Harsk was waiting in the same dark corner.
"You fed tonight," Harsk said. "I felt it from here."
Chris stopped. His throat throbbed where Voss's fingers had been. "You felt it."
"The Wearing. When others perceive you as something, you become it. What they see in you is what you are."
Harsk leaned forward. The shadows around him moved along.
"You walked into that hall a skinny slave. you made them laugh .and now you aren't slave anymore."
Chris thought about the warmth. The furnace in his chest. His ribs stopping their ache, his legs finding strength .
"So if people see me as a joke, I become one?"
Harsk's teeth showed in the dark. "You become the joke indeed."
Chris sat down across from him. His legs ached, his throat throbbed. Everything hurt now that the warmth was gone. But this was more important than pain.
"The Wearing , that's what this is? This thing I feel?"
"Your Face. Jester, by the look of it. You havent Claimed it formally. Just wearing the surface." Harsks voice dropped low. "But even paint sticks if you leave it on long enough."
Pre dawn. Chris hadn't slept. Harsk talked and Chris listened because there was nothing else to do in the dark that felt useful.
Three Depths.
Whisper :peak human. Still flesh and bone, just the best version of it.
Song :Enough to crater stone, move faster than eyes could follow.
Roar : describing it as above song is more than enough.
"You're barely a Whisper," Harsk said. "A candle in a fortress of bonfires."
"Thanks."
"Its not an insult. kid."
Chris watched Harsk hold out his hand. Shadows crawled up his arm. those things had claimed his arm as territory. They pooled in his palm, dripping between his fingers.
"Shadow Face. Whisper Depth. Twenty years I've worn this. I can barely stand torchlight anymore." The shadows receded. His arm looked normal again.
"What breaks it?" Chris said.
Harsk studied him. "The Crack. Every Face has one. Find yours before someone else does."
"What happens when it hits?"
"Your power doesnt stop. It inverts." Harsks voice went flat. "Ive seen a Fire Face weep water. Watched a Strength Face crumble wet." He paused. "The Crack isnt losing power. It's becoming the opposite of what you are."
Chris's hands curled against his knees. He kept his face still.
'Find it before someone else does. Great. Where do I even start.'
Morning. The slave yard. Pitmaster Crell stood on a wooden platform reading names for the exhibition matches. Slaves fought for extra rations and the court watched, which meant the exhibition was about blood as much as entertainment. Chris wasn't on the list. He stood in the back and felt some relief.
Then Crell looked up and found him in the crowd.
"New jester fights too," Crell said. "For comedy." He was matched against a laborer called DURM. Twice Chriss size, fists the size of dinner plates.
Durm was labor stock, not a fighter, but size was its own weapon.
Harsk caught Chris's arm near the gate.
"Make them laugh during the fight. That's your weapon."
"My weapon is comedy? look at his fists."
"Would you rather have nothing?"
Chris pulled free and walked into the pit.
Sand floor. Stone walls. A gallery above where the court would sit, mostly empty.
Durm walked to the center. He didn't look nervous.
The signal dropped.
Durm charged. No finesse , just a big man running at a small one.
Chris sidestepped and stumbled on purpose. Foot catching nothing, arms windmilling. Durm's punch sailed past and hit the pit wall. the stone cracked.
A ripple of laughter from the gallery.
Warmth. Small. A match struck in a dark room. Durm turned. Swung again. Chris ducked, grabbed sand, and shouted, "Is that your fighting stance ? you feel like a wild boar , though you are more hairy."
More laughter. The warmth doubled.
He threw the sand. It hit Durm in the eyes.
Durm roared. Blinded, he swung wild left, right . hitting nothing. Chris circled him and every step felt easier. The crowd was laughing now.
"My grandmother hits harder and she's been dead eight years." The warmth was a fire.
Durm lunged. Chris sidestepped, got behind him, drove his heel into the back of Durms knee. The big mans leg buckled. He toppled face first into the sand.
Chris stood over him. The warmth running in his veins. "For my next trick, Ill make this guys dignity disappear."
The pit erupted. Laughter bounced off stone and fed into Chris until he could have fought ten Durms.
He walked out of the pit on a high that lasted until he woke up the next morning.
Then the bill came due.
His knee was swollen to the size of a grapefruit. His ribs screamed when he breathed. His hands were scraped raw and hot, nowhere near healing. Every hit he'd taken during the fight had been waiting. The warmth had covered the damage. Now the warmth was gone and the damage arrived all at once.
Harsk found him curled against the wall, cradling his knee. Set a cup of water beside him. "Thats the Erosion. The power covers the damage while its active. When the audience leaves, the bill comes due."
Chris drank. It didn't help.
"So I'm borrowing health. Not earning it."
"Its all on loan." Harsk sat across from him. "The more you borrow, the harder the Erosion hits when it comes back. Fight too long and you might not wake up."
Chris pressed his palm against his swollen knee. The heat coming off it was wrong.
'Superpower with interest. Fantastic.'
A new face appeared in the pens that afternoon. A kid about Chris's age.
The other slaves gave him space, and in a pen where personal space was measured in inches, that said everything.
Chris asked the fighter beside him. "Who's that?"
"Delk." The fighter said it flat. "Being near him feels wrong. Don't ask how. It just does." Delk caught Chris staring and grinned. The grin was normal. The feeling that came with it wasnt. a sudden drop in Chris's gut.
"Great. Another weirdo. We should start a club."
Chris watched him in the yard after the shift. Subtle, until you knew what to look for. Guards flinched when Delk walked past. Slaves looked away. One fighter dropped his food and couldn't pick it up.
Delk moved through the yard, parting everyone around him without touching a single person. And on his face, the same warmth Chris got when the crowd laughed.
Harsk appeared beside him.
"Different currency but same economy. He feeds on fear and you feed on laughter."
"Fear is easier to mint." Chris's jaw tightened.
"Much easier. People are always afraid." Harsk watched Delk cross the yard.
Two days later, Harsk dropped the last weight on him. They sat in Harsks corner. Chriss knee was down to a dull throb. His hands had scabbed. Hed survived the Erosion.
"Erosion heals. Settling does not."
Chris waited.
"The Settling Price. When youve worn a Face deep enough, long enough, something in you changes permanently. Not your power.you." Harsks voice was clinical. "My Settling Price is light. I cant stay in bright light. Not wont . i really can't. My skin blisters. My eyes bleed. Twenty years of the Shadow Face and now I am what I wear."
Chris looked at Harsk's corner. The way he almost never left it. The way he flinched when a torch passed too close.
"Yours will come. When you've worn the Jester deep enough, something in you will change forever."
"That wont happen. I wont let it."
Harsk looked at him. Pitying. The sort that said he'd spoken those same words once, from his own mouth.
"No one lets it happen."
Chris stood. His knee protested. He walked out of the dark corner, into the low torchlight, and flexed his scabbed hands. The skin pulled tight.
Delk was sitting by the far wall. Watching him.