The remaining time passed in eerie silence.
Scattered across the armory floor, pairs of prisoners sat motionless, preserving their energy for the inevitable. Some stared at their weapons. Others at their partners. A few simply stared at nothing at all, lost in whatever thoughts occupied a condemned person's final hour.
Damon noticed Elise glance at him several times, her lips twitching as if she wanted to say something. Each time, she stopped herself, the words dying before they could form. He understood. What was there to say? They were strangers bound together by circumstance, waiting to kill or be killed, there was nothing much to be said.
Still, the waiting gnawed at him worse than the prospect of violence itself.
'An hour to sit with your own mortality,' he thought, watching a pair across the room argue in hushed whispers. 'Torture would be kinder.'
Time crawled. Every minute felt like ten, each second weighted with dread. Damon found himself counting his own breaths just to have something to focus on besides the tightening knot in his stomach.
Finally, or perhaps unfortunately, the wait ended.
Metal hinges shrieked as a pair of heavy doors swung open. The gray-haired commander strode through, flanked by two armored soldiers. His boots struck the stone floor with sharp, deliberate clicks that silenced even the quietest murmurs.
He paused just past the threshold, surveying the prisoners with cold disapproval.
"Get up!"
The command cracked through the air like a whip. Prisoners scrambled to their feet, weapons clattering. Even those who'd been sitting with defiant slouches straightened their spines, shoulders pulled back as if yanked by invisible strings. One man who'd been leaning against the wall actually flinched, his hand trembling on his sword hilt.
Damon rose more slowly, analyzing the effect. The commander's voice carried weight beyond volume, an authority that bypassed conscious thought and went straight to instinct.
'It's not respect. It's fear.' Damon realized, tightening his grip on the short sword.
He glanced at Elise. Her small frame pressed closer to him, as if seeking shelter from the commander's gaze.
"In a few moments," the commander began, his voice carrying effortlessly across the chamber, "every pair will be teleported to a random location inside the arena. Once you're there, the game begins. Do what you must to survive." His lips curved into something that might have been a smile. "As I said before, only the last pair standing gets to live. But don't think you'll only face the rabble you see around you. There will be three more batches of non-sorcerers from other cities teleported into the arena. And from what I've heard…"
He paused, his eyes gleaming with dark amusement.
"…you lot are the worst of them all!"
The words hit Damon like a physical blow.
'Three more batches...'
His mind raced through the numbers. If each batch matched theirs, that meant roughly 180 prisoners. Ninety pairs, and only one would survive. Their odds had just became astronomically worse.
Around him, other prisoners shifted nervously, but none looked surprised. They'd known. Well, of course they'd known, everyone except him seemed to understand the rules of this world.
'I'm operating blind,' he thought, frustration mixing with his growing dread. 'Every piece of information is news to me, while everyone else already knows it all...'
"Once there, you will hear an announcement," the commander continued. "Listen closely. They will not repeat themselves. You already know what happens to disobedience, don't you?"
He let the question hang in the air, studying the prisoners' expressions as fear rippled across their faces.
"Well then…" The commander's grin widened. "May sorcerers rise, and other filth burn."
Before Damon could even process the words, light exploded across his vision, brilliant, blinding white radiance seared through his closed eyelids. The ground vanished beneath his feet. His stomach lurched as reality twisted, folding in on itself.
He was falling.
No. It was different. It was as if he was being pulled through something, dragged across an infinite canvas which felt both never-ending and instantaneous.
Pressure built in his ears, his chest, behind his eyes. Colors that had no names streaked past him. Or through him. He couldn't tell anymore.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended.
THUD!
Damon slammed into the muddy ground, the impact knocked the air from his lungs. He gasped and coughed, trying to force oxygen back into his chest. His hands sank into cold, wet earth. The smell of dirt and decay filled his nose.
Beside him, Elise was already pushing herself up, recovering from the teleportation with surprising ease. She brushed mud from her clothes with methodical precision, her movements controlled despite her disheveled appearance.
'Teleportation.'
The word felt absurd even thinking it. Yet here he was, mud on his hands and forest stretching in every direction. The evidence was undeniable and right in front of him.
Damon forced himself upright, wincing at the protest in his muscles. His gaze swept their surroundings, cataloging every detail.
Ancient trees with thick trunks and gnarled roots stretched all around them. Underbrush so thick he couldn't see more than thirty feet in any direction. The canopy above blocked most of the light, casting everything in perpetual twilight.
There were no immediate threats, at least not for now.
'Seems like we got lucky with the placement,' he thought, his breathing finally steadying.
"You okay?" he asked, turning to Elise.
She stood straighter than before, noticeably straighter than she had in the armoury. Her posture had changed, shoulders back, spine aligned. The timid hunch was gone.
"Yes, I'm... I'm ready," she said, her voice firmer than before. Her right hand gripped the stiletto so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Damon studied her for a moment, noting the sudden shift.
'She looks more focused... Good. I can work with focused.'
He turned his attention back to the forest, mind already working through their options.
The thick vegetation around them was both a good and a bad thing.
On one hand, it provided excellent cover, they could move unseen, hide from larger groups and avoid conflicts. On the other hand, visibility worked both ways. Someone could be twenty feet away and they'd never know until it was too late.
'My original plan was to survive the initial chaos, then find a defensive position and wait,' he recalled. 'But with this terrain…'
An idea of setting a trap crossed his mind. If a single person stumbled into them, the two of them could overwhelm even a stronger opponent with surprise and numbers. But a pair? Even with a trap, could they even handle two armed prisoners?
He glanced at Elise again. She was staring into the forest with an odd intensity, her magenta eyes fixed on something he couldn't see.
"You see something?" Damon asked, his hand tightening on his sword.
"Oh." She blinked, as if snapping from deep thought. "No, I just… I've never seen a forest like this before, that's all."
Damon raised an eyebrow. "Never seen a forest? Any forest?"
She hesitated, her gaze dropping to the ground. "I haven't been out much."
The words hung between them. They felt cryptic and incomplete. But before Damon could press further, before he could ask what she meant, a sudden, piercing scream tore through the forest.
It was close, far too close, and undeniably human.
Damon's entire body tensed, his sword rising instinctively. Beside him, Elise's grip shifted on her knives, her eyes snapping toward the sound with a sharp focus.
The scream cut off abruptly, leaving only silence and the thundering of Damon's own heartbeat in his ears.
For a moment, neither of them moved, until their eyes finally met.
Damon saw his own tension reflected in Elise's magenta gaze, but beneath it, something else, calculation. A silent question hang between them without any need for words.
He gave a single, sharp nod, which she returned just as fast.
A mutual understanding passed between them, wordless and complete. They needed to know what they're dealing with.
They moved through the thick underbrush as one, their footsteps barely disturbing the carpet of dead leaves. Damon forced himself to breathe slowly, controlling the adrenaline that urged him to either run toward the danger or flee from it.
Beside him, Elise moved with surprising grace for someone so frail, her body low, her steps deliberate.
The forest seemed to swallow sound. Only the occasional crack of a distant branch or rustle of leaves broke the oppressive quiet. But as they pushed deeper, following the direction of the scream, new sounds emerged.
Laughter. Rough and cruel laughter.
Followed by a wet sound of something, or rather someone, moving through mud.
Damon slowed, raising his hand in a stopping motion. Elise froze instantly, her reaction so immediate it almost seemed practiced.
He crept forward, using a thick oak trunk as cover, and peered around its edge.
His breath caught.
Blood.
There was blood everywhere.