Chapter XVIII
✦
The stadium shook with the roar of thousands.
Dot lay crumpled against the far wall, body limp, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. The crowd smelled victory.
High in the stands, Yiva shot to her feet.
"Get up, Dot!"
Her voice cracked the din.
"Get up!"
Again. Louder. Desperate.
"GET UP!"
The words pierced the fog in his skull. And beneath Yiva's voice — layered underneath it, coming from somewhere further away — another voice. Soft. Insistent.
Get up, Dot.
Liora.
His eyelids fluttered. Through a haze of pain and dust he saw her — small, fierce Yiva, standing on the bench, screaming his name down at him.
Something inside him snapped taut.
Slowly. Agonizingly. Dot pushed himself upright.
The crowd's roar faltered into stunned silence. Then exploded again — disbelief this time, raw and uncomprehending.
Boldr had already turned his back, axe on his shoulder, walking away like the matter was settled. He froze mid-step. Pivoted slowly.
Dot stood.
Blood matted his hair and streaked down his face in dark rivulets. In his right hand dangled the shattered remnant of his longsword — barely eight inches of jagged steel.
"Give in, kid," Boldr said, voice carrying across the sand. "Stop resisting death."
Dot spat crimson. His lips pulled back in something between a snarl and a smile.
"I'm not done with you." He raised his eyes — burning, unhinged. "Your head is mine."
Boldr lunged. The double-headed axe came down in a brutal crescent arc, fast enough to whistle. The crowd sucked in a breath.
Dot moved.
Not a step — a flicker. Sand exploded where he'd been. The axe bit deep into the arena floor and threw up a geyser of grit.
Dot was already behind him.
Boldr felt it before he saw it — something cold and lethal brushing the back of his neck. He spun on instinct, axe already rising.
Dot stood five paces away, broken sword pointed low, body loose, eyes locked. A killing aura rolled off him in waves — dark, suffocating, almost visible in the air between them.
Boldr's body moved before his mind did. Three long strides backward, boots skidding in the sand.
My body moved on its own.
He steadied himself. Don't tell me I'm afraid of this kid.
Dot tilted his head. A slow, dangerous smile spread across his blood-streaked face. He raised the broken sword until the jagged tip pointed at Boldr's chest.
"I'm going to kill you."
Up in the stands, Yiva's breath caught.
The aura coming off Dot had changed. It wasn't desperate rage anymore. It was something colder. Sharper. Final.
He's on another level.
Far below, echoes of steel and crowd noise filtered faintly through stone.
Dren sat with his head back against the cell wall, listening.
"It's started," he said quietly.
Vespers gripped the bars until her knuckles blanched. "You're not going to do anything?" She glared at him. "You've given up? Always running. Always the coward."
Dren didn't answer.
"It's your fault we're here," she hissed. "I hope you die screaming."
He turned his head slowly and looked at her. His eyes were calm — too calm for the situation, the way calm sometimes is when it's been earned through something terrible.
A metallic *clang* split the air. The cell door buckled inward and hit the floor. Dust billowed.
Sylric stepped through the opening, twirling a stolen keyring on one finger.
"They put the lovebirds in separate cages." He looked between Dren and Vespers. "Interesting."
Both of them stared at him.
The Stadium
Boldr recovered. He roared and charged — the full momentum of his massive frame behind it.
The axe blurred into a storm of overlapping arcs — five, six, seven vicious cuts in the space of a heartbeat. The air itself seemed to tear.
Dot weaved.
He slipped left under the first swing, ducked the second, twisted past the third. The fourth grazed his shoulder and opened a shallow red line. He didn't flinch.
The fifth came straight down. Dot crossed the broken sword to block — steel met steel with a shriek, the impact hurling him backward. The remaining shard shattered completely. Shrapnel sprayed outward. A long diagonal gash tore across Dot's chest and blood fountained into the sand.
The crowd gasped.
Dot stayed on his feet.
Boldr grinned and lunged to finish it — axe raised for the kill.
Dot's left arm snapped up. He caught the axe haft just below the head, hooking his forearm around the blade's inner curve. The edge bit deep into flesh. Blood sheeted down his arm.
He held.
Boldr leaned in, face inches from Dot's.
"How do you plead, boy?"
Dot stared back. Eyes blazing.
For a heartbeat, time fractured.
Boldr's vision swam — not the arena, but the dim royal bedchamber. His brother, pale and wasted, gripping his wrist with the last of his strength.
*"The boy is special, Arthur. Go easy on him. Promise me."*
The hand fell limp. Breath stopped. Life fled.
The memory vanished.
Boldr's expression hardened into something colder than rage.
He wrenched the axe free in a spray of blood and swung with everything he had.
The blade carved a clean arc through Dot's torso.
Before he fell, Dot leaned close — close enough that only Boldr heard the words.
"I plead guilty."
He smiled.
For the first time in years, Boldr felt something close to regret.
Dot's body folded. He dropped to his knees, then pitched forward into the sand. A dark pool spread beneath him, slow and certain.
The stadium erupted — half triumph, half horror, the two sounds indistinguishable from each other at that volume.
From the tunnel mouth, two figures burst into the light.
Dren and Sylric. Weapons already drawn.
Boldr turned toward them, axe dripping.
In the stands, Yiva was already moving — vaulting the railing, shoving through the stunned crowd, not thinking, just moving. Tears streaked her face as she hit the arena floor running.
She reached him. Dropped to her knees. Her hands hovered over the wound, shaking, not knowing what to do with themselves.
Dot didn't move.
His heart beat.
Once.
The sound of steel clashing somewhere behind her. A crowd still roaring. And one broken sob, lost entirely in the noise.
✦
— To Be Continued —