The rain intensified.
What had been a steady fall turned into a relentless assault, drumming against armour, hamring the arena floor, turning the sacred circle into a large puddle.
Ryan stayed where he was.
The pain in his side had changed.
During the fight it had been distant—drowned out by adrenaline and panic. But now it had turned to sharp, insistent pulses. Every breath tugged at the wound where the dagger had slipped between his armour.
He pressed his gauntlet harder against it.
Blood still seeped through his fingers, though not as violently as before.
Ryan sucked in a slow breath through his teeth.
It hurts way more now.
Around him the arena had gone eerily still.
The only sound was the rain.
And the crowd.
Hundreds of hushed voices whispered beyond the mist-shrouded stands. The sound travelled across the arena like distant wind through trees.
No one shouted.
They only whispered, afraid to anger the Gods.
Ryan slowly lifted his head.
The mist was beginning to break apart under the sheer force of the rain. Grey curtains thinned and drifted away, revealing more of the battlefield with every passing mont.
Only then did Ryan reach up.
His fingers found the edge of his helt. His fingers carefully took off the leather straps.
For a mont he hesitated.
The tal felt strangely heavy, as though it had absorbed the entire weight of the trial.
He pulled it free.
Cold rain imdiately drenched his hair and face. Water ran down his brow and mixed with the blood at the corner of his mouth.
Ryan took a long gasp of open air.
It tasted like wet earth and iron.
He lowered the helt into the mud beside him and wiped rain from his eyes.
Through the thinning fog he could see sothing... a figure approaching.
A healer stepped out from the dissolving mist.
Behind her, the first rays of sunrise broke through the storm clouds in faint streaks of orange light. They caught the rain falling around her shoulders, turning the water into glimring threads.
For a mont Ryan thought she looked almost ethereal.
Like an apparition walking out of the storm.
She reached him, and without hesitation and knelt in the mud beside him.
"Your side?" she said calmly.
Ryan moved his hand away from the wound.
The mont he did, fresh blood seeped through the torn layers beneath his armour.
The healer pulled aside the damaged padding and placed her hands against the wound, letting the blood stain her skin.
Warmth spread through Ryan’s side as mana flowed into the injury.
It wasn’t painless.
The sensation burned faintly beneath the skin, like heat pressing deep into the torn flesh. Ryan clenched his jaw as the magic worked through the wound.
The bleeding slowed, and then stopped.
The healer moved her hand away.
"You’re lucky," the woman said quietly. "A little deeper and it would have pierced sothing vital."
Ryan gave a faint nod.
The warmth faded, leaving behind a dull ache where the wound remained.
He could still feel it with every movent.
But at least he was alive.
The healer withdrew her hands and rose again, she moved off into the mist, searching for the next victim.
Ryan pushed himself to his feet a mont later.
His legs felt unsteady, and pain flared along his side as he straightened.
Most of the mist above waist height had vanished by now.
The rain had beaten it down.
Shapes erged across the arena—fighters, instructors, healers moving through the mud.
Ryan picked up his helt and began walking toward the covered stands.
Each step squelched into the soaked ground.
When he crossed the boundary of the arena, the stands finally ca into clear view.
Hundreds of spectators leaned forward beneath cloaks and hoods.
Their voices remained low, anxious.
Eyes followed Ryan as he approached.
At the front stood Helena.
The mont she saw him step out of the arena, relief flashed across her face before she quickly masked it.
"Thank Ceres," she said softly.
Ryan barely heard her.
His attention had already shifted elsewhere.
Jared stood nearby, helt in his hands. Mud streaked his plain armour and several deep slashes marked the plates across his chest and arms.
But he seed in better shape than most.
A few steps away stood the mysterious knight with the faintly etched tree upon their breastplate.
A mace still hung loosely in their hand.
Rain slid off the smooth curve of their helt.
Marcus erged from the fog behind Ryan.
For once, the devout knight said nothing.
More figures stepped from the arena.
Navius appeared first.
His red armour was battered and dark with rainwater. Behind him walked the silver-armoured fighter with the deer-like horns rising from his helt.
Three red-armoured grunts followed them.
One of them was guided carefully by a healer.
His hands clutched the visor of his helt.
The man he had blinded.
A heavy feeling settled in Ryan’s chest.
Nine combatants had exited the arena.
Three were still missing.
"Where’s Jas?" Jared muttered.
"And Jeremy?" Ryan said.
Then two healers erged from the rain.
They carried a knight between them.
Mud coated the armour so completely that its colour was impossible to tell.
Ryan’s felt his stomach drop.
They laid the body down near the edge of the arena.
A healer removed the helt.
Jeremy.
His face was pale beneath the mud, his eyes closed.
A healer held two fingers to his throat.
"He’s alive."
Ryan let go of the breath he was holding onto.
The healers imdiately began tending to him, taking his armour off and checking for wounds.
Another group appeared through the rain.
Two figures were being carried this ti.
One wore plain, mud smothered armour.
The other wore black plate.
Jas.
And the Blackwood knight.
They were laid gently beside Jeremy.
"Are they...?" soone whispered.
A man descended from the stands.
His clothing was rich—black and red, cut from fine cloth that clung darkly in the rain.
A noble.
He knelt beside the fallen Blackwood knight.
The healers worked quickly.
One removed Jas’s helt.
Another lifted the helm from the Blackwood boy.
Both lay motionless.
The first healer checked Jas, two fingers to his throat.
For several long seconds the healer didn’t utter a word.
Then she exhaled.
"He’s alive."
Relief spread through the Jared’s face like a forest fire.
The healer began removing sections of Jas’s armour.
The second healer checked the Blackwood knight.
Her hands paused.
The rain continued to pour.
Finally she lifted her head.
"He’s gone."
The nobleman let out a raw, broken cry.
"Jas!"
The na echoed across the arena.
Ryan felt sothing twist painfully in his chest.
Jas. That kid was also nad Jas... what if...?
No one spoke.
No one dared to interrupt the father.
Marcus remained silent beside Ryan.
Ryan lifted his gaze toward the stands.
Arcturus stood up there among the other nobles who were all focused on the dead boy.
His face was pale.
But he wasn’t looking at his son.
He wasn’t looking at Ryan or any of the other accusers.
He wasn’t even looking at the dead knight who had fought on the behalf of his family.
His gaze was fixed sowhere else.
The fallen statue.
Its shattered lightning bolt lay broken in the mud.
Arcturus stared at it like a man who had just witnessed his own death.
And the rain kept falling.
Ryan lowered his gaze again.
Behind him, Jared began to move.
The young man pushed past one of the healers and knelt beside the mud-covered body of his brother.
"Jas," Jared said quietly.
His voice was low enough that only those closest could hear it over the rain.
He brushed a layer of mud from the man’s cheek with the back of his hand.
The next whispers were unintelligible even to Ryan a few steps away.
The healer working beside them gave Jared a brief glance but didn’t stop him.
Jas’s eyes were still closed, his breathing shallow but steady.
Jared leaned in closer and whispered more words.
For a mont, nothing happened.
Then Jas shifted faintly beneath the healer’s hands.
A weak breath escaped him.
"Good," Jared murmured.
Ryan watched the scene in silence.
The rain softened the mont sohow, turning it into sothing private despite the hundreds of witnesses surrounding them.
A few ters away, the nobleman still knelt beside his son’s body.
His shoulders shook once.
Ryan couldn’t look a second longer. He turned away from it all.
His legs still felt heavy as he stepped beneath the wooden overhang of the stands. The pounding rain dulled imdiately as the roof caught the worst of it.
Water still dripped from his armour, forming a small puddle beneath him.
Ryan spotted the bag where he had left it earlier, half tucked beneath one of the benches.
He crouched down beside it with a small groan.
The motion tugged painfully at his side.
Still sore.
Still very sore.
Ryan unfastened the straps across his chest first.
His breastplate ca free with a dull tallic scrape. He set it carefully on the ground before loosening the buckles that held his pauldrons in place.
Each piece felt heavier than it did before, weighed down by water and mud.
One by one he removed them.
The pauldrons.
The vambraces along his forearms.
And finally, the gauntlets.
His fingers felt incredibly light once they were gone.
The rain-cooled air brushed against his open skin.
Ryan placed each piece into the bag slowly, the tal clinking softly as it settled.
The storm raged only a few steps away, but beneath the wooden cover the world felt oddly distant.
Muted.
For a mont he simply sat there, breathing.
Then Ryan reached into the pouch on his bag.
His fingers closed around tal.
It felt... warm.
No—hot.
Scorching hot.
Ryan frowned slightly and pulled his hand back just enough to look at the pouch.
"Why is it so hot?" he muttered under his breath. "It’s never warm..."
He reached in again and pulled it free.
The tal band rested in his palm
The engravings—they were glowing.
Brighter than he had ever seen before.
The markings shone through the dim light beneath the stands, their pale radiance cutting through the grey storm like a lighthouse.
Yet no one nearby reacted.
No one turned.
No one seed to notice the light at all.
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