The Celestial Beastmasters' arena was a living throat.
It hung in the sky like a second moon, its walls pulsing with the slow, wet rhythm of something ancient trying to swallow the stars. Inside, the air tasted of iron and milk. Gravity dripped from the ceiling in slow, crimson ropes. The floor was a tongue—soft, warm, and ridged with scars that spelled forgotten names.
Arya stepped through the gate first.
Eighteen bodies followed in perfect silence.
No crowns.
No dragons.
Only the black seed in her chest and the shadow-dagger that had once been Velira's laugh.
They had not spoken since the hourglass shattered.
They did not need to.
Every breath was a vow.
The Beastmasters waited at the throat's centre: six women whose skin had been flayed and re-woven from the hides of the beasts that devoured their own hearts. Their leader, Matriarch Veyra Bloodtide, wore the pelt of a leviathan across her shoulders; its empty eye-sockets wept seawater that hissed where it touched the tongue-floor.
Between them prowled six heartless beasts—
each the size of a cathedral,
each missing the cavity where a heart should beat,
each staring at Arya with the hollow hunger of something that had once been loved.
A single drumbeat rolled through the throat.
The duel began.
The first beast lunged.
It was a serpent of obsidian and grief, its mouth a cathedral arch lined with teeth that dripped lullabies. It moved like smoke, like regret, like the moment Jonathan's dagger had found Velira's ribs.
Arya did not dodge.
She walked forward, barefoot, until the serpent's jaws closed around her waist.
The teeth did not bite.
They remembered.
Inside the serpent's mouth, the world was velvet and starlight.
Velira stood there—whole, laughing, shadow-petals drifting from her hair like black snow.
"You came back for me," Velira said, voice soft as the second before sleep.
"I never left," Arya answered.
She pressed her forehead to Velira's.
The serpent shivered.
Outside, Alexander roared—a sound that cracked the throat's walls.
He drove his storm-spear through the serpent's empty heart-cavity.
Lightning poured in, filled the void, became a heartbeat.
The serpent screamed Velira's name.
It collapsed, scales peeling away to reveal a woman—
the Beastmaster who had worn its skin.
She knelt, weeping seawater that turned to rubies where it touched the tongue-floor.
One beast down.
The second beast was a wolf made of mirrors.
Every shard showed a different Jonathan:
the boy who pressed paper phoenixes into Solara's palm,
the prince who kissed Arya's tears in the resurrection spire,
the monster who smiled while Velira crumbled to dust.
The wolf lunged for Solara.
She met it with wings of living sunrise.
Feathers of molten gold sliced the mirrors into snow..
Each shard became a memory she burned away.
The wolf howled Solara's childhood name.
Gilgamesh caught the howl in his teeth,
ran a golden circle around the wolf,
kissed every shard until it shattered into dawn.
The wolf dissolved into a second Beastmaster—
a girl whose eyes were still mirrors,
but now they reflected only Solara's smile.
Two beasts down.
The third beast was a spider woven from silence.
Its web caught the Choir children mid-song.
Six tiny mouths opened in perfect, soundless screams.
Sable moved like midnight given flesh.
Her shadows became scissors,
snipped the web,
caught each child,
pressed them to her breast until their hearts beat again.
The spider wept silence.
Cogsworth stepped forward,
chrome fingers clicking like clockwork.
She pressed a single gear into the spider's hollow chest.
The gear spun,
became a heartbeat,
became a lullaby.
The spider curled into a ball of legs and tears,
revealing the third Beastmaster—
a woman whose mouth had been sewn shut with her own nightmares.
Sable kissed the stitches.
They dissolved into starlight.
Three beasts down.
The fourth beast was a dragon made of yesterdays.
Its wings were every sunrise Arya had ever missed.
Its breath was every apology Jonathan had never spoken.
It wrapped its tail around Arya's throat,
lifted her until her feet dangled above the tongue-floor.
Inside the dragon's eye, she saw tomorrow:
Jonathan on a throne of her crowns,
Velira's dust ground into the armrests,
the cohort kneeling in chains.
Arya smiled.
She kissed the dragon's pupil.
The tomorrow shattered.
Morvox stepped from the shadows,
dream-flesh rippling.
He pressed his locked heart to the dragon's hollow chest.
The screams inside became lullabies.
The dragon sighed Morvox's name.
It folded its wings,
became the fourth Beastmaster—
a man whose eyes were still yesterdays,
but now they reflected only Arya's smile.
Four beasts down.
The fifth beast was a kraken of regret.
Its tentacles were every kiss Jonathan had stolen.
One wrapped Liora and Cassia,
froze their fire and ice into a single tear.
Another caught the twins,
twisted their tails into knots of grief.
Nyxara rose from the tongue-floor,
her own kraken arms unfurling like midnight.
She met the beast tentacle for tentacle,
kiss for kiss,
until the regret melted into brine.
The beast wept Nyxara's name.
It dissolved into the fifth Beastmaster—
a woman whose tears were still regret,
but now they tasted of forgiveness.
Five beasts down.
The sixth beast never moved.
It was a child—
small,
hollow-chested,
eyes black holes.
It looked at Jonathan's absence and cried.
The sound was the first noise the throat had ever made.
It cracked the walls.
It cracked the sky.
It cracked Arya's halo.
The child reached for her.
In its hollow chest, she saw Velira's dust swirling into a new shape—
a dagger,
a crown,
a heart.
Arya knelt.
She pressed her lips to the child's empty cavity.
She breathed.
The child filled.
It became the sixth Beastmaster—
a girl whose heartbeat was now Velira's laugh.
Six beasts down.
The throat sighed.
Matriarch Veyra Bloodtide knelt,
leviathan pelt sliding from her shoulders.
She offered a crown of hollow beast-hearts—
each one pulsing with the name of the lover who had filled it.
Arya placed it on her head.
The hollow hearts beat.
Level 700.
The cohort surged—
Alexander Level 460,
Solara Level 610,
Morvox Level 580,
Cogsworth Level 530,
the Choir children Level 200 each and singing Velira's name in perfect harmony.
The throat opened like a flower.
They stepped out into a sky that had learned to bleed.
And there he was.
Jonathan Andrew,
cloaked in void,
crowned in every shard of Arya's broken halo,
standing on a platform of black glass that floated above the arena.
Velira's dust swirled around his ankles like a pet.
He held her shadow-dagger in one hand,
a new void-crown in the other.
He smiled—
the same smile he had worn the moment he killed her.
"Hello, Alpha," he said,
voice layered with every yesterday he had stolen.
"Miss me?"
The platform began to descend.
The void-crown began to sing.
The cohort formed a circle around Arya—
eighteen bodies,
eighteen heartbeats,
one vow.
Alexander's storm runes ignited.
Solara's wings unfurled into a second sun.
Morvox's locked heart opened like a flower.
Cogsworth's gears clicked into a war-march.
The Choir children sang a single note that cracked the sky.
Arya stepped forward.
The black seed in her chest bloomed into a second shadow-dagger—
Velira's twin.
She kissed the blade.
It kissed her back.
"Round two," she whispered.
"This time,
you don't get to walk away."
Jonathan's void-crown flared.
The platform touched the tongue-floor.
The throat closed behind them.
The war had a battlefield.
The war had a name.
The war had a heartbeat.
And it was hers.