The sky was a sheet of lead. A heavy, oppressive weight pressed against every lung as if the heavens themselves were made of solid metal. Inside the massive stone gut of the Colosseum, the scent of dust mingled with the stale, metallic tang of old terror. Yur huddled on the frozen slab; the chill seeped through his rags and bit deep into the marrow until his limbs turned to wood.
Around him, hundreds of others shivered in a suffocating silence. No one dared to speak. Only the sound of ragged breathing and the occasional dry sob broke the quiet. The iron door shrieked open. The sound tore through the stillness like a jagged blade.
She stepped into the light. Or what passed for it.
She was an ancient thing, moving with a jagged, uneven gait that didn't diminish the suffocating pressure of her presence. She reeked of gangrene and spoiled apothecary jars. Her skin was scorched parchment, mapped with deep, jagged lines; her eyes were two lightless pits that refused to reflect the world. Her long, filth-encrusted nails were buried in a girl's wrist.
The girl had hair like spilled ink. Even in the dirt and the gloom, she held the ghost of a throne about her. Yur looked at her, and for a fleeting second, his mind fled the nightmare. He imagined himself a knight from the old songs. He would leap from the stands, sever the hag's hand with a blade of pure light, and lead the girl to safety.
The reality was a hammer blow.
The hag slammed the girl's head into the stone wall with sickening force. Yur heard the skull crack. It was the sound of a dry branch snapping under a giant's heel. Yur clamped his hands over his mouth, digging his nails into his own cheeks. The image of the knight withered; in its place sat a boy shivering in the dirt. The old woman didn't stop. She hammered the girl's head against the masonry again and again.
Blood sprayed across the stone, staining it a deep, dark red. The body slumped to the floor like a discarded doll. The hag wasn't finished. She drew a blade and carved into the corpse with manic, frantic strokes as if she were trying to butcher the very concept of beauty.
Yur couldn't move. Guilt gnawed at his gut, sharp and jagged. He didn't feel shame for his cowardice; he felt the sickening, sweet relief of the spared. He was glad it wasn't him.
The hag vaulted toward the stands. Her voice was a rusted hinge. "You are my disciples now!"
She produced iron cups filled with a thick, viscous liquid. Yur swallowed his portion in a single, desperate gulp to drown the taste of fear in his throat. The hag let out a shrill, piercing laugh. "Donkey piss and horse shit, the lot of it!"
"Damn you!" Yur hissed under his breath.
She grinned, a terrifying display of rot. "I was joking. It is medicine to make you strong."
A white-hot spike drove through Yur's skull. The pain was absolute. His memories began to fray, turning to ash and blowing away in a mental wind. Only one word remained, anchored in the void of his mind: Yur.
"Good," the hag shrieked, raising her clawed hands to the leaden sky. "You are the 73rd Batch of our academy!"
A young man near the back found his voice. He pointed a trembling finger at the mess on the floor. "Mistress. Why did you kill her?"
The boy's body disintegrated before he could finish the thought. His remains scattered across the sand in a red mist. A lethal silence followed.
"First rule," the hag screamed. "Those who question me die. Second rule, I killed her because she was prettier than me. Here, no one will be more beautiful than I am. I am the Follower of Envy!"
Bodies hit the dirt as the weak fainted. Yur fought the urge to join them. The hag turned her dead eyes toward a blonde girl. Her voice was ice. "What is the balance coefficient in the body before transformation?"
The girl opened her mouth, but her chest burst open like overripe fruit before a word could escape. The witch cackled. "Wrong. It is 113!"
The slaughter continued. She moved through the ranks, murdering anyone who couldn't answer her impossible questions. Then she stood before Yur. She stared into his eyes. Yur didn't flinch. The stench of blood and the sight of the butchered had pushed him past the point of caring. He waited for the end.
"I will ask you three questions," she whispered. "I like your eyes."
Yur closed his eyes. He wanted the rest that death promised.
"Stop killing the students, Morgra," a deep voice boomed from the shadows. "They are our future."
Yur turned to see a mountain of a man. He was a slab of obsidian muscle, bald and cold. "We need to return to the Academy before the Empire's scouts find us," the giant said.
The hag grumbled, pulling her knife away from Yur's throat. She looked at him with pure disdain. "Since the big man wants you breathing, I'll give you a chance. Prove you aren't just a louse."
She handed him two metal cups. Cold steam drifted from the rims. "Take these to the Doctor and Cain at the exit. If you drop a single bead, I will skin you alive."
Yur took the cups. His hands shook; the metal bit into his palms like ice. He began to walk. Every step was a battle. He moved as if he were traversing a bridge of thin glass.
He reached the gate. A small, wiry man stood there beside a warrior who looked like he had been forged from cold steel. This was Cain. He stood motionless, a statue of war. As Yur approached, his shoulder suddenly screamed in agony. A spray of hot blood hit the sand, but he didn't drop the cups.
The Doctor smiled, a thin, oily expression. "You've ruined the boy's focus, Cain."
The Doctor jammed a needle into Yur's shoulder. The pain vanished instantly. The flesh knit itself back together in seconds.
Cain looked at Yur with loathing. "Get moving, insect, before I take your head."
A pulse thudded in Yur's chest. A jagged memory flickered in the dark of his mind. Seven faces. A warm room. The smell of stew and woodsmoke.
"Damn it, Cain!" the Doctor spat. "Your strike broke the seal. His memories are leaking. He will be harder to break now."
"If he runs, we kill him," Cain replied. "Where is he going to go?"
Yur repeated the word in his mind. The Empire. It was a name, a place, and perhaps the only place where the truth still lived. He would find it before he died.