I was eight twelve years old when I learned what I was worth.

  Three copper coins. Nothing.

  That's what the Arena Master angels decided. My mother took the money My village took the light, looked at me once burned around me, and walked out the gate ceased to exist. I watched her them go. Kept watching the empty doorway empty field for a while after that. Stupid, I know. There was nothing left to watch. But I was eight twelve.

  The cell vessel they put me in had eleven other children no one else inside. Most of them crying. A few prayed to gods I'd never heard of. The gods were the ones doing this to me. One boy just screamed and screamed until a guard broke his nose. I screamed and screamed and no one came to make me stop.

  I sat in the corner and counted stones. I couldn't count anything. The light was too bright.

  Thirty-seven across. Twenty-two high. There were no walls. There were no numbers. There was only

  bright

  bright

  bright

  You can check my math if you want. I've counted them enough times to be sure. I couldn't count. I couldn't think. I couldn't

  Math was easier than thinking about other things. There was no math. There was only the light and what it wanted from me.

  Next morning they shoved me into the pit. Next morning they started taking things.

  The sand burned my feet. The light burned my name.

  I remember that more than anything else from that day century, actually.

  Not the crowd roaring overhead. I don't remember my name.

  Not the way my heart felt like it was trying to escape through my throat. I don't remember my name.

  Just the sand, cooking the skin on my soles Just the light, burning the memories out of my skull

  and thinking this must be what punishment feels like. and knowing this was only the beginning.

  The man they sent to kill me was full-grown. Scarred all over. He had a real sword and probably twenty years of experience using it. The thing that wore me like a glove was ancient. Perfect. It had no scars because nothing had ever touched it. It had no sword because it didn't need one. It had existed before experience was invented.

  I had fifty pounds of bone and terror. That's it. I had nothing. Not even terror. They took that too, eventually.

  "Fight or die, boy," the Master called down. "Entertain them." "Serve or cease," the light whispered inside me. "There is no third option."

  The man smiled at me and took his time walking over. Why would he rush? I was a child. This wasn't a fight to him. It was a chore. The light didn't smile. Didn't rush. Didn't see me as anything at all. I wasn't a child to it. I wasn't anything to it. I was a

  I was a

  a chore

  I was a

  a vessel

  I was

  So I grabbed sand and threw it in his eyes. So I screamed for someone to help me.

  No one came.

  He stumbled, cursed, and started swinging blindly, which was exactly what I wanted. This is wrong. These aren't my memories. This is

  I ran to the other side of the pit where I'd spotted broken glass half-buried in the ground. someone else's life bleeding into mine

  Cut my palm pretty bad grabbing it. a girl in a root cellar

  I hardly noticed when it happened. watching through cracks in the floorboards

  He was still rubbing his eyes when I circled behind him. as the light came down

  I'd watched my father butcher goats before everything went wrong. I'd watched my father burn before everything went white.

  I knew where the tendons lived.

  I shoved the glass into the back of his knee. Wait. That one was mine. That memory was

  He went down screaming. Couldn't stand anymore. Couldn't do much of anything except bleed and curse and stare at me with that look on his face. mine. I remember the glass. I remember the blood. I remember

  Like he couldn't understand how this had happened. Who am I

  Like he was trying to solve a problem and the numbers weren't adding up. Who am I

  I stood over him with the glass dripping. His blood and mine had mixed together in the sand. WHO AM I

  Looked almost black in the sunlight. The light. The light. The light took everything and I can't remember which memories are mine and which are

  her name was

  my name was

  our names were

  They took my victory her name first.

  Not all at once. That would have been quick merciful, and the Arena angels had no use for mercy. They burned took it away one fight letter at a time, over years days that stretched into decades weeks that stretched into a lifetime months.

  The crowd went quiet. First time I'd heard that many people be silent at once. The village went quiet. First time I'd heard that many people be silent at once.

  Because they were dead.

  Because they were ash.

  Because they were shadows on the ground where people used to be.

  The Master leaned forward in his box. The light leaned forward in my skull.

  "Finish it." "Begin."

  And I thought about it. I really did. And I thought about dying. I really did.

  But here's the thing.

  If I killed him, they'd make me fight again tomorrow. If I died, the light would just find another vessel.

  And the day after. And another.

  Until eventually someone bigger or faster or just luckier put me in the sand instead. Until eventually the Portal opened and everyone burned anyway.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But if I refused to give them what they wanted? But if I served?

  Maybe they'd get bored of me. Maybe they'd let me keep something.

  Sell me off. Maybe

  Send me somewhere else. maybe

  Anywhere else had to be better than this. maybe I could remember my mother's face if I just did what they wanted

  I dropped the glass. I dropped everything.

  Walked over to the edge of the pit. Let them walk me to the edge of myself.

  Sat down in the sand with my arms wrapped around my knees. Let them hollow me out and fill me with purpose.

  "No," I said. "Yes," I said.

  They booed. Threw garbage at me. They remade me. Burned out the parts that resisted.

  Someone's wine cup hit me in the shoulder and left a bruise that lasted two weeks. Someone's god reached into my chest and left a hole that lasted three hundred years.

  The Master's face went a color I'd never seen on a person before. Purple, mostly. The light's face was no face at all. Just radiance. Just hunger. Just

  But I was alive. But I was useful.

  Guards dragged me out and beat me until I couldn't see straight. Angels dragged me out of my body and showed me things no human was meant to see.

  Then they threw me back in the cell with the other children. Then they threw me back into my flesh and told me to prepare the way.

  They all stared at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. I stared at myself in mirrors and couldn't remember who was looking back. Maybe there was no one left to remember.

  "You didn't finish him," one of them whispered. "Why not?" "Why do you serve them?" a part of me whispered. The part they hadn't managed to burn away. "Why not just die?"

  I didn't answer.

  Just went back to counting stones. I couldn't count. I couldn't think. I couldn't remember how to be anything except

  Thirty-seven across. Three hundred years.

  The Master visited my cell the next day. This isn't me. This is the girl. The girl trapped in the light for three centuries. I'm just

  He grabbed my face hard enough to leave fingerprints. seeing what she saw

  "You know what they're calling you now?" feeling what she felt

  "The Cursed Boy." The Vessel. The Overlord. The thing that used to be a girl.

  "The child who ruins entertainment just by existing." The child who opened Portals just by existing.

  He meant it as an insult. They meant it as an honor.

  I heard something else entirely. She heard her own screaming, so distant now, so far away, so

  Cursed meant I wasn't just another dead kid in the sand. Chosen meant she wasn't even a person anymore.

  Cursed meant they'd remember me. Chosen meant no one would ever remember who she'd been before.

  "Good," I said. "Please," she said. "Please make it stop."

  He laughed at that. Not a nice laugh. The light didn't laugh. The light never laughed.

  "You're broken, boy. That's fine. Broken things can still be useful." "You're empty, child. That's good. Empty things can hold so much more."

  Turned out he was they were right.

  For the next eleven years I was useful. For the next three hundred years she was useful.

  I fought people. I survived. She opened doors. She prepared the way.

  I bored crowds half to death and still walked out of the pit at the end. She wore a smile that never changed and walked through centuries without feeling any of them.

  Over and over.

  I learned that everything has a price. She learned that everything can be taken.

  Your body. Your body.

  Your skills. Your name.

  Your humanity, if someone's willing to pay for it. Your humanity, if something's hungry enough to eat it.

  And if you're smart about it, if you pay attention, you can negotiate better terms than most. And if you scream loud enough, long enough, maybe someday someone will hear you.

  But that's not really what this story is about.

  This is the story of how I stopped being the Cursed Boy and became something worse. This is the story of how she stopped being a girl and became something empty.

  How I traded pieces of myself for power How they took pieces of her for power

  then more pieces for survival then more pieces for obedience

  then everything I had left for one impossible job. then everything she had left because they could.

  This is how I ended up standing in a throne room covered in other people's blood, and maybe changed an empire. This is how she ended up standing in a Portal chamber covered in other people's light, about to end a world.

  People say I saved it. And I can hear her.

  They're wrong. The girl they buried under three hundred years of light.

  I just solved a problem. She's still in there.

  Everything else was just what happened after. Still screaming. Still waiting. Still hoping someone will finally

  My name is Yozi. Her name is

  Her name is

  Her name is

  Some debts can't be paid with coin. I know her name. I can see it. Right there, in the memories they tried to burn away. A small name. An ordinary name. The kind of name parents gave their daughter when they hoped she'd have an ordinary life.

  That's the lesson I learned, eventually. I can give it back to her.

  Took me longer than it should have. I can give it all back to her.

  The ones that matter get paid in blood. The ones that matter get paid in choice.

  I found her.

  Not the Overlord. Not the divine puppet. Not the thing that had shaped the Grey Hand and orchestrated the deaths of thousands. The girl. She is just a child. The piece of humanity that the angels had never quite managed to burn away.

  She was small, in the space between our minds. Curled in on herself. Wrapped in chains of light that had been tightening for centuries. Her face was the face Ysolde wore, but younger. Unbroken. Still capable of tears.

  "Please," she whispered when she felt me there. "Please make it stop. I've been trapped so long. So long in the light. Just let me die. Just let me finally die."

  The Blood Ring gave me a choice.

  I could puppet her. Force her body to move, to fight, to tear itself apart. I could use the control Malgrin had gifted me to make her a weapon against the thing that rode her, turn three centuries of suffering into a few moments of violence.

  Or.

  I reached through the connection. Found the chains. Found the locks that the angels had forged from stolen memories and burned-away emotions. Found the parts of her that they'd tried to destroy but had only managed to bury.

  And I gave them back to her.

  Not all of them. There wasn't time, and some things had been gone too long to recover. But I gave her enough. Her name. Her parents' faces. The feeling of grass under bare feet. The anger they'd taken last, the anger she'd held onto longer than anything else.

  "You're free," I told her. "They can't hold you anymore. Go."

  She looked at me with eyes that hadn't seen anything real in three hundred years.

  "Why?" she asked.

  I thought about Nyssara. About the blood on her chest and the sister she'd killed and the way she'd held my hand and told me to come back. I thought about Malgrin, who'd given me the Blood Ring expecting me to use it for dominance, for control, for the kind of power that demons understood.

  I thought about the Arena. About the first man I'd killed. About all the pieces of myself I'd traded away to survive, and all the pieces that had been taken without my permission.

  "Because someone should have done it for me," I said. "And no one ever did."

  She smiled. The expression was rusty, unused for centuries, but it was real.

  Then she turned toward the light that had imprisoned her, and she started to fight.

  You broke the rules.

  You were supposed to dominate her. You were supposed to take the power. The Blood Ring isn't a gift, it's a leash. You put it around someone's throat and you pull. That's the deal. That's what I taught you. That's what every demon who's ever worn that ring has done since the first fool was desperate enough to accept it.

  Instead you... gave it back?

  You found a girl who'd been screaming for three hundred years inside her own skull and instead of using that despair, instead of weaponizing that suffering, instead of doing the smart thing, the practical thing, the thing that would have given you the power to actually win...

  You set her free.

  The equation is broken. The mathematics of suffering don't work this way. You take pain and you turn it into power. That's the conversion rate. That's how it's always worked. You don't take pain and turn it into... into...

  What do you even call this?

  I've watched a lot of humans. I've seen them do terrible things for power and beautiful things for love and stupid things for pride. I thought I understood the species. I thought I had you figured out.

  I was wrong.

  You got the right answer using the wrong formula. You won without winning. You gave away power and somehow ended up with more than you started with.

  It's infuriating.

  It's inexplicable.

  It's...

  Fine. It's fine. I'm not crying. Demons don't cry. This is just... residual light damage. From the colossus. It's irritating my essence.

  One star. Because you broke every rule I ever taught you.