From his box on the highest level of the arena seating, Treston Mox narrowed his eyes. So far up, the two women on the stone floor far below looked like nothing more than insects, and he required the aid of his binoculars to watch the fighting properly. Even at such a distance, he could still feel something coming from the crimson-haired woman, the same sense of danger that attracted him to recruiting her for this task. However, it wasn’t until that moment, when her final words began to die out as they bounced around the arena, that he felt the danger turn his direction.

  “What is she…”

  Treston’s question to himself died as Charlene Devardem whipped her hand forward. A ball of burning flame too fast for him to track exploded against the barrier surrounding the arena. All at once, layers of magical force turned from impassive invisibility to a vibrant cerulean as they fought against the spreading wave of orange that washed over them. People screamed as the flames spread, but they only lasted four or five seconds before they began to die and turn into disappearing wisps of smoke. He watched as she handed back the lizard Galla was always carrying around to the stunned woman, and turned to watch as Mace stepped into the arena.

  The lush chair he sat in squeaked a bit as he leaned back into it, ignoring the fight that was about to happen below. He played the woman’s words over and over again in his mind. There was something in them, something that reminded him of the bitterness his old man often spoke with when he recounted his childhood. That similarity, more than anything, put Treston on edge.

  “Mallivar,” he called. Behind him, a dwarven man moved from the shadows to kneel at his side.

  “Yes, sir?” Mallivar asked.

  “I have a bad feeling,” Treston said. “Find out who is moving around us. I might not have been as attentive as I should have recently.”

  “That is understandable, sir, given…” Mallivar trailed off. The man was fantastic at what he did, but he always wanted to make sure that everyone else knew they were nothing but playthings for his amusement.

  Just then, Treston Mox wasn’t in the mood to humor the psychopath. “Get it done!” he sneered.

  In the next second, Mallivar vanished, sinking into the shadows near Treston’s chair. As he vanished, Treston saw the sensor panels that had been behind the man. The displays allowed him to control all of the enchantments in the arena from his remote booth. Two were flashing yellow, indicating that two of the barriers surrounding the arena were in critical condition.

  Treston Mox leaned forward once more, peering down at the arena floor. “Just do your job,” he muttered, staring at the fiery woman. “Just do what you are supposed to.”

  It takes a moment for the man called Mace to fully make his way out of the tunnel leading up to the arena. In fact, after almost making it all the way out on his first attempt, he mistimes his step and stumbles backward, almost disappearing completely into the illusory stone. For a moment, I stand next to the still-stricken Galla, watching what appears to be the head of an elven man sticking up from the ground. For ten whole seconds, the floor head looks blankly ahead with glazed eyes. Then, with a lurch, a man once more begins to be born from the floor.

  When he finally stands on the stone free of the confounding ramp behind him, he looks over at me, the glassiness in his eyes vanishing for a moment as a profound focus takes over. Then his cheeks puff out, and he releases a truly foul belch before bending forward. A green bottle falls from his left hand as he sets both hands on his knees and struggles to keep his vomit down.

  “Who let this drunk in here?” I can’t help but ask.

  The man standing fifty feet away from me at the edge of a pool of light is by far the lankiest elf I have ever seen. If he can regain enough of his balance to stand tall, likely he would top seven feet, yet I think I might outweigh him. Long hair hangs limply in front of his face, its color a strange seabreeze. That, combined with his blotchy, pale complexion, clues me in that this is no trueblood elf. Still, there seems to be something off about him, and I don’t hesitate to use my eye to make a thorough inspection.

  Mace, Honored Priest of Glis’Merinda

  The name of the goddess appearing here, so far away from the empire where she is venerated almost as highly as Exeter himself, gives me pause. It only takes me a moment, but the title of honored priest comes to me. After all, I was half-raised in a church devoted to Glis’Merinda and her clergy.

  Within the orthodoxy of Glid’Merinda’s main sect, only those directly carrying a blessing of the goddess herself are allowed to call themselves priests. The more mundane men and women who spread the good news of the storm goddess’s works are referred to as voices. Of course, only elves can be voices; non-elves of the sect are beneath the voices and given the names of sisters or fathers. Just within those small bounds, there exists a lot of strife, drama, and politics, but the priests, the true clergy, stand apart.

  I am not exactly aware of how the ranks of the priests are defined, but I can’t imagine that an honored priest is very low among the magical servants of the goddess. The real question is, what is a holy man doing in a fighting pit?

  Behind me, Galla seems to remember herself. “What a declaration!” she cries up to the audience above, who are still busy settling themselves. “Will this woman be able to carry out her threat? Here to see that does not happen comes the holy man, Mace. The Tempest of Ages, the One Who Rides the Storm, The Flowing Gale. Can this man of divinity stand up to this woman who promises to paint nightmares onto the souls of her enemies? Let’s ask him.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Making a wide circle around me, Galla hurries over to the man standing opposite me on the stone. Even with how long she takes to make it over to him, he still hasn’t recovered from leaning on his knees by the time she gets there.

  Were this a real fight, right now would be the best time to hit the man. I could probably even manage to bend my fire around Galla and leave her mostly unharmed while doing so. Unfortunately, such a thing would most definitely break the rules of the arena, so I have little choice but to watch the performance.

  “Mace!” Galla calls in a sing-song voice next to the man.

  He remains hunched over. Rather than seeming to recover, his chest begins to heave even more, looking like he is on the verge of vomiting. The sounds the man makes almost get me to do the same.

  The elven woman next to him shows no mercy. “Mace!” she hisses after covering her lizard’s mouth. “Stand up! Wave, you idiot!”

  Mace raises a fist to his mouth and burps something awful into his closed hand. Then, with a great deal of effort, he forces himself to stand straight. His long, thin arm rises over his head as he waves to the audience above. “Hey there, everyone!” he calls.

  Galla schools her face, unmuzzling her little lizard and laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. Somehow, this allows his voice to be amplified alongside hers. “A little bit in our cups tonight, aren’t we?” Galla asks him.

  “Taz said he would take care of it,” Mace replies, leaning close enough to the woman that she wrinkles her nose at the smell of his breath. “He promised me that it would be fine. Then what happens? Loses. Loses is what happens.”

  “But what a valiant stand he made!” she adds.

  Mace rolls his eyes, leaning away and nearly falling over as he does so. “Getting your ass beat is getting your ass beat. Only made it halfway to my blackout. Only half. What a mess.”

  “You hear that, folks?” Galla calls up. “We have a half-sober Mace with us tonight. Reminds me of the glory days.” Up above, people cheer.

  I am still trying to decide if this entire thing is scripted or if the shitshow unfolding is genuine when the man leans forward and scoops his discarded bottle up off the ground. He turns it over, looking absolutely dejected when he finds it empty. “What a pity.”

  “And, what do you think of your opponent?” Galla asks.

  Mace blinks at her before turning and looking in my direction. Despite having stared directly at me earlier, he blinks like it is the first time he has seen me. “A human? Strange.”

  “Are you from the Ramacalla Empire?” I ask, interrupting whatever Galla is about to say.

  The man across the stone directs his vague attention more closely in my direction. “Heard of it, have you? A glorious thing. A testament to order and sovereignty.”

  “Not a fan of it, if I am being honest,” I call to him.

  He snaps his fingers and points directly at me. “That makes sense.” Then, as if acknowledging that was a proper end to the conversation, he stares lazily back at Galla.

  The woman shakes her head, deciding that she will not get whatever she is looking for with this man. “Our challenger tonight has declared that she will throw everyone down before her, that the legacy of mankind is to make us afraid.”

  “Oh?” A spark of interest enters Mace’s eyes, and he glances back at me. “Not very scary looking to me.”

  “Why would I waste that on you, Mr. 7th Place?”

  My antagonism finds no purchase in the man. Galla senses an end to the conversation as well and begins to throw out words meant to excite the audience above into a frenzy. She hasn’t even made it twenty steps away before she begins to count down.

  Looking across the room, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. The first two men that I put down with bolts of dragonfire at least showed enough bravado to make injuring their pride fun. This man, this priest, merely stands on wobbly feet in front of me, lazily looking my direction as the countdown continues.

  Briefly, I check how much mana I have remaining. Even with the two previous fights, the downtime in between has allowed my incredible recovery to regenerate all that I have spent. It is like this arena format was designed for me.

  “One!” Galla calls.

  I whip my hands forward, throwing two curving balls of steel-infused dragonfire at Mace. Unmoving, he spends the half-second it takes for the attacks to cross the distance merely watching them come on. Then, in the final instant before the balls of dragonfire are sure to explode against his chest, something strange happens.

  The twin attacks curve, moving around the man and sailing past to detonate against the far wall. I shouldn’t have been able to miss. Hells, I haven’t actually missed a still target with my dragonfire in a long, long time.

  Before I can even begin to process what happened, Mace flips the glass bottle around in his hand, grabbing it by the neck. When he looks up at me again, there is no hint of intoxication in his eyes.

  “What?” The word escapes me.

  Mace’s body flashes, literally. Faster than I can process the information, his form flickers, and he becomes a thunderbolt. I haven’t spread my aura throughout the chamber; I haven’t needed to for the previous fights. The feedback as he enters the veil of crimson and gold less than a dozen feet away from me is the only thing that spurs me into action quickly enough to even attempt to defend myself.

  I raise my arms as Mace changes from a streaking arc of electricity into a man once more just above me, but I am too slow. The end of the glass bottle shatters against the top of my head, scattering shards of glass everywhere. Reflex forces me to close my eyes to protect them from the glass, and that mistake costs me.

  A fist lands in my gut with the force of a hurricane behind it. The air is sucked from my lungs by the literal whirlwind beginning to whip up around my attacker. Almost in the same instant his attack lands, I feel a collision against my back as my body collides with the top of the stone chamber. My vision turns white for a moment, and it takes everything in me to arrest myself in the air.

  In less than a second, my incredible recovery clears away whatever damage struck me blind, and I look down at the man standing among green glass far below. Wind and lightning roils around Mace as he stares back up at me with a wide grin on his face. “Fooled ya, didn’t I?” he mouths, his words impossible to hear over the building storm.

  Down below, Galla has submerged herself in a transparent dome of magical force that looks almost as sturdy as the arrays set into the chamber walls. “And with that, the previous champion has struck the first blow!” she narrates, getting the crowd to lose their minds at the display of violence.

  “What?”

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