Chapter 49

The Arena reappeared as before, massive red walls encircling the shadow-wreathed floor, but now the darkness was filled with countless sparring circles, each identical to the last, each in its own island of light and complete with two contestants. So massive was the arena that it was able to accommodate all thirty-two circles, the walls rearing up around them like cliffs from whose heights gazed the spectators.

Scorio dragged his gaze to his own circle’s far side and examined his opponent. He’d seen him around the Academy, a solitary, reserved figure that never seemed to walk with others, who sat alone to eat in the mess hall, but who was in none of his classes. Of medium stature, his defining feature was the long braid he wore down to the small of his back but which here, in the Gauntlet, now hung loose like a curtain of shadow, straight and coarse. His skin was toned like First Bronze, his mouth sensitive, his poise and balance such that even while merely standing he exuded a dancer-like grace.

Scorio met his dark eyes and the Arena seemed to fade away, so that only they stood in the light, eyeing each other with equal amounts of resolve and determination. In this Great Soul, Scorio sensed a brother, a man possessed of a fierce will and quiet bravery. No tremulous bravado, no uncertain desire for glory. The other man’s gaze was steady and reserved, unafraid and almost regretful.

As if he foresaw the damage he was about to inflict upon Scorio, the pain, and wished it could be otherwise.

“Well, damn,” said Scorio, swinging his arms open and closed a few times as he hugged himself, loosening up his shoulders. “A real fight, then.”

The crowd in the stands was murmuring, taking in the sight, but quieted when Helminth spoke forth.

“The time for speeches is over. We are gathered here in this ancient place of battle to see who has the courage, skill, and ability to continue into the tournament’s next round. Remember the rules, simple as they are: Anything is allowed. Victory takes place when your opponent yields or is rendered unable to fight. This being a mystical space, you have no need to fear unleashing your full abilities upon each other; no injuries will remain when you awaken. The fight will begin on the third chime; interfering in another combat will immediately disqualify you from the tournament, and there will be one bout. Good luck, contestants.”

Scorio closed his eyes again, but this time he didn’t feel as composed; victory over Etheren had given him a taste of success, and now he loathed to lose, loathed to make a mistake when sponsorship was nearly in reach.

But he centered himself, focused on slowing his breath, filled his chest to bursting, then summoned his Heart. And there it was, glittering and dark, hanging before him like a benediction, a threat, and promise. Scorio reached out to the ambient mana, and drew in Iron, willed it to swirl about him, and forced it laboriously into his core with a combination of assurance and need.

He restrained his frustration as Iron began immediately to leak forth, and instead lay in with more.

The first chime sounded, causing a jolt to run through him. He kept his eyes closed as before, focused fiercely on his Heart.

A quick victory. He couldn’t afford to drag this fight out.

More mana. It felt like trying to drink down the ocean, but he inhaled more of that pale gray power into his Heart, intensifying the pressure and feeling his reservoir expand.

The second chime sounded.

A quick victory. No fear, no doubts, no thought. The other man was competent, but he wasn’t driven by the same need. His very Heart wasn’t at stake.

Scorio would meet him and destroy him.

The third chime sounded and Scorio willed his Heart to ignite. It whooshed into pale flame, and as that terrible strength flooded his being he opened his eyes and saw the other man standing still.

No headlong charge.

There wasn’t time to wait. Scorio began to jog forward, feeling light on the balls of his feet, so rich in strength and infused with speed that he barely registered the ground at all.

His foe swept his mane of hair behind his back and turned to face him at an oblique angle, expression solemn, hands still by his sides. Watchful, eyes narrowed, otherwise unmoving.

The Iron mana burned within Scorio’s Heart, but he could feel it running out already, so he put into practice his meditative techniques and willed more into his Heart when he crossed the halfway mark of the ring. Around him, the cries and sounds of violence filled the air, thin and distant, but he didn’t allow them to distract him.

The best approach? To engage directly, push the man back, perhaps drive him right out of the ring.

And then he was there, drawing close, and only when he did so did he feel the frisson of power wash off his foe as his Heart ignited. Scorio put on a burst of speed and hopped up into a lunging front kick, seeking to stave in the man’s chest.

His enemy sidestepped, slapping Scorio’s leg away, and flicked out a backhand at his face. A feint, a probing strike, which Scorio avoided, then the fight began in earnest.

They exchanged blows, bodies twisting and weaving, dodging and blocking, the impact of wrist on wrist muffled and constant. Elbow to shoulder, cross just missing the chin, twisting to avoid the return uppercut, a couple of jabs, then an attempt at a headbutt, fast, fast, faster.

Scorio’s mind emptied. His emotions sluiced away, and he found his gaze locking on the other man’s eyes. His face, which seemed to float, unrelated to the frenetic activity that was taking between them, a single, slender vertical line between his brows the only indication that they were fighting for their lives.

Memories reared their heads like whales breaching the ocean’s surface, memories of drilling with Naomi in her Nightmare Lady form, exchanging blows, following sequences to the threshold of his ability, and then beyond. How to interweave strikes, to vary the combinations, to never lose sight of the opponent's knees, to watch the angle of their hips and shoulders.

Neither had landed a blow. Scorio began to lean forward, increasing the pressure, and his sense of presence began to swell as if he were becoming larger, swelling out before the man to loom over him, to crush him through the weight of his will alone.

The other gave a step back, then a second. Scorio’s wrists and forearms were throbbing with pain, each of the man’s blocks more of a strike, but he knew he was giving as good as he got. Hammered an elbow in just as the Great Soul twisted away and raised his arm to cradle it against his head and absorb the impact, but Scorio immediately drew his elbow back and hammered it home again—and again—not relenting, shattering his rhythm, his routine.

The other man staggered, the strength of the elbow strikes absorbed by the muscles of his arm which rested flush against the side of his head, but the strength was such that he overbalanced.

Scorio felt victory within reach, felt omnipotent, felt unstoppable. His next strike was a tight hook, which he pounded into the man’s blocking arms, hammering and hammering, lips writhing back from his teeth, wanting blood, wanting to break bone, wanting to drive him to the ground.

His foe was trapped. Scorio’s attacks were coming too quickly for him to react or move away.

Again and again, Scorio slammed his fist into the man’s upraised arm, then with a violent wrench, he twisted into an uppercut with his other arm and slammed his fist as deep into the man’s gut as he could.

It felt like hitting a bull’s shoulder, nothing but solid muscle, but the man gasped and staggered back again, his form falling apart for one crucial moment.

Scorio roared, went in for the kill, could see nothing but the man’s wide-open eyes, his shock flaring—and then his Heart guttered and died.

His punch should have caved in the front of the man’s skull. Instead, it merely split his lip.

For a second, they stood there, panting, staring at each other, and then awareness entered the other man’s eyes.

Scorio desperately reached out for Iron mana, but he didn’t have the chance. The man stepped forward, and now it was his time to attack. Scorio felt as if he were wading in mud, his normal strength and speed paltry compared to that of a Cinder’s, and he weakly blocked the first two jabs before a cross slammed into his cheek and sent him reeling.

And then he was retreating, stumbling, fending off blows, most of which slipped through, cracking into his ribs, ringing his ears, pounding into the side of his thighs.

Pain blossomed everywhere; he couldn’t catch his breath. The man came on, form conservative, ready for a trick, chin tucked, eyes burning with killing intent.

Scorio reached again and again for Iron, but it slipped through his fingers, resisted his authority, and refused to slide into his Heart.

The man slammed a front kick into Scorio’s chest, drove him back onto his heels, and then spun around, the back of his fist whiplashing around with terrible, unnatural speed to crack into Scorio’s jaw.

The Arena blurred, spun around, and then the floor rushed up to slam into his face. Scorio rolled onto his back, tried to rise, fell back.

He couldn’t focus. The man was a shadow above him, grim and heaving for breath.

A second. That’s all he had.

Scorio went to reach blindly for Iron again, then stopped.

No.

Instead, he reached for the Coal. For that dross, that despicable mana that all others despised.

Come to me, my old friend, he thought, and sank his fingers into that heavy, sluggish mass. So familiar, so right. It was stubborn, foul, and barely moved, but he knew it like he knew the walls of his room in his ruined home, and with a great burst of need, he got the Coal moving, swept it once, twice, thrice around his Heart and then slammed it home with all the violence and satisfaction of a janitor dumping a bucket of ashes into a waste pit.

The man raised his leg with remarkable control, extended it straight and true above, and then with a convulsive flex brought his heel whistling down toward Scorio’s face.

No time. He willed his Heart to ignite, his wretched, wounded Heart, and despite the pain, the fractures, the Coal burst into flame, wreathing him in black tongues, and Scorio brought up his hand to catch the man’s descending heel in the palm of his hand.

The man froze, still perfectly balanced on his other foot, eyes narrowing in confusion, but Scorio didn’t give him the chance to react. He sat up and slammed his other fist into the inside of his knee with as much strength as he could manage; not enough leverage to break the joint, but enough to send the other reeling and hobbling away.

Scorio flipped to his feet and dove after him. Caught him in a tackle around the waist and drove him to the ground. The other tried to twist onto his side, arms grasping Scorio, but he was unable to prevent Scorio from surging up to smash his brow into the bridge of his nose.

It felt like using a mallet to drive a wooden peg deep into clay soil. The man’s head cracked back, his hands tried to close on Scorio’s neck, but Scorio’s mind was screaming, raging, aflame with pain and raw, wounded need. He fended off the man’s hands and drove his head down again, reckless, wild, burying his forehead into the man’s face.

He heard the man’s nose break, felt hot blood spatter across his face.

Reared up just enough to drive his head down again, and again, and again.

The man punched and gouged, knees and flexed his hips, trying to shove him off, but Scorio held on with every vanishing ounce of his Coal-born strength. Took blows but focused on one thing: smacking away the man’s arms every time he tried to block so he could drive his head down, again, and again, and again.

His mind was a rushing roar, he felt the Coal mana burning away, heard the flames, saw them all around him. There was nothing but this immolation, he was in a pyre of black rage, and it was burning, consuming him, feeding him an impossible strength that would never end. A strength with which he could tear raw chunks of stone right out of the ground with which to break in his foe’s head, the strength of titans, all the strength in hell.

The man was now just feebly pushing at him, gasping, making wet noises, and Scorio couldn’t see for all the blood in his eyes. He reared up one last time and with a scream brought his brow crashing down as if it were a five-hundred-pound stone.

Bone cracked and the man went still.

Scorio remained on all fours, heaving for breath, unable to think, to see. With a heave, he sat up, wiped his sleeve across his face, but the blood wasn’t just the man’s, he could feel his own torn flesh.

And still, the Coal mana burned, the black flames wreathing his mind, promising more power, an eternal source. It was his greatest companion, his truest love, ready to feed his every desire.

All he had to do was reach for it and it would be there, ready to burn, ready to consume, to deliver his every wish.

He heard Helminth’s voice speaking from above, could hear the crowd cheering, but the sound felt indiscriminate, not for him alone, a general, bland voicing of approval. He heard the cries of victory from other contestants around him, and some bleary, bloody-minded part of him wanted to leap to their circles, to chase them down and tear them apart.

He rose to his feet, reeling, blinking, tried to orient on the next enemy. But his legs weren’t working right, or perhaps he was dizzy; he staggered and fell to his knees, reached up again to wipe at his eyes.

Black fire. Through the blood that was all he could see. Black fire, burning from the truest source. He was sweating, rivulets streaming from his face, his hair plastered. Couldn’t breathe, his entire body aflame, feverish.

With a cry, he tore his robes open. The world faded and sweet, merciful darkness swept in to carry the Arena away.