Having a look of shock, the older Arre brother, Iadra, had awakened, but not where he had anticipated.

He was lying on a bed with clean sheets in a white room instead of on the hard, sandy ground, with dust blowing up all around him.

His body ached, and even sitting up was a herculean task.

He noticed that next to him, sitting in another bed, was his younger brother, Adran.

Iadra began by apologizing, "if there ever was a time I mocked you or have treated you with less respect than you deserved, I am sorry."

Adran, after all the years that he tried to chase his brother's shadow, felt good that Iadra had acknowledged him, but this was neither the time nor the place for statements that came from the heart such as this.

"After what had occurred, Iadra, you deserve to rest," said Adran as he stood up and beckoned his brother to lie down again.

Iadra asked, "what has happened? Where are we? And where is that woman?"

"You're in a hospital and it's been a day since the arena. You've already had healers at your side; all you need to do now is rest."

Adran added, "I also have more good and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?" with considerable reluctance.

Iadra wasn't certain; there had been a lot of recent negative news, but in the end, it was still, "the bad."

Adran responded nervously, "The Dracken Coliseum, it... kind of collapsed during the fight between you and Asher.”

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"What?! And what, in the gods' name, is the good news?" Iadra said, jumping out of his bed but then fell down on one knee, still being too weak to stand on his own.

His brother helped him up, "Asher disappeared with it."

"That, truly, is good news. But are you still in her command?" Iadra was still troubled.

"No. After I woke up from your collision, I lost everything she had forced upon me. I am as weak as you always knew me."

"You are not weak. You are strong in mind and soul," Iadra opened up his system menus, "I lost the buffs too. How come you fell in with her?"

"She and I had only met yesterday morning. She approached me and commanded me to fight for her or else she would have killed me," Adran explained.

Iadra could say with confidence, "That is not hard to believe."

Adran paused to gather his thoughts before continuing, "I pray I shall never meet her—or him ever again."

"What do you mean by 'him'," his brother inquired.

"Well. It may sound strange, less so when thinking about it now, but when she introduced herself, it was initially as Asher Burell."

"Like the Warlock on the battlefield against Kathe and Landsfor and the Beast-Man who liberated those slaves from the underground Alaranian society?"

Adran shrugged and nodded at the same time, unsure of how to respond.

Many terrible things lay on the minds of these two young men, and a short silence fell.

Finally, when the younger brother spoke up, he disregarded the previous topic, but it was also something which was going to hang heavy in the room, "I wouldn't have taken it too terribly if you would have actually killed me. From the first moment I had stepped into that arena, with or against my will, I knew what would happen. It wouldn't just have been you. If I were to have fallen by the hand of anyone in there, I would have accepted my fate with the same pride, respect, and dignity as our ancestors did."

Iadra was left speechless. Never would he have expected that after everything he'd known, everything that he'd seen when they were growing up together, that his timid, usually fearful, younger brother was a man who possessed so much virtue, so much nobility of character when in the face of certain death.

"Brother, I-" Iadra wanted to start, though when a group of armored men entered the room, the two brothers' chat was abruptly ended.

The King's elite guards, the Pretor.

They wore identical masks that imitated the King's face.

From among the males, one spoke forward and said, "Adran Arre and Iadra? We want to ask you a few things."