Two years and six months beneath the black sun of the pits had carved Alexander into something far from the small, wide-eyed creature that had first been delivered to Seravo's gates.
When he had come, his wrists were as thin as kindling, his frame more shadow than flesh. Now, at thirteen, the boy carried a presence beyond his years. The muscle came slowly at first, born from hunger, from repeated beatings, from the cruel necessity of moving faster than another's blade, but in time it grew into something more deliberate. The broadness of his shoulders belied his age, and his arms, corded with lean sinew, could drive a dulled practice sword with the weight of a man's blow.
Seravo saw in him not a son, nor even a favored pet, but an investment. He was fed better than most, though "better" meant an extra heel of bread, an onion, or meat boiled until the flavor had long since fled. He was given boots when others fought barefoot in the mud, but only because Seravo knew a crippled fighter earned nothing.
The life of Seravo's fighters was one of unbroken routine, the dawn bells, the hiss of the sand being raked across the training yard, the bark of the overseers as men and boys alike were drilled until their arms ached. Alexander learned early to watch, to copy, and to improve. Where others boasted or snarled, he measured. He learned the reach of each weapon the pits favored: the hooked sickle, the weighted chain, the short stabbing sword. He trained in pairs, in threes, in groups of six, learning the chaos of a melee.
And when the time came to step into the smaller pits for the coin-paying crowds, he understood the rhythm of killing.
His first months in the sand had been survival, nothing more. He fought men twice his age, winning often not through strength but through anticipation, stepping left when others stepped right, baiting an attack and answering with something sharper. The crowd took notice in murmurs. Seravo took notice in coin.
By his second year under Seravo, murmurs had turned to whispers with weight. Other slavers, fat with their own coin and pride, began to watch the boy. Some smirked at Seravo's luck, others wondered if the boy's youth was his only weapon.
And then came the fight that shifted those whispers toward something sharper. The opponent was a seasoned pitman, owned by a merchant-slaver named Dahrvos, a man who prided himself on breeding killers as other men bred hounds. The match was meant to be a lesson for Seravo's boy, perhaps even a humiliation.
Instead, it ended in blood.
The bout had scarcely lasted a minute. Dahrvos's man came in hard, heavy, eager to make an example of the youth. Alexander took the first blow on his shoulder, felt the crack of bone that might have undone another fighter, yet he stepped forward rather than back. He drove his blade into the man's throat before the second strike could fall. It was clean. Efficient. Not the flailing luck of a child.
The pit went quiet for a heartbeat before the roar came. Seravo smiled in his private box. Dahrvos… did not.
It is said Dahrvos left the pits that day with murder in his eyes, his pride wounded deeper than the man he had lost. In the weeks that followed, he was seen often speaking to others, the kind of others who made trouble for profit. Some said he wished to see the boy "tested" in ways Seravo had not yet dared.
But for the boy himself, life went on. Training at dawn. Bruises at dusk. Meals won in the sand. His name, not yet famous, but no longer unknown, began to be passed among the crowds, each retelling growing sharper, grander.
The Lion, one drunk had called him after a bout, not for a mane, but for the way he stalked his prey with patience before striking.
Whether Alexander heard the name then or not is uncertain. But the pits remember, and so did Dahrvos.
Two nights after the drunk's slurred christening, the name found its way back to Seravo's ears. He did not laugh, nor did he speak it aloud, but a glimmer passed through his eyes when he heard it. Seravo understood better than most that names were a form of currency. In the pits, a name could fill the stands or empty them.
Dahrvos, meanwhile, wore his grievance like a badge. He spread the tale of Alexander's victory, but never without the twist of his own choosing, that the boy had been lucky, that Seravo's "pet" had faced a man already weary from previous bouts, that fate had conspired against his fighter. And yet, in his telling, the wound to his pride only deepened. For each denial of Alexander's skill, more came to see for themselves.
It was not long before the first of Dahrvos's challenges reached Seravo. At a gathering in the upper tiers of the Copper Pit, with the smell of spiced wine and roasted goat thick in the air, Dahrvos leaned across a table between wagers and spoke loud enough for all to hear.
"Your boy is quick, Seravo. Quick enough for a child. But let us see him against something with teeth."
The laughter that followed was not all in jest. In the free cities, it was not unheard of for pitmasters to parade their fighters against beasts, bears from the hills of Norvos, wolves from the Shadow Lands, even the lean, yellow-eyed lions from the southern reaches of Essos. Such matches were expensive, dangerous, and, when well advertised, wildly profitable.
Seravo's reply was measured, but his mind turned over the idea. Alexander was not yet of an age to be spent recklessly, but the lure of a spectacle was strong. Still, Seravo was a cautious man; he had no desire to see his investment gutted in the sand simply to satisfy Dahrvos's spite.
And so, while no agreement was made that night, the seed had been planted. Seravo began to push Alexander harder. Morning drills lengthened. Seravo's lessons in footwork grew more punishing, forcing the boy to evade and circle for minutes at a time without striking, conserving his energy, waiting for the moment to lunge. The heavier fighters were set against him, not in duels to the death, but in relentless sparring meant to wear him down.
It was during these sessions that the other fighters, slave and free alike, began to speak less of "the boy" and more of "the Lion." The name had taken root without Alexander's urging. The younger trainees watched him as one might watch a champion; the older ones measured themselves against him, eager to prove he was still just flesh and blood.
One evening, after a day of sparring that left his ribs aching and his forearms striped with bruises, Alexander lingered in the yard long after the others had gone. The moonlight spilled across the sand, silvering the ground where so much blood had been shed. He sat in the dirt, drawing circles with his fingertip, replaying in his mind each feint, each parry, each moment where he might have been faster, sharper.
From the shadows, Seravo watched him. "A lion doesn't need to be told it's a lion," the old fighter said at last. "But it still learns to hunt."
Alexander did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the sand, but his thoughts were already beyond it, to the fights to come, and to the unspoken challenge that Dahrvos had thrown into the air like a gauntlet.
The day when Seravo would accept it felt inevitable.