You want to avoid becoming another petrified corpse decorating this glorified ditch? You fight.”
Karnal flinched, a full-body tremor. He understood. He’d seen the pits, carved deep into the leviathan bones, even from his tomb. He knew what they were for. He was an instrument of butchery, and she was already wielding him.
“The Varnak clan’s little retirement plan for me,” she continued, gesturing to her wrist, “requires a rather significant amount of patricide. And since I’m allergic to pointy objects and getting my internal organs redecorated, you’re going to be my personal, heavily-armored punching bag.”
She shoved him towards the nearest entrance to a training pit, a gaping maw in the rock face that smelled of fresh blood, fear, and something acridly metallic. A pair of hulking, scaly creatures with multiple limbs were currently tearing into a dummy made of woven hide and bone, their guttural snarls echoing from within. Pit fighters, scarred and grim, watched from observation perches above, iron clanging as they shifted.
“No, you don’t get steel yet,” Tavira scoffed, seeing his gaze flick to a discarded practice blade. “You’re fresh out of the wrapper. Go. Kill something.”
Karnal hesitated, his bare feet scraping on the grit-strewn floor. His eyes, dark and wide, pleaded wordlessly. *No.* His posture screamed it. *I can’t. Not again.* The trauma of his enslavement, of being a living shield, was a fresh wound.
Tavira wasn’t in the mood for therapy. The timer on her wrist was a constant, searing reminder. “You think I *want* to be here?” she snapped, a cold edge to her tone. “I was having a perfectly normal, entirely boring life before some magically-inclined idiot decided I’d make a good blood-sacrifice. Get in there, or I’ll drag you myself.”
He didn’t move. His body tensed, ready to absorb. Not to strike. She needed to break him from that. Not break *him*, but break *that part* of him. She needed a killer, not a sacrifice.
Suddenly, a sneering voice cut through the air. “Well, well, if it isn’t the Varnak clan’s newest little *ash-tithe*.”
Tavira turned, a scowl already forming. Bhavar, the self-proclaimed ‘Blade of the Sunpeak Sect,’ sauntered into view, flanked by a half-dozen of his smirking retainers. He was all sculpted arrogance and expensive silks, his long, dark braid tied with a silver clasp. His hand rested casually on the hilt of a gleaming, sun-forged saber.
“Bhavar,” Tavira drawled, her voice dripping with mock sweetness. “Still pretending your father’s coin is your own skill, I see. And still wearing enough perfume to choke a carrion hound. Did you fall into a rosebush again?”
A ripple of snickers went through her own small group of ragtag followers – mostly dispossessed, desperate souls she’d collected by offering meager scraps of food and the barest hint of protection. Karnal, still frozen, gave no sign he heard the exchange.
Bhavar’s face tightened. “Unlike some, I don’t rely on a freshly-rescued slave to do my dirty work. Word has it you replaced the late Lady Varnak. A rather convenient disappearance, wouldn’t you agree? And now you’re dragging this… *thing* into the pits? You’ll ruin the prestige of the Dazhan Trials.”
“Prestige?” Tavira scoffed, glancing at an initiate picking his nose with a shiv. “Honey, this place runs on blood and offal. You’re just another stain on the floor. And my ‘thing’ here will outlast your entire pampered little sect.”
“Oh, a bold claim, coming from a woman who can hardly hold a practice blade without looking like she’s trying to swat a particularly aggressive fly,” Bhavar smirked, drawing his saber with a flourish that sent a blinding flash of light across the gorge. “Perhaps you’d like to prove that claim, *Lady* Varnak? Here. Now. A friendly spar?”
His lackeys chuckled, drawing their own sidearms, forming a taunting semi-circle. Bhavar expected her to refuse, or at least put up a pathetic, polite fight. He didn't know Tavira, or rather, the desperate, cutthroat creature she was quickly becoming.
“Sure,” Tavira said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face. “But if you’re going to make me sweat, let’s make it interesting. The loser gets a dunk in the Offal Pit.” She pointed to a deep depression near the training grounds, where the refuse from the beast pens and discarded organic matter from the gladiatorial meals collected, a putrid, bubbling stew that reeked to high heaven.
Bhavar’s smile faltered, but his pride wouldn’t let him back down. “Agreed!” he barked, brandishing his saber. “Then let’s see what the new Varnak is truly made of!”
Tavira didn't bother with an arm. She stepped forward, her stance loose, almost casual. Bhavar lunged, a blur of practiced steel, aiming for her shoulder. Tavira sidestepped, letting the blade whistle past her ear, feeling the displaced air. He was fast, yes, but predictable. The villainess’s fragmented memories, a sudden, jarring flash of detailed combat choreography, provided the blueprint. Bhavar always favored a wide, sweeping lunge that left his lead foot momentarily exposed, his weight shifting just enough to create an imbalance.
He recovered, spinning for a backhand slash. Tavira ducked low, letting the saber arc over her head, and in the same fluid motion, she shot her leg out. Not a kick to disable, but a precise, humiliating strike. Her boot cracked against the tendon of his exposed ankle, kicking his heel out from under him. Bhavar yelped, his footing collapsing beneath him. The 'Blade of the Sunpeak' tumbled forward, saber clattering from his grasp, landing with a sickening *sploosh* into the reeking depths of the Offal Pit.
His cohort erupted in shouts and jeers, some pointing, others trying to stifle their laughter. Bhavar thrashed, covered head to toe in the foul, chunky slurry, sputtering indignantly. “You… you cheated! That wasn’t a fair strike!”
Tavira merely shrugged. “I fought to win. You fought to look pretty. Different priorities.”
Just then, a low, guttural snarl ripped through the air, much closer than any of the beasts in the training pits. A scavenger hound from the rim had caught the scent of spilled blood and darted in, its multi-jointed legs scrabbling on the rock. It was a smaller one, but its teeth were long and yellowed, its eyes fixed on Tavira, mistaking her for an easy meal.
Its charge was swift, a blur of scales and snapping jaws. Tavira, momentarily distracted by Bhavar’s humiliation, spotted the charge only when talons scraped the ledge beneath her feet. She instinctively threw up an arm, bracing for impact. She wasn’t fast enough, not yet, not without a weapon.
Before the beast's fangs could close, an explosion of motion erupted beside her. Karnal, who had been a frozen statue of trauma just moments before, moved with a terrifying, untamed speed. He was a whirlwind of motion, intercepting the beast mid-leap. His bare hands closed around its scaly neck, fingers digging deep into the thick hide. The predator shrieked, clawing at him, but Karnal’s grip was absolute.
His eyes, once wide with fear, were now burning with a cold, terrifying intensity. The possessive spark had ignited into a raging inferno. He didn’t just subdue the beast; he *annihilated* it. A sickening crunch echoed through the canyon as he twisted, tearing, ripping. Blood, dark and steaming, splattered across the dusty ground, onto his face, his chest. The creature went limp, its neck a ruined mess, its body flung aside like trash. Karnal stood over it, chest heaving, a thin stream of saliva running down his chin, his gaze still fixed on the mangled corpse. A dark, visceral satisfaction emanated from him, a taste for the violence he’d just unleashed.
Tavira stared, a thrill of cold dread and savage triumph mingling in her gut. *Yes*. This was it. This was the monster she needed. But as she watched him, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just unleashed something far more dangerous than any beast.
Before she could process the implications, a new voice, clear and commanding, echoed from the rim above. “By decree of the Crown of Oravas, I demand entry! I am Nalumi, Royal Investigator of the Sunstone Guard!”
A small contingent of soldiers, clad in gleaming, sun-forged armor, marched into the Blood-Iron Pits, their banners snapping in the wind. Leading them was a woman, her fiery red hair braided with silver, her eyes sharp and intelligent, her hand resting on the hilt of a sword that pulsed with a faint, internal light. She took one look at the blood-soaked Karnal, standing over the mangled carcass, and went pale with instant recognition. “Karnal?!” she gasped, her voice ringing with disbelief.