The door to the isolation cell opened with a low grind, hinges shrieking against stone. Light bled into the cramped box. Azeric didn't move at first. Not until the guard barked his name.
"Get up. Warden's calling."
They pulled him to his feet, unshackled his ankles just enough to let him walk. No one said a word as they led him through the underground corridors. The scent of blood and mold lingered thick in the walls. He knew the path well—he'd walked it more times than he could count.
But this time, they didn't head toward the cells.
They turned east.
The stone underfoot gave way to polished marble. The torches burned cleaner here. The walls were lined with decorative ironwork, not rusted cages.
Windows opened to carved terraces overlooking the arena below, where nobles drank and placed wagers. The echoes of jeering men were gone, replaced with murmurs and the clink of goblets.
He hated this part of the arena.
It was the part built to forget what it was.
They passed into the reception halls, lined with rich red drapes, golden rails, ceilings too high for common blood. Nobles watched fights from behind enchanted glass here, their breath never touching the dust or heat of the pit. Guards didn't speak in this part. They just obeyed.
At the end of the corridor, two steel doors opened without ceremony.
Azeric stepped into the office of the man who owned every breath in the pit.
Warden Kestel.
The man sat behind a desk carved from dark oak, papers spread out in ordered stacks. He was broad-shouldered, burly even under fine robes. Black hair streaked with silver, pulled back tight behind a thick neck. His beard was full, trimmed with ruthless precision, mouth always half-hidden beneath it.
Every finger bore a ring. Some iron, some gold, some marked with seals of power. When he moved, they clinked together like chains made of coin.
His eyes were small and bright. A man used to command. A man who didn't bluff. Even at fifty, he looked like he could snap bone if he decided to.
"My favorite gladiator," Kestel said, voice low, gravel-laced. "You walk like you just left a war camp. Sit."
Azeric didn't move. His jaw clenched.
"You set me up."
Kestel grinned. "I sent you into the pit. That's the job."
"With Fritz."
"And you killed him." He laughed, deep and amused. "Duke was satisfied. Payout came fast. Everyone's happy. Well—except Roy, I suppose."
Azeric's teeth ground together. "You knew. You knew he'd try to kill me."
"I knew he had motive. I didn't know he'd be stupid."
Kestel stood and walked around the desk. His rings clicked with every step. He slapped a hand on Azeric's shoulder. "It's your fault, you know. Staying longer than you should in the duchess's house."
Azeric shrugged off the touch, eyes burning. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to crush his throat and feel those rings crack beneath his grip.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
Kestel leaned in, voice dipping. "You think any of this is choice? You fight because they pay. You bleed because they want it. You live because I allow it."
Azeric's nails bit into his palm.
He remembered the taste of that drug. The way it dulled his limbs without taking his awareness. His body would move, but slow, detached. Heavy like it didn't belong to him. Every time a noble asked for him by name, they fed him something sweet.
Something that coated his tongue and blurred the edges of thought.
He was awake, but he couldn't fight it. Couldn't stop them. And when they brought him back, he didn't know how long he'd been used—only that the bruises weren't from the pit.
Azeric looked at Kestel and imagined ending him. Right here, right now. Slamming his head into the desk. Crushing his throat until those jeweled rings stopped clinking for good. The image pulsed in his mind, tempting.
But not yet.
Timing.
It wasn't time.
He thought of the voice, that cold, sterile tone that bled into the edges of his consciousness like machinery. They had followed every kill, each line burning brighter than the last.
The numbers are increasing, the sense of weight behind every movement changing, deepening, like something inside him had begun to stretch and twist beneath the skin. And he could feel it now, coiled in his muscles and spine, waiting to be used—because it had to be.
He needed more. More strength, more power, more of whatever that voice had promised with each blood-soaked reward. What he had now wasn't enough, not to break Kestel, not to tear down the walls of this place, not yet. But it would be.
And when it was enough, it wouldn't just be for victory. It would be for ending this place.
Kestel laughed again, the sound deep and content. "You killed him. The Duke was pleased. Even better!" He said smiling. "I'm not putting you on the client list this month."
Azeric's eyes narrowed.
"Not if you beat Adol."
The name landed like a weight. Adol—one of the arena champions. Massive. Nearly two meters and thirty centimeters tall. Built like he'd been carved from stone.
Absurd.
Azeric stood at a tall one-ninety-three, and still he had to look up to meet Adol's eyes. The man wasn't just muscle. He was death wrapped in skin.
"Well?" Kestel said, still grinning. "If you don't want the match, your next client is Lord Marquez Halve. He's offering quite a generous sum."
There was something in the way Kestel said it so casual, so disgustingly smooth that made Azeric's skin crawl. Like he wasn't a man at all, just flesh being traded behind velvet curtains.
The words slid off the warden's tongue with all the weight of coin, and it lit something violent in Azeric's chest. His teeth clenched as a sharp rush of heat raced down his spine, not fear, but fury, acid-laced and bitter.
"If I'm to beat Adol, I want more. I want real food. Time in the practice hall. Unwatched."
Kestel barked a laugh, then lifted his hand and gestured like a man granting a royal favor. "You'll have it," he said. "The food. The time. Even a new sword. Steel forged from the eastern forges, we had it brought in last week. You'll use it against Adol."
Azeric's jaw tightened. That blade wasn't for mercy. It was bait.
Kestel had never granted him this much freedom, this much leverage, not once in all the years Azeric had bled for him in the pit; and now, suddenly, the man was offering food, weapons, time—things usually earned over a dozen kills, not promised in a single breath.
That alone meant the game had shifted.
Whatever the warden was building, Azeric will be the one to suffer.
"Gods, I look forward to seeing it," Kestel said again, more amused than before.
He tapped the silver bell on his desk. The doors creaked open.
Kestel gave one last look, and the smile that followed was slow, wide, and too pleased, too knowing.
"Prepare yourself, Azeric. The crowd will want blood, and I expect you to give them more than that."
The guards moved to escort him out, their hands firm on his arms, but Azeric didn't resist.
Each step away from that room felt heavier, his jaw locked tight, teeth grinding until the ache reached into his skull.
Behind him, the echo of Kestel's smug laughter still hung in the air like smoke.
Azeric didn't look back. He didn't have to.
His fury was already carved into bone, and one day, it would find its way back to that office, back to that voice.