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The sun was warm against her face.

It had been too long since she’d felt it. The heat of the day soaked into Kanna’s skin, the pain in her side dulling and the lead in her limbs melting.

Her body was heavy, but she knew what it could do. She knew it would listen, and she trusted it would get her through this.

She remembered it.

There was still so much missing, but she could feel the edges of it. She could move right up to the memories, but she couldn’t get through.

She knew she had survived worse, though. She didn’t need the memories to know that. It was in her bones.

Kanna braced her hands in the shifting sand, feeling the heat in her bare palms, dull and distant against the calluses that marked her. She pushed herself to standing as the gates opened.

It was a single fighter. She cocked her head to the side, trying to study him. He wasn’t Gegenii. He was light and lean, more likely an Adurian hoping to earn a name here.

She took a step, staggering when the world spun. Isco had warned her about the drug’s side effects, but it was like her entire center was missing.

Her opponent charged, his feet kicking up dust behind him.

Before, the fighters in the arena didn’t know her. Her anonymity and size gave them a false sense of security. That was gone now. Her opponent was bearing down on her with the full weight of his hatred for what she represented.

Kanna set her feet, willing the world to stop spinning just long enough.

The fighter’s sword slashed down and she slid to the side. She hooked his foot with her own and yanked.

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The fighter lost his footing and stumbled into the outstretched heel of her hand. She jabbed his throat with the other and twisted under his arm.

With one hand she grabbed his wrist, her arm locking around his elbow and crooking it. She stabbed the fighter’s own knife down into the meat of his thigh.

He howled, the mixture of anger and pain amplifying in her ears and slamming into her skull.

She stepped back, her foot sliding in the loose sand, clutching her head and willing the ringing to stop.

A flash of light and fluttering of fabric caught her attention. It flew through the air, unfurling, her knives landing and scattering on the ground.

Kanna’s body screamed to hold them. It needed them. Her opponent forgotten she dove, rolling across the sand.

The man followed close behind, limping from the wound in his leg.

Her left hand found the white hilt first and it felt like home. She rolled with it as her opponent’s sword came down.

Metal met metal as she blocked the strike and rolled out from under it, grasping the second knife.

She jumped to her feet at ready, her opponent’s sword swinging wide.

She matched it with her own blades and stepped into his reach. She back gripped the black knife and stabbed from the side. She felt the resistance from the blade as it found its mark in his neck. It carved its way through the flesh and muscle and stuck at the hilt.

His limbs loosened, his mouth opening as blood leaked from the corner of his lips.

His sword hit the sand as his fingers let go, his body going limp.

There was shock in his eyes, the life in them lingering. He was trapped in that moment.

She knew that moment. The last glimmer in his eyes faded. She felt the ghost of him as it flickered through the Neither, disappearing beyond.

Kanna yanked her knife free and stepped back as the body fell.

She crouched next to him and drew his eyelids shut before standing.

Her hands were coated, but the tackiness of the blood helped her grip.

She spun her knives back to ready.

The white shirt was already spattered with blood. The governor had dressed her this way to anger the crowds, to show her as an enemy.

They thought she was just a soldier.

She would show them a monster.