Today begins a month of celebration: From near and far humans have gathered to attend parades, feasts, see wonders and abundance. And they came to see us die.

The roads are filled with music. We pass market stall after market stall bending under the weight of their exotic goods. None of the onlookers could buy them: but that’s not the point. They’re here to demonstrate what the Pentarchy’s citizens have access too, not what they can afford.

The carriage moves. The arena in the distance grows bigger with ever turn of the wheel. Kara is taping his finder in the back. Niilan ignores the sound. So do I. He has brought the body along in hopes he will improve by watching me. I’m too tired to tell him it will do the opposite.

Overwhelming noise is replaced by silence as I’m crammed into a waiting room deep in the foundation of the tower. I wait and pray. The gate opens. My first fight in the tournament has begun.

On the other side of the arena stands a child. Cannon fodder. She darts to the weapons trying to grab a sword. It slips out of her hand and falls on the ground instead. She’s shaking. I charge towards her; she leaps to the side. With the path to the weapon stand now clear, I swipe a dagger. The girl clenches her empty hands. Eyes locked on me she bends down to grab a fist full of sand. I don’t let her: dashing, my dagger slices the girls’ arm before she can dodge. She swings a punch. I shrink. The fist passes beneath me. My dagger clatters the ground, immediately the girl makes a run for it. Her hands clutch around it a second before I land on them, hooves shatting finger, wrist and underarm. She screams and falls back; wants to prop herself up but collapses instead. The crowd is howling in delight. She lies on the ground, stomach, throat and face exposed. Too brief.

I draw back, give the girl time to rise. Instead, she turns and vomits onto the blood-filled sand. This, the people don’t like.

The girl stares at me: She’s whispering something. I can’t make out the words. I lift her up, slam her against the ground. Her eyes widen as the air is pressed out of her lungs. Face to face, I can suddenly see everything: the twitching of her lips, the lines fear and sleep deprivation have edged into her face, even the starshaped birthmark under her eye. She tries to transform. I don’t let her. Digging my heel into her convulsing chest I hold a transformed claw next to her throat. She stops. I’m sure Niilan would want more. But I’ve given him enough, we’ve given them enough. In one last attempt she tries to kick me.

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I’m faster.

The flailing stops. The convulsions stop. Slowly blood mixes with the vomit. I pick up the girl’s body, lie her down on a clean spot and close her eye with red lines.

The rest passes in a blur, celebrations, crows cheering, Niilan’s grip on my neck as we pass thru the streets. The anger is showing in his every move. May he choke on it. Kara is staring daggers at me.

The boy can’t even wait until we’re in the fighters’ quarters. As soon as the door to the servant’s corridor shuts behind us, he spins around: “That could have been Aary!”

“She wasn’t”

“Would it have made any difference?!”

“No”, I try to push past him. He blocks the way.

“You butchered her!”

“What would you have done?”

“I don’t know. Not this!”

“If you want me dead, you will have your wish soon enough. Now step aside or I will make sure Niilan won’t have to choose my successor”

He steps aside wordlessly. His eyes are full of hate. And grieve.

The tournament continues. Fight after fight the numbers are whittled down. Aary’s replacement is dead by the third round. Sjilin didn’t make it past the first. I return with more wounds each time. Each time I do the expressions of the others grow a bit more gleeful. A week in I wake up to somebody eating my ration. They don’t try it a second time.

My dreams, beardly tolerable before, now are filled with my mother in various stages of mutilation: Slit throat, broken limbs, snaped neck, bloodied beyond recognition. The only part of her that is never damaged are her eyes. They stare at me. Unmoving. Hollow. Why did I die for you? Why are you throwing my gift away? She whispers. Again, and again and again and again. Circling accusations in pooling blood.

And thru the cracks of amber and grey eyes slip other memories, older memories, ones I had buried so deep I was able to convince myself they did not scar me.