Liora had known this was a bad idea from the moment her brother barged into her sanctuary, seized both her hands, and begged. Liora had refused, as she had always refused him. There was nothing out there she couldn't read about in a book, written by someone who could see the world far better than she ever managed to.
But Luca had stared at her with those big brown eyes until whatever wall she'd built in her mind got trampled flat. Her brother was many things. Reasonable had never been one of them.
Their father would never have let them wander off. Not even with a full retinue at their backs. Some called it overprotective. As far as Liora was concerned, it just meant her father understood her better than anyone alive.
Now here she was, lost in tunnels so high she couldn't make out their ceilings. She'd been separated from Luca the instant the gates opened and the crowd surged, the press of bodies carrying her along like a current. He was looking for her. She was sure of that. How he was going to find her was…a question she tried not to think about.
She should have stayed near an entrance. But if there was one thing Liora hated more than leaving her room, it was the sight of a crowd. So she'd slipped into a smaller side passage, somewhere she'd assumed no one would be.
She'd assumed wrong.
The passage opened into a wider alcove that sloped down toward some kind of room. Two men leaned against opposite walls, bare-chested, in red loincloths shot through with gold stripes. Liora knew what they were on sight. She'd read about them and Luca had talked about little else for weeks. Gladiators.
She took a step back. It was already too late.
"Oye, who’s this?" One of the men, his head as bald as the rest of him, noticed her first. "You’re not supposed to be here little shadow."
Liora stepped back, pulling the rim of her white cloak down. "Sorry I- I got lost. I’ll just be going now-"
"Aye wait up, what’s the rush?" The voice came from behind her. The second man had moved -Liora hadn’t even noticed. She turned, and he stood right there. The second man was tall, every inch of him covered in muscles. When he smiled, Liora saw the gaps in his front teeth. "That’s a nice little cloak. Worth a pretty ol’ penny I bet." He reached towards her, Liora took a step back.
"I’m just- I just want to leave." She said quickly. The words came out unsteady. Her heart was a drum against her ribs. Her legs would not stop shaking.
"Wants ta leave does she?" The bald man stepped in. His hand came up toward her. She flinched. The hand stopped. "What the hell are ya so afraid for? Think we’re that sort just because we’re gladiators do ya?" His face had gone a dark shade of red.
"Pete," the man behind her said, "you’re exactly that sort."
The bald man frowned. "Don’t mean they gotta judge me before I do nothin’ damn it." He reached over. She tried to hold his arms back and couldn't, and the white hood slid off her head. "Well now the lass is some kinda little lordling." The man grinned.
"Well looks like you’re- a little far from home."
"Let’s see if the little brat has some gold on her,"
Liora's knees buckled. Why had she come here? Why had she ever thought leaving her room was a good idea? Where was Luca. Where was her father. She squeezed her eyes shut until they ached.
"What the-"
There was a crack, followed by a howl so loud it knocked Liora right on her back. She stared. The bald man was cradling his right arm against his chest, and the arm bent the wrong way, bent at a place arms did not bend. She thought, for one sick second, that she could see bone.
And there was a girl. She was small, younger than Liora by a year at least. The girl pushed messy blonde hair out of her face with one hand. The other held…a notepad. The little girl looked at the screaming man, and her expression wasn’t the fear or shock a child should have. It was something Liora recognized. It was curiosity. Then she turned to Liora, and held out her hand.
Liora trembled. She took it anyway.
"You little bitch what did you do?!" The bald man lurched up and swung at her with his good arm.
Liora opened her mouth to scream a warning. She didn't get the chance. The blonde girl caught the swinging arm out of the air.
"What-"
There was another crack, and a worse howl. The man dropped to his knees, and the girl kicked him in the chest hard enough to send him skidding across the floor until his skull met the wall. He didn't get up.
It had taken seconds. The second gladiator hadn't even moved. He stared, eyes wide. Then something in his face hardened. The blonde girl eyed him for a moment, then turned back to Liora as if the man planning to kill her was beneath noticing.
"You should be more worried about yourself."
The man whirled. A hooded figure stood at the mouth of the passage, barely taller than the girl who'd just broken a man in half. The figure’s head raised, and Liora felt something inside of her shiver. All she could see beneath the hood were two red eyes. In the dim light they seemed to glow. "Now, let’s see if I can…."
The hood lifted a hand. The man braced. Liora felt the mana then. It was a weight that pressed in from every direction at once, so heavy that she felt her heart might give. The blonde girl's hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her standing. The gladiator didn't fall, but he went rigid.
"Hmm, doesn’t seem like it’s working. Oh well, not that I’d expected it to." The figure muttered. It was another girl, Liora realized distantly. And she sounded oddly frustrated.
"Don’t fuck with me!" Flame burst from the man's hands, swallowing both arms in light so bright Liora threw an arm across her eyes. When she looked again the fire had spread across all of him, until he was a thing of fire in the shape of a person.
Something tickled the back of her mind. A gladiator whose Gift let him sheathe his entire body in flames. Luca had raved about him for a week. The man called Blazewrath. Luca had said his matches only ever ended one way: his opponent left charred on the ground.
"Get out of here!" Liora's voice cracked on the last word. "He’s- he’s dangerous!" She shouted again, louder the second time. Why wasn't the girl moving?
The blonde girl took a step forward. The hooded figure tilted its head, barely. "Sere, I’m fine. Don’t do anything." The girl went still and stepped back.
"Think you're funny, do ya?" The man charged. Two feet from the hooded girl he swung, and a whip of fire trailed off his fingers.
Liora squeezed her eyes shut. She braced herself for the sound of burning. The sound of screaming. Neither came.
"What- what the hell did you-"
She opened her eyes. The hooded girl hadn't moved an inch. The fire-whip lay across the shoulder of her cloak and the fabric did not burn.
"Reinforcing clothing isn’t that different from reinforcing one’s own body. Violet was right about that. How convenient." The figure murmured. "Could you try that again?"
The man stared at her. "You fucking bitch!" He swung again. The whip cracked, Liora heard it clearly, and it did nothing.
He swung a third time and the lash caught fabric and tore it, and still the cloak would not catch. Fire that turned other gladiators to ash left no mark on her at all.
"What kind of Gift is that?!" he finally screamed.
"It's just mana reinforcement. Doesn't everyone know what that is?" The figure said absently.
"You’re lying! You’d need a fucking stupid tonne of mana to do something like that against my Gift!"
The figure shrugged. "Then I’m lying. And?"
"That's it. I was going to go easy on a kid-"
The girl stepped in and swatted his arm aside. The man left the ground and hit the wall hard enough to crack it, and stuck there a moment before he slid down it. His flames guttered and went out. She watched him for a second -waiting, maybe, to see if he'd rise. He didn’t.
The girl sighed and turned toward her, and Liora was shaking again. Those red eyes were staring at her, and this strange figure was a hundred times scarier than those gladiators had ever been. Liora had felt it, in the half-second the girl swung her arm. There was more mana in that single motion than most people had in their whole bodies.
She never should have left her room. She should have-
The girl crouched in front of her. From a distance the red eyes had glowed. Up close, they only looked tired. And warm.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Liora got her first real look at her. She was pale, and thin. For an instant she thought she'd seen the girl somewhere before, but no, she was certain she never had. "Y-yes!" And because that didn't feel like nearly enough, she dropped flat to the floor, forehead against the stone. "Please don't kill me!"
There was perfect silence for a few moments. Liora didn’t dare look up. When the girl finally spoke, she sounded almost rueful.
"…Okay. I think I'm starting to see what you meant, Sere."
The girl was unhurt. I'd checked twice. A few strands of hair out of place, dust on her cloak, but nothing worse. That was fortunate for the two men on the floor, because if she’d had so much as a bruise, I’d have done a great deal more to them.
"T-thank you," the girl said. She would not meet my gaze.
Most people considered me frail when they first saw me. I wondered what they’d think of this girl. She had skin nearly as pale as mine, hair the green of fresh grass. That was a unique color, where had I read that before? The few times she met my gaze -and they were few- I saw they were a light brown. She hadn’t stopped trembling. Because of me, I suspected.
"What's your name?" I asked, as gently as I could manage. One of the unconscious men chose that moment to groan. That was not helping.
Sere was tidily arranging the two men side by side on the floor. That was considerate of her, really. It would make the cleanup easier for whoever found them.
"It’s Liora," The girl paused. She looked away. "Liora Stone."
I might have believed her, if she weren't the worst liar I'd ever heard. Well, it was none of my business.
"I'm Ellaine," I said. "Come on. Let's find your parents." I held out a hand.
She stared at my hand like it might catch fire…which, all things considered, wasn't an unreasonable fear today. Then she took it. I pulled her up. "Do you know where they are? You must have been separated in the crowd."
She shook her head fast enough to hurt her neck. "M-my brother's here somewhere. I don't know where. He's looking for me, I think, but-" She trailed off.
I looked at Sere, finished with her arranging. "Alright, well, come with me for now. Let’s see if we can find him. If not, let’s go talk to one of the guar-"
"No! We can’t do that!" The girl said. She’d grabbed onto my sleeve, and was shaking me. She seemed to remember herself a moment later, because she stepped back, her face turning deep crimson. "I-I mean let’s…let’s just find him."
"Alright." I said. Well, if the obviously fake name hadn’t been obvious enough, then this just confirmed things. It wasn’t like it changed anything right now. "Stay close, then." I led her out, Sere trailing behind us.
The trick that Magnus had been using was harder than I’d thought. Even with my eyes, it was hard to condense mana for a blow just before it hit. My test subject had been slow enough to make it almost manageable. Someone actually dangerous would not have given me the time.
Which meant more sparring with Violet. As if my record against her wasn’t bad enough, now she was going to beat-
We were barely out of the passage when I felt it. I tensed. Sere tensed with me. To my right, stood a tall lanky boy, dressed in a cloak of his own, green hair spilling out from under the hood. His hands were raised toward me, and lightning danced and snapped between his fingers.
Behind him, stood a taller and older man dressed -there was no other word for it- like a butler. "You let go of her you bastard!" The boy yelled. "Or I’ll- I’m going to make you regret this!"
I tried very hard not to groan.