Despite Gronch’s arrogance and generally unpleasant demeanor, I quickly understood within seconds of our spar how he’d won his earlier death fight without so much as a scar. He was, by far, the strongest of the slaves in the dungeon's arena in terms of raw skill with weapons.

In response to my killing the King’s son-in-law, the slavers had imposed stronger restrictions on us, preventing the use of our heart rings outside the arena floors. While we could still gather energy and create new rings, the new ring would be instantly sealed upon formation. Instead, they provided us with new steel blades, with a warning not to kill each other.

Unfortunately, despite training for decades in my previous life, in this life, my body was not physically fit for combat. While forming a core had aided in developing Lilliana’s body into a weapon to some extent, it was nowhere near capable of fighting off a rampaging half-orc without any physical empowerment.

Soon after the bulbous-headed messenger had departed, Chella handed me a smaller, unsealed roll of parchment that outlined the trials with absolutely no detail. Before I stuffed it into the pocket of my worn pants, it read:

"Lady Silverwater, by order of the Church of Light and the King, your trials shall be as follows, each separated by three days: the first shall be a test of faith, the second of strength, and the third of destiny. May the Gods and Goddesses be ever leading you upon the correct path.

Signed: King Isadore."

Since then, it had been around two days. I’d chosen to spend the first day sparring with the other slaves using whatever weapons were available, displaying varying levels of mastery. I preferred the sword if it had proper balance, though I had next to no training for wielding the hammer. That’s where Gronch came in.

The majority of the second day had been spent getting tossed around the dungeon like a sack of trash by Gronch, who was clearly a well-trained hammer user. If Gronch was to be believed, he was not just well-trained - he was a Captain of the Diamond Orc Militia that had been warring with the Kingdom of Cael for years at the northern border. I had no idea if that was true, but Marisar didn’t say anything, so I figured it probably was accurate.

At least the part about the militia existing.

Gronch swung diagonally with his war hammer, the flat of the hammer’s head colliding erratically with my steel blade. I mistakenly leaned into the battle of strength, and my sword flew from my hands, spinning away under some slave’s bed. I cursed. The body of a child was simply so different from my own, and I had yet to gain enough experience with the body’s limitations. For better or for worse, my new body was also continually growing in strength, and due to that constant change, I was significantly misjudging the new parameters.

I jogged over to where my sword had been flung, while Gronch stood in the same spot, looking a combination of bored and pleased with himself. I knelt and yanked the sword out. The blade slid out with a shrill noise as it scraped against the stone floor. My breath somewhat calmed, and I stalked back toward Gronch, staggering my feet to enter into a proper fighting stance. “Again.”

Gronch yawned. I lunged at him, steel blade aimed directly at his throat. The large half-orc swatted my strike away almost lazily with the butt of his hammer, then rotated the weapon to crack against the side of my skull. I could always see the blows coming, but could never react to them. I couldn’t figure out why. Gronch wasn’t faster than me; I’d established that early on. Yet, his blows came hard and straight, without wasted movements, and I always received the end of it. Or my blade did.

This time, my face did, and I flew back a handful of feet, rolling smoothly to my feet in an attempt to disregard the thumping pain that now screamed from where he’d hit me. To say I was surprised wouldn’t do the shock I felt justice. I was never the greatest close combat fighter, since I had trained from an early age as a Lunari mage. That didn’t mean I hadn’t trained for decades in close combat. Even with the disadvantage of size and strength, this was proving ridiculous.

“How are you doing that,” I attempted to ask politely. It came out as a snarl. Gronch didn’t seem offended, though. Rather, he beamed with a pride that pulled his lips into a smile so wide it showed the base of the tusks jutting upward from his lower jaw. It looked particularly menacing like he was baring fangs at me.

He didn’t answer. “Come,” he said, beckoning me forward with his hammer. “Land a hit on me, and I will teach you. Raise your sword again, mage child. I am having great fun!”

Now I snarled for real, unrestrained. The orc seemed to love it, savoring the bloodlust radiating off me in waves. With what felt like inhuman discipline, I kept myself from charging at the orc warrior. That hadn’t worked the first time or the fifth time, and I had a feeling it would continue to not work.

I spun the sword around my hand by its hilt and slowly crouched so that my weight leaned over my feet. One of my trainers from my Kingdom of Aedronir had been a Therianthrope. A beastman of the Tiger Nation. I knew only the slim basics of his kind as I'd never spent much time with the Tiger Nation or any of the beastmen nations. The majority of what I knew was that they were, usually, abnormally strong and brutal. Fortunately, I’d witnessed his fighting style a few times; enough that I somewhat understood the basics.

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Instead of charging, I kept a dozen or so feet of distance between us and began to prowl in a circle around the orc. He raised an eyebrow at me, moving lazily to keep his torso facing in my direction. We circled a few more times, and I could see he was getting annoyed. When he finally took a step toward me, my entire being surged forward with enough speed to turn me into a blur of motion. His eyes followed my movements for a split second and then became unable to keep up with the sheer speed with which I was moving.

His hammer raised as I stuck my left foot in the ground right in front of him and pivoted right to circle to his back, where I swung my sword diagonally up from my left knee. It should have struck him, just like all my other attacks.

It didn’t.

Luckily, the tiger fighting style I’d switched to emphasized nimbleness and adaptability. When Gronch’s hammer swung toward me at an angle that should have been impossible with a speed that had no business keeping up with my own, I ducked under the horizontal hammer, which then slammed through the air above me while I redirected my upward slash to cross against the back of Gronch’s legs.

The river of rage contained inside of me absolutely roared at the incoming bloodshed. Swiftly as it’d come up, I shoved it down and halted my swing. I’d halted a bit late, so a thin bright red line blared from the back of Gronch’s legs, tiny crimson drops sliding down to disappear beneath his bare feet.

Gronch snorted and gave out the friendliest laugh I’d ever heard come from an orc or even a half-orc.

“Aye, ya got me there. That was risky of you,” he said, seemingly unbothered by the cut on his leg. If he’d even noticed. “That was some split-second drop. If ya mistimed it by even a second, my hammer woulda cracked your face.”

I just shrugged, panting. “Life is risks.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he bellowed, walking over to clap me roughly on the back. “Ya know what, girlie? I changed mah mind about you. I kinda like ya now. You got some real spirit. Like an orc!”

I… I wasn’t sure that was a compliment, even if Gronch had meant it as one. A full human that was like an orc? Wasn’t that basically calling me some type of wild beast? Though I suppose I had used a fighting style based on the movements of a tiger beast so maybe that assessment wasn’t far off.

Marisar clapped from where he sat on the floor, his large blue fingers slapping against each other with a wet sucking noise.

“I will never get used to this Selenian,” Gronch grumbled, heaving his large hammer against his right shoulder. “In my nation, the Selenian are powerful water warriors. Many of my brethren have died by being pulled into the depths of their waters.” He motioned toward Marisar as we approached, not bothering to lower his volume. “But of course, this Selenian refuses to even hold a weapon.”

“I am a pacifist,” Marisar responded, his calm demeanor not matching the drowning gurgle sound he made while talking. “We do not fight, even when we would die.” Gronch scoffed, and I stayed silent. It wasn’t my place to pass judgment on Marisar’s beliefs. If he wanted to die in the dungeons, that would be his choice. I’d met many pacifists as Queen of Aedronir, and only the lucky ones had lived more than two decades. Even the most fortunate always died before four decades. Except for Droth, one of my advisors. He’d been the only pacifist I’d known to reach six decades of life.

The three of us sat side by side against the dungeon’s stone wall in silence. I had never been someone who took in friends. I’d found the idea quite bizarre. A Queen did not have friends. She couldn’t. No weaknesses.

Yet, here I was, sitting between two creatures without worrying one of them would kill me. Were these friends? Or were they allies? A sort of the enemy of my enemy is my friend situation? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t want to think about the answer.

“What’s the first trial for tomorrow?” Marisar asked, his wet voice soft and somewhat awkward like he’d been pondering the same questions I had a moment earlier.

“A test of faith,” I said. “That is all the King’s message warned me of. A test of faith sounds… not particularly difficult.”

Marisar shook his head in disagreement. “No, I do not believe that is correct, Lady Lilliana.” Most of the slaves had taken to calling me that since the King’s decree. “Faith is always the toughest of challenges. You will not know what is right or wrong, up or down. You will have to rely solely on your faith in the Goddess Dhalia, most likely.” The Selenian looked at me with a worried expression, the blue skin around his eyes quivering slightly. “Do you truly have faith that Goddess Dhalia will protect you throughout these trials?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “Gods and Goddesses do not help even their most devout believers.” Never once had I ever seen any divine being lend aid to a survivor. If they existed, they did not care. “The King’s note never mentioned it was a trial of faith in the Goddess of Life. Only a trial of faith.” I looked at both Marisar and Gronch. “I, at least, have faith in myself.”

Gronch, once more sinking into his usual arrogant and unpleasant demeanor as the fighting adrenaline left him, snorted. “Yer gonna die tomorrow, I just know it.”

“Well, why don’t you teach me that speed skill you kept bashing my head in with? Who knows, maybe it'll stop me from having my skull caved in tomorrow.”

Gronch just grunted.

"You know I'm going to pick both of you for the trial, right?" I said, already standing up. "Shouldn't you help me survive to help yourself survive? Plus, you did promise."

He muttered something but followed me to his feet. Marisar stood as well. He stared at both of us and frowned as if making his mind up about something. "I will teach the two of you something as well. Tomorrow, we all survive."

Us and whatever other slaves I picked. The Decree had not stated what number of slaves I could bring, so I planned to bring every slave in this dungeon to the trial. If they all gained access to Orpheus' power, that would only benefit me in my eventual escape.

"Wait a second." I turned and jogged toward the two warriors who had shared their energy gains with me during the Massacre reenactment. Julius and Romeo, Marisar had told me. I wanted them in whatever training we were about to do. The two seemed trustworthy enough. If they weren't, well, I would handle that if it came to it.

I needed to start rebuilding my forces somewhere.