Theo chews at the inside of their lip, slipping through the wild throng to reach the guardrail at the ring’s edge. Sour bile rises in their mouth as one deceptively short fighter runs, leaps, and locks his legs around his opponent’s neck. Then, taking advantage of the position, he latches his teeth around the taller man’s ear and rips. The crowd roars and shrieks with disbelief and ecstatic thrill as the ear tears off, blood pouring out the side of the man’s head.
“Great Terra!” a man exclaims at their side, then nudges them and adds with a sly wink, “Just goes to show. Never put your money on size alone.”
Theo bites down at the inside of their lip, hard, because the alternative is wresting the man’s pint of hops out of his hand and splashing it back in his face. Satisfying as that would be, they have to stay focused.
Up in the pavilion, a clear view directly across from where they stand, Cato Palmar reclines on the lush couch set in pride of place. They’ve never seen him before, but it isn’t hard to guess who he is—sagging into the cushions as well-dressed patricians drink crisp white Fornian wine and vie for favor around him. With his enormous white mustache and powder-crusted jowls, Theo’s first impression is that of an emaciated, silk-robed walrus, something rotting and sick at its core.
Down below in the pit, a serva is mopping up blood, clearing the way for whatever pleb match comes next. The victor is taking a lap, brandishing his defeated opponent’s ear like a spoil of war as the crowd roars their approval.
Theo is no stranger to pain. No stranger to careless cruelty. Most hurts have no imagination, not down here in the pits where Theo was raised. The discipline, the malice, the casual, petty boredom. Never a fighter themself, that doesn’t mean they weren’t thrown into the ring sometimes as an interesting way to up the stakes. The coyote—just as scared and trapped as they were—who threw its weight across their tiny body in the ring, shattering their femur so that white bone poked through on both sides. The hops vendor who pinned Theo’s hand to the counter with a knife until Wieler coughed up what he was owed. Jarol’s drunk and stinking corpse tossed out with the rest of the waste. Tile biting hard and sharp into knees and bile rising in their throat, ringing in their ears and jeweled fingers twisting in their hair, pressing down down until they choked, robbing them of breath. They’ve known since age seven that people are expendable, only worth what they produce. Growing up here made that abundantly clear.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” The thunderous voice of the ringside emcee booms above the clamor of the crowd, his echoing reach aided by a bullhorn. “That brings an end to the first part of the night’s entertainment.”
What?
“Let’s have another round for our champion prizefighters! Brave plebs, all, but I’ll say they’re going to have to keep an eye out for that Malakai from now on if they want to win—or indeed, if they want to keep both ears!” Appreciative laughter ripples through the crowd, anticipation building for the main event, what they’ve all really come here for, but Theo isn’t listening. Not anymore.
The pleb fights are over. So where in the savage Quiet is Arran? Heart pounding, Theo turns to fight their way through the thick mass of the crowd. Something has definitely gone wrong. Only then a hand clasps cold and unforgiving around their upper arm.
This is what happens, apparently, when you don’t finish the job. This is what happens, when you were sure Darius Miranda was dead.
He looks terrible. Hair half-shaved, his pale face is tinged green, a vaguely crazed look in his eye. Theo would take more satisfaction in this if it weren’t for the cold thrill of panic forcing their heart to beat overtime. He’s dead. He’s supposed to be dead. They would have taken the corpse with them if they didn’t have Una to deal with, but there was blood pouring from the base of his skull and a fast-weakening pulse and they wouldn’t have just left him there in the woods buried under a pile of leaves if they hadn’t been absolutely sure he was about to be dead.
“Theodora,” he says, voice as cold as the blue of his eyes, and there’s something entirely unhinged behind them. Something unnerving. “Nix, wasn’t it? Nix . . . Nothing. Clever. Did you come up with that yourself?”
Theo wrests their arm away from his grasp. “Darius Miranda. You look like shit.”
They’ve hurt him. They can see that now, up close, without the distraction of Montana Satterfield sitting between them. Hurt his pride, anyway, and for a man like Darius Miranda, that is all the more dangerous.
There’s a screech as the grilles of the passage to the fighter cells slide up, and a fighter walks out into the pit. He holds a short, curved sword in one hand, a small shield in the other. Armored greaves on shins and sword arm, a belt above a loincloth. That’s it. Shield arm, chest, thighs all naked, exposed to the elements, vulnerable. It takes a moment for the roaring crowd to make sense, the name on people’s screaming tongues to really hit Theo’s ears, because they’re a little busy right now and they might not have otherwise recognized him from this far away.
Miro.
Miro, who isn’t supposed to be fighting until close to the end.
Fuck. Something is very, very wrong.
So here they are—staring down Darius Miranda’s unfocused, furious face, a wounded animal threatening to strike, his left hand sneaking down to where the pommel of his sword rests at his side and the swarming crowd around them none the wiser, when Miro’s opponent walks out into the pit. He’s only marginally more armored—greaves covering his entire legs, armed with sword, shield, and spear, and Theo freezes where they stand. Because even from this far away, they would recognize Arran anywhere.
An iron vise clamps around their heart, squeezing it until it stutters and skips a beat. So this is what it means, then, to let yourself care. It means opening yourself to the possibility of losing it all just as fast.
This is what they’ve known, since the age of seven:
That a person is only worth what they can contribute. That no one is coming to save you, but you can always save yourself.
This is what they know now, twenty years later:
That there is no such thing as good people and bad, just the circumstances you’re given and what you choose to do with them. That sometimes someone, somewhere, might not need to save you, but they will choose to anyway because they can. Because they are good. Because they want to. That maybe saving everyone is impossible, but you can still choose to try.
Arran needs them. That’s the only thing that matters now.
So in one swift move, Theo grabs the pommel of Darius Miranda’s sword where it sits at his waist, pulls it out of its sheath, and smashes the hard, blunt end across the shaved and tender side of his head. He staggers back, falling into a group of unsuspecting revelers, and Theo turns on their heel, disappearing into the crowd.