Chapter 54: The Warning
Chapter 55: The Warning
The holding area was quiet now. The kind of quiet that meant dread.
Alex sat on his straw bed, his back against the cold stone, listening to the muffled roar of the crowd above. It had been going on for what felt like hours—the screams, the splashes, the thunderous ovations that shook dust from the ceiling. He’d heard men die, dozens of them. Their final moments filtered through stone and shadow until they were nothing but echoes.
Then the heavy iron doors at the end of the corridor groaned open.
Torchlight flickered, footsteps echoed.
Alex looked up, as the Gaul walked in.
He was drenched in blood. It soaked his braided beard, matted his long hair, painted his bare chest in streaks of red that were already beginning to dry and crack. The twisted gold torc around his neck was barely visible beneath the gore. He moved with the slow, heavy gait of a man who had spent everything and was running on nothing but the dregs of adrenaline.
Behind him, the corridor was empty.
Alex watched the doorway, waiting to see more survivors. The guards who had escorted the Gaul back were already retreating, the iron doors swinging shut with a resonant clang. No one else came through.
No wounded limping behind, no other survivors being half-carried by attendants. Just the Gaul... alone.
Fisty men had walked out of this holding area. One had walked back.
For a moment, the champion just stood there in his cell, swaying slightly, his chest heaving. Then he turned toward Alex.
His grin was a red slash across his face. The blood had stained his teeth.
He raised one thick hand and pointed at Alex. The gesture was unmistakable. You’re next.
Then he mimed it, a snapping motion. His two hands closing around something invisible, twisting, breaking. His grin widened. He mouthed the words, slow and deliberate, so there could be no mistaking them.
I’ll enjoy breaking you.
Alex held his gaze for one heartbeat. His expression didn’t change. Then, he cracked a smile of his own.
The Gaul let out a low, rumbling laugh and slumped onto his own straw bed, still grinning, still watching.
The iron doors groaned open again. Guards filed in, unlocking more cells, pulling more fighters to their feet, fifty men for the second bout. They shuffled past Alex’s cell in a ragged line.
Alex watched them go, as the footsteps faded. The iron doors slammed shut, and the holding area fell silent once more.
Above him, the crowd erupted. The second bout had begun.
He closed his eyes. The system pulsed in the corner of his vision—faint, steady, waiting.
He checked his stats for what felt like the one hundreth time now. And then, he saw it.
A glitch in the UI. For a fraction of a second. But there was no mistaking it.
What the fuck. His heart dropped.
The screams started again above them, and then the splashes followed.
---
The torches in the holding area had burned low in their brackets, casting long shadows that stretched across the stone like reaching fingers.
The crowd above had gone quiet, the second bout had long been concluded.
Alex sat on the bare stone floor, his back against the cold wall, his knees pulled close to his chest.
The system UI hovered in the corner of his vision, steady and familiar. Everything looked normal.
But he knew what he’d seen.
A flicker, just for a heartbeat. Just long enough to make his stomach drop. And now the system was pristine, untouched, as if the glitch had never happened at all.
First were the dreams, and then the vision, and now this. What does all this mean?
He stared at system UI, waiting, daring it to flicker again. It just sat there, patient and silent, the way it always did when he needed answers.
Am I losing my mind?
Then suddenly, the iron doors at the end of the corridor groaned open, and two sets of footsteps began to echo on the stone floor.
When the footsteps stopped outside his cell, Alex looked up, and saw Ignatius.
The Lanista stood in the torchlight, his dark tunic immaculate, his expression carved from stone. But there was something different in his eyes tonight. Something heavier.
Behind him, Oseka stepped into view, a clay plate balanced in one hand and a hunk of bread in the other. Steam rose from the plate—beef stew, rich and dark, the smell of it cutting through the stale air of the cell. Oseka was smiling, but it was a careful, measured smile. The smile of a man who was trying very hard to be normal and failing.
"Figured you’d be hungry," Oseka said, passing the plate and bread through the bars.
Alex took them. The warmth of the plate seeped into his cold fingers. "Thanks." He tore off a piece of bread and dipped it into the stew. It was good.
Oseka had been bringing him food every night since the games began—first escorted by Gaius, the old medic grumbling about the walk, the stairs, about the indignity of serving as a delivery boy. But tonight, Ignatius had come instead.
Alex looked up at the Lanista. "Gaius finally got tired of the stairs?"
Ignatius didn’t answer the joke. His face was grim in a way Alex hadn’t seen before—almost like fear.
"There’s something you need to know," Ignatius said.
Alex set the plate aside, the stew could wait.
"The second bout," Ignatius continued. "There were no survivors. All fifty of the men who walked out, died."
Alex had heard the crowd. He’d heard the screams, the splashes, the roar that meant another body had hit the water. But hearing it and knowing it were different things. Fifty men, none left.
"That’s not the worst of it." Ignatius stepped closer to the bars, lowering his voice. "I’ve been doing some digging. The fighter who won the second bout—the last man standing—collapsed moments after the announcer declared him victor. He started bleeding from his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth."
Alex felt his stomach turn. "Poison."
"Poison," Ignatius confirmed. "Someone made sure he wouldn’t survive his victory. Which means one of the duels in the next round will need to be adjusted. A triple threat. Three fighters instead of two."
The word hung in the air. Triple threat. Alex understood the math before Ignatius said it.
"You think it’s going to be my match."
"I’m almost certain of it." Ignatius’s jaw tightened. "I have a suspect. But I don’t need to tell you who."
He didn’t. The silence that followed was filled with everything they both knew—the sabotage at the Battle of Houses, the letter from Brutus. Aurellia’s name hung between them, unspoken but understood.
Oseka broke the silence. "Just... be careful out there. Don’t die." His voice was steady, but his hands were gripping the bars of the cell. His knuckles were white.
Alex met his eyes. "I’ll try."
Oseka didn’t smile. He just nodded once, and turned to follow Ignatius back down the corridor. Their footsteps faded. The iron doors groaned shut, and the holding area fell silent again.
Alex sat alone on the cold stone floor, the plate of stew growing cold beside him, his knees pulled close to his chest.
His focus returned to the corner of his vision. Please, let it just have been my imagination.
He picked up the bread and forced himself to eat. He needed the strength. Tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, the guards would come for him. And he would have to be ready.
The Ghost’s bout was coming. And the woman who designed this arena was waiting to watch him die.