“Do you know what happened to the last person that let prisoners escape!?” Trini exclaimed, throwing the parchments across the room, some landing in the fireplace and scorching into ashes.

The guard shrunk back. “I'm sorry, my lady!”

She sighed in frustration. “Don't let this happen again if you want to survive long.”

The guard saluted with shaking hands before quickly leaving her office. They closed the steel door behind them, leaving her mostly alone in the decorated space.

With a long, deep breath, she finally sat down on her leather chair behind the ornately carved stone desk. Her bare toes scratched at the blood-red fur rug as she wracked her brains on the situation at hand. She glanced at the glass orb on her desk which received the vision feed from the Nadier and Ierba's cell's camera. The two men were resting in their cage as normal, Zen running circles excitedly within the cramp room as a reduced form of exercise.

Unable to come up with a lie to get out of the meeting, she faintly groaned, “Now's not a good time, Ratface.”

The rodent scurried out of his hiding space from a hole behind a drawer. In a flash of dancing snow, it returned to its dwarf form.

“Ya' having a bad day?” he slurred on. There was a faint smell of alcohol that floated from his lips. It seems wine was being served that day in the cafeteria, which was not surprising considering the next meeting required little sobriety.

“You should know what's about to happen.”

“Oh yeah,” the little man smirked. “I might have gotten a little bit drunk and bored. 'Em guards deserved it though, no?”

She rubbed her aching eyes with her fingers. “One of them, maybe. The other's just an urchin that had nowhere to.”

With that line, the smirk disappeared from Ratface's lips. “Oh.” He simply answered.

“I don't mind what you're doing, but I told you to go slow, and run it by me. Some of the guards here are just people with jobs.” She got to her feet, grabbing a thin scarf off her table for the abnormally chilly day it was. “Now if that's all, I have an execution to attend.”

Before she was halfway across the room, Ratface spoke up. “Actually, Nadier needs to meet with ya'.”

She paused in her tracks. “Needs to? That's very aggressive of him.”

“A thing came up.”

She looked to the orb on her desk. “They're in a box. What could possibly have “came up”?”

He looked visibly uncomfortable, as if he was fighting a tug-of-war with his vocal cords. “They told me not to tell ya'.”

Quickly, the gears in her mind turned as she traced the path of logic. “They told you not to tell me?” She paused, collected her thoughts, then espoused. “Is it because they know I won't like what they have to say?”

Ratface's beady eyes looked nervously left to right, seemingly looking for a reason to escape the conversation, ironic, seeing how Trini was not in the mood for it originally. She looked out the window at the blizzard that had covered the world.

Another sigh. She had been making those more often. “Fine. I'll find them. Anything else?”

She turned back and Ratface had already disappeared, the only sign of his existence being the melting patch of icy paw prints quickly vanishing from the thistle of the carpet. She wished she had as good a skill at vanishing from unwanted situations.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

With just a short glance to the orb again, she grabbed her sabre off a rack and dismissed it into her magic circuits. She left her office and was immediately greeted by the two guards standing within the stairwell outside.

“Let my father know I will be making my way to the platform shortly, after I ascertain the weather” she informed them.

The guards bowed and both left quickly down the stairs. She instead climbed upwards and continued to do so until she came to a steel hatch. A long time ago, she would have dozens of guards with her, but she spent the past 200 years creating the invulnerable and cold facade that allowed her to move more independently without being questioned. She opened the hatch and climbed out onto the tower's top, located in the middle of the five arena domes - a lighthouse with no beacon in the middle of the harsh endless winter.

She looked out the glass that encircled the roof of the tower, inspecting the violent weather. Visibility had dropped to just ten meters before being drowned out by snow. She stared at the direction where the town was centred and wondered for a moment if the people there were safe. Yes, many were criminals, but not all were privileged enough to choose their final destination, herself included.

Her mind wandered to the meeting with Nadier later. If something game changing enough for them to call her out had happened, executing any plans in such a weather might be optimal. There would be no reinforcements anytime soon, either in or out. But that caveat swung both ways.

With her daily routine finished, she made her way back down the stairwell. At the stories tall, she stopped just short of the ground floor, which would have actually left her at the highest level of the main arena ring. The west door was the one she took and with that, she stepped into an open room with a balcony that leaned out to face the west arena. Standing at the end of the path was her father in another overly glamorous white robe.

“Ah, my daughter, come.” He reached his hand out to her, and she accepted it.

His grip on her wrist was dug slightly into her skin, just enough of an attempt to remind her not to leave his side too far.

They stepped out onto the balcony. Below, the arena seats were filled, not with the usual spectators from the questionable corners of the world, but with guards and mercenaries of their payroll.

Even without anything to amplify his voice, her father's tone carried loud and far.

“My loyal employees!” He greeted them with the confidence of kings and the flamboyance of ringleaders. “Once again we must tragically gather to witness the punishment for incompetence. However, here in this land where survival is for the fittest, strength will be the only judge!”

A gradual, somewhat reluctant cheer escaped from below as the north gate to the arena opened. Egged on by other guards with spears, two guards - stripped of their armour - wearing nothing but cloth were pushed out into the battlefield with pikes, shortly before two spears were unceremoniously thrown into the ring for them to use as weapons. They quickly rush to the staff and equipped them, coming together to stand nervously as one.

“These two and their incompetence has let one of our prize beasts to escape. So it seems only fitting that their survival would depend on their victory against our own guard dog! The one! The only! The master of dark and light! LANGSLEY!”

The south gate opened and the cheers, though only minimally, grew louder as the cloaked figure of the zombified Langsley stepped out onto the field. The two poor guards stumbled back slightly and stepped away from each other, not wanting to be near their partner in death should they be targeted.

Around them, cheers and jeers from their former allies further boxed them into their mind, no doubt the psychological attack further fuelled by the alcohol that had been served to the rowdy group.

Atro gave a laugh that only Trini could hear and held out his right hand over the balcony with fingers outstretch, like a puppet master controlling his tools. Then he flicked his middle finger and Langsley summoned a spear, bright and white as stars-stained sand. In a single fluid motion, he hefted the polearm over his shoulder and flung it across the arena. It struck the chest of one of the guards and blasted through it with an explosion of light, sending the ragdoll body slamming violently into the wall behind. The corpse smashed into the brick as a cake would when dropped.

Stunned silence filled the air.

Then, a bravery filled roar echoed through the stadium. The remaining guard charged with her sword raised at Langsley. Atro gave a calloused laugh and swept his hand aside. Langsley followed the motion and in a scorching wave, sent a blaze of dark fyre crashing out of the shadow and into the last combatant, charring her to a frozen crisp.

The only sound then were murmurs and gasps, and Atro's piercing laughter.

“Remember everyone!” He giddily announced. “There's a reason why I'm up here, and you're down there. It's the food chain!”

Trini sighed and swore in her heart she would kill him.