I collapse to my knees as the spear flies overhead, the breeze kissing my face. I pull the healing potion from my bandolier and bite the cork with my teeth, ripping the topper out. Some of the liquid splashes away in my trembling hands, and more of it dripples useless onto the floor and my clothes as I try to pour it over the wound in my shoulder. It feels like splashing myself with acid, and I clamp my teeth shut around a strangled yell.

I squeeze my eyes shut, head spinning, as I lean forward to pour the rest of the potion over the back of my shoulder as well. It’s all I can do to hold onto my consciousness, fighting against the pain as I feel muscle and bone knitting itself back together again.

“I said, TIME.”

The word is like a thunderclap, suddenly silencing all sounds of combat that had still been ringing throughout the room. I force my eyes open, staring at three bright spots of blood on the ground before me, waiting for them to stop swirling.

“Excellent work,” Maru says, and the words summon a new wave of hatred and defiance within me. “That should be enough. Let’s clear the room.”

I hear a snap of her fingers, and feel a gust of displaced air. When I look up, the room is empty. Or, nearly empty. All the bodies that had been on the floor—dead and alive—are gone. All that’s left is their blood.

“My brother,” someone cries. “What did you do with him?”

Maru shrugs. “I took out the trash. All the disqualified candidates have been un-summoned. Back to wherever you rats were before I called you here.” She grins. “Hopefully somewhere near a healer, but let’s be honest, if they couldn’t survive this little spat, they probably weren’t long for the world anyway.”

[Healing potion depleted.]

I groan, attempting to roll my shoulder, then stop with a hiss of pain. It might have stopped me from dying of blood loss, but the wound is far from healed.

Maru glances my way with a frown, and I immediately regret drawing her attention. What if she recognizes me? What if she remembers?

Instead, she spins away, making for the door at the end of the room.

“Rest up,” she says. “It would probably be in your best interests to find a healer. The tournament begins at noon tomorrow, and ends by dusk. May the most glorious warrior win.”

Then the Champion strolls out, and she’s gone.

I glance around the room at the other candidates—no, survivors. There’s about thirty of us. Maybe only a third of what we started with. Some are bent over, nursing wounds, like me, but a handful have their heads held high, barely a scratch on them. I focus on these individuals.

A dryad woman with a long, flowered braid and skin like an aspen tree is a level 38 thorn mercenary. A harpy man with red feathers is a level 36 blood warrior. An androgynous human with spiked black hair and brown skin is a level 39 fire blade. All of them are unscathed, and all of them are several levels higher than the next highest contestants. Even though they’re all around Enrold’s level, and I’d still managed to survive a fight with him, I’m pretty sure if I went up against any of these competitors in the daylight, face-to-face and expecting a fight, I’d be fucked.

In fact, as I scan the room, I confirm what I’d already suspected: I’m the lowest level here.

Some voices and movement draw my attention back to the end of the room, where a handful of people are hurrying in the door. They pause at the nearest contenders. From the blooms of light and accompanying increase in HP for the people they’re tending to, they seem to be healers.

I relax, letting myself go slack. At least I won’t have to be in pain for much longer. That’s one problem solved, as I don’t know any healers in Fairwood, and my coin purse got left behind at the Starlight. Which is doubly bad, considering I’d already used up some of my brews that I’d needed for the tournament—and Maru.

I won’t make it through the whole tournament, I realize. If she has us fight to the death tomorrow like she did today—and let’s be honest, she probably will—my potions won’t last more than one or two fights, and once I’m out, I’ll be dead.

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My only option is to find Maru and kill her before someone in the tournament kills me. I could go looking for her tonight, but given her ability to teleport, she could be literally anywhere by now. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning. She should be around before the match begins. That will be my only window.

I suck in a breath, steadying my nerves. For better or worse, it all ends now.

A breeze brushes up against me.

“Sal?” a familiar voice asks. “Gods’ grace, you’re alive.”

I look up to find Lisari standing over to me. She beckons to a nearby healer, wind ruffling their clothes with the gesture. “Over here! This one needs help.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask, wincing as she touches a hand to my wounded shoulder. “Careful.”

“Sorry,” she says, crouching down next to me. “I’m supposed to be taking names and titles of all the competitors. She never gave us an opportunity to talk to any of the candidates, and now I suppose we know why.” She grimaces. “But you’re alive, at least.”

Is that surprise I hear in her tone? I snort. “Glad to hear you had so much faith in me.”

She chuckles. “I wasn’t placing any bets against you, at least.”

The healer makes it over to me, and I gesture to my shoulder and forearm. The rest should be fine on its own. A warmth washes over my arm, leaching the pain away. I sigh in relief as Echo reports, [HP restored. 90/90]

“Thanks,” I say, but the healer is already hurrying off to the next person. I wonder how all the “disqualified” candidates are faring. The ones that weren’t dead yet, at least. I hope there’s more healers out there in the city helping them.

Then again, they signed up for this. They worship the god of war. What’s one less fanatic in the world?

“Shouldn’t you be running off to someone else, too?” I ask Lisari.

“Probably,” she admits, taking out a scroll and a stub of charcoal. “But I still need to get your details, and as long as you’re dragging things out, I have an excuse to stick around.”

“Happy to distract,” I grunt, rolling my now healed shoulder. It still feels a little stiff, even though my HP is back up to max. I know even healing magic has its limits—maybe some things, when broken too far, can never be fixed exactly as they were before.

“Name?” Lisari asks as I stretch out my limbs.

“Sal,” I say, cracking my neck. “Do you know anything about what the tournament tomorrow will entail?”

A flash of light in Lisari’s hands wraps itself around the piece of charcoal. She lets go, and the nib stays suspended over the scroll. It writes down, “Contestant Name: Sal.”

“I don’t know much,” Lisari admits. “We didn’t even know this preliminary… match… would be happening until right before you all were summoned. We all scrambled to get here in time. Some are probably still heading over. Anyway, it’s to be set up like a bracket tournament. The winner of each round progresses to the next, until there’s only one victor. Family name?”

I hesitate. My family is gone. Is my last name even mine anymore? Does it mean anything? It doesn’t feel like me. The me I am today is a different person from the me I was on Earth.

This me is a murderer.

“Blight,” I lie.

Lisari raises an eyebrow, but the charcoal writes down the name anyway. Sal Blight.

[Updating Status,] Echo also pipes up, surprising me. [Name change complete.]

Huh. That was easy.

“Expertise?” Lisari asks.

I blink. “Uh, what do you mean?”

“Fighting style,” Lisari says. “If you’ve studied at any school or have any specialty or… You haven’t had any combat training, have you?”

“None,” I admit. “Um, does poison count as an expertise?” Though I hardly feel like an expert with only a month and a half of study.

“Not… really,” Lisari says, giving a pained smile. “I can put the scythe down?” she suggests, nodding at the nearby weapon.

“Actually, put down knife,” I say. At least I’ve practiced with those a lot. The charcoal begins scribbling once more. “Anything else you can tell me about tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid not,” Lisari says with an apologetic look. “Just that Widengra is expected to show up sometime during the tournament. I mean, of course—he’ll have to be present if he chooses to ascend a Champion. Will you… will you be okay?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I guess that depends on if he’ll know who I am.”

“He’s a god,” Lisari says, as if that says everything. And I guess it kind of does. “In your shoes, I’d try to drop out of the tournament as soon as possible. The first round will have at least a dozen consecutive fights. Easier to blend in. If you can find a way to lose without dying…”

I snort. “Oh, is that all?”

She smiles sadly. “Anything else you’d like to add?” She gestures to the paper. “Other candidates are giving a small bio or intro.”

“No,” I say. Grabbing the scythe, I finally push myself to my feet. “There’s nothing I want to say.”

Lisari stands too, plucking the charcoal from the page and rolling the scroll back up. She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Well. Good luck.”

[—]

“Thanks,” I say. I’ll definitely need it.

As Lisari heads off to speak to other candidates, I make for the door. I look down at the scythe, wondering how far it might get me tomorrow. Not very, I think. But at least I have my scarf—that will get me into the Blackcloak guild. There I might be able to trade the scythe for a better weapon. Not to mention, I need to make some new potions to cover the ones I used up today—at least enough to survive a couple rounds of combat tomorrow and fight Maru. I chuckle darkly to myself. Yeah. No sweat.

I yawn, then stop myself. I can’t be tired now. There’s less than twenty-four hours until the tournament, and I’ll need every second of it.