Turns out, Yvlan and her gang treat fighters better than they treat prisoners. Another shocking revelation.

As soon as I agreed to fight, Yvlan escorted me to a nicer room where she had an attendant, a boy barely below conscription age, bandage my wounds.

I tried to make small talk with him, but he seemed far too scared of me to talk back. That’s fine, I just liked hearing the sound of my own voice.

Once he was done, he made himself scarce and I was alone with Yvlan again. She just stared at me for a long while before she left as well, locking the door behind her. There was a cot in the corner of the room, so I laid down and closed my eyes. Might as well get some shut-eye before the big fight.

Thankfully, I didn’t dream. When I do dream, it’s rarely good. Usually, I dream of the endless trenches, the mudslides, and the disease. Of explosions rocking me awake. If not that, I have strange dreams about the hells. Many Hunters have these dreams. Probably because that’s where we’ll all end up.

I was awoken by that same boy, who said, “The fight is in fifteen minutes.” His voice was coarse and scratchy. It was as quiet as he was skinny, which is to say very. He looked a bit like a scarecrow who might blow away at any moment. His skin was dark and his hair was curly and a deep brownish red.

“What am I fighting?” I said quietly, sitting up in bed to wrap my forearms in bandages.

“I don’t know,” the boy said. I held back a sigh. It wasn’t the boy’s fault. “They’re keeping it a secret from everyone, even Yvlan,” he said.

Now that was interesting. Yvlan was nervous for a good reason. A fight on her turf, where even she didn't know what her opponent brought? Someone must have had something big on her. That scared me a bit. I tried not to let it show, but the boy must have seen something.

He smiled and said, “You’re a Hunter. You’re invincible, at least that’s what Yvlan told me.”

I smiled back and asked, “What’s your name, kid?”

He bowed his head respectfully and said, “Yvlan calls me Fiul.”

Hells. Fiul. Urelian for son. I looked at the boy's face and saw that he was just a tinier version of Yvlan. And I realized he probably didn’t know.

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“Do you speak Urelian, Fiul?”

He shook his head. “I’m not Urelian. I’m from Armáda.”

I tried not to pry even further. I wasn’t here to learn about a Urelian mob boss’ illegitimate children.

“Get me a weapon,” I said, standing up.

“It’s a barefist fight,” he said.

I turned to look at him, my eyes wide. I had to remind myself it wasn’t his fault, he was just a kid. It wasn’t his fault—gods above this was stupid. I was supposed to fight some unknown monster with nothing?

“You’re a Hunter,” Yvlan said.

I turned toward the door and saw her standing there, a grim smile on her face.

“A Hunter lives and dies by preparation,” I said. “Our greatest weapon is—”

“The pen, not the sword,” Yvlan said dismissively, slowly walking toward me. “I’ve heard it all before, but I’ve seen your kind tear people limb from limb. Faced with no other option, the sword will suit you just fine.”

I scowled and opened my mouth to say something but Yvlan gently placed her hand on Fiul’s shoulder and said, “Fiul, do you know the history of the Hunters?”

Fiul glanced to me and shook his head. Yvlan smiled at me and cocked an eyebrow.

“They don’t teach them anything about you in Armáda, Jonas. They’re a bit less enthusiastic about you there.

“The Hunters trace their founding back to a time before history,” she said. “They were called wolf hunters, in the time before gods and monsters.” Fiul looked at her, completely captivated and just a bit scared. It would’ve been a sweet scene if I wasn’t so annoyed. “When the hordes came, the wolf hunters began to change into the Hunters we know now.

“All Hunters have a Mark,” she said, pointing to the brand on my neck. “No one knows what it is or how it works except a very small group of Guild arcanists, but it gives them the strength to fight back anything that goes bump in the night.”

There was a particular shine in her eyes as she told this story. It could be because she got to tell it to her son, but it was something more than that. It was the look of someone who was telling their child a story they’d first heard as a child. It was a look I remembered from my childhood, one I had seen on my parents. For just a second, my anger faded and I felt a strange wellspring of pity and hope.

Then it was gone. I needed to get my game face on. Yvlan turned to me and I grinned.

“She’s right,” I said, “I’ll kill whatever is hiding under your bed, kid.”

I stood up and leaned in close to Yvlan so I could whisper in her ear. “Let’s hope whatever I’m fighting is small enough to fit under his bed, then,” I said grimly.