The first one came at her with twin axes and a wild scream.
Nyra didn't hesitate.
Her shadow snapped up like a living thing and caught his legs mid-leap, slamming him into the cracked arena floor with a crunch that silenced everything nearby. She didn't stay to see if he moved again.
The second was quicker. Mecha limbs, reinforced joints, sharp like scissors. He weaved through debris with practiced ease—but Nyra saw him coming. She ducked, rolled, then lashed her shadows in a wide arc. They caught him in the ribs, crushed his balance, then wrapped around his neck. She yanked him backward into the flames from someone else's battle.
The third was smarter. She stayed at a distance, throwing blades coated in ruin-light. Nyra raised a dome of shadow, letting it absorb and shudder with each hit. She counted every strike—four, five, six—then dropped the shield and speared a single tendril forward. The girl didn't even scream as the darkness swallowed her.
And then… quiet.
Until she turned.
And saw her. Not because she was afraid of losing—but because she was afraid of what would win if she let go.
The arena screamed around her. Flames curled into the sky from someone else's struggle nearby. The stench of burning blood and metal made the air thick and unreal, like a dream dragged through a furnace.
Across from her, her opponent stood smiling—a girl with hair like wildfire and eyes that gleamed with violence. She spun needle-like flames through her fingers like a dancer teasing her next move.
Nyra didn't flinch. She never flinched.
From her palms, shadow seeped—slow and cold, coiling around her fingers like it missed her. The moment it touched the ground, it spread like black silk.
The red-haired girl lunged.
Nyra moved instinctively, throwing up a wall of shadow. It absorbed the flames, swallowing the heat. She blinked smoke out of her eyes, heart pounding.
She didn't know where this power came from. But it fit. Like it had always been there, waiting for permission.
Her opponent was relentless—flame after flame hurled like knives. Nyra dodged, her shadows blocking most, but they flickered under pressure.
And still she remembered:
– Her adoptive mother's voice: "You don't cry in front of people. That's how they win." – Her first day in a foster home, being told, "You're a handful, so don't act surprised if no one wants to keep you." – Sitting in a dark room at thirteen, watching as the other girls were picked for placement. One by one. Never her. – Being told she had a "bad attitude" when she finally asked why. – Stealing books from libraries not because she loved reading, but because the silence in them felt like home.
She didn't trust people. And she didn't trust whatever this place was. But the ruin had given her something. Finally. Power.
And that made her dangerous.
Her shield buckled. Fire sliced through and grazed her arm. She hissed. Her opponent laughed.
"Your shadows don't love you back, do they?" the flame-girl taunted.
Nyra didn't answer. She focused. Tried to control her pulse. Her breath.
But the shadows inside her didn't want control. They wanted out.
She opened her palms—and let them.
They surged like ink spilled in water. Wrapping her opponent's legs, then her waist. She screamed, kicking, spinning needles in desperation. Heat exploded.
Nyra screamed back, shadows unraveling, her body reeling.
The fire broke free and slammed into her chest. She flew backward.
Dirt. Blood. Pain.
She couldn't move.
The girl stalked forward. "I'm going to burn the fear out of you," she whispered.
Nyra smiled.
"Come close," she rasped. "Let me show you where to start."
The girl raised her needles.
And the ruin pulsed.
A momentary quake rippled across the arena. Nyra's vision flickered.
Kairon.
She didn't see his face—only a silhouette drenched in dusklight, standing still while something old and terrible wrapped around him. The wig he wore wasn't just fused to him—it pulsed. The air shifted as if the arena had taken a breath and held it. Something in the ruin had turned its gaze.
Nyra felt it in her teeth. In her shadows. A ripple beneath her skin like a new law had been written into the world—and it had his name carved into it.
Her shadows reacted before she did—spiking, twitching, knotting around her wrists like they were confused or afraid. Not of her opponent.
Of him.
She didn't understand it, but the darkness in her turned inward, flinching for a breath. And for the first time, she wondered if the ruin had lied about choosing her—or if it had simply been waiting for someone else.
The red-haired girl turned, just for a second, distracted.
And Nyra moved with anger so swift, it left her opponent in shock.
She launched herself forward, grabbing the girl's wrist and slamming her headfirst into the dirt.
The fire needles hissed out.
Shadow licked up from the ground like a blessing.
And then—nothing.
Nyra lay there, panting, her heart hammering in the silence.
Somewhere behind her, a scream had cut short—abrupt, final. She didn't see it happen, but she'd felt the tremor in the sand. Like something had dissolved, erased. Another teen, maybe. One of the quieter ones. She remembered his face vaguely—curious eyes, a twitchy grip on a relic shard. He was gone now. Swallowed by something that moved like desert wind but killed like fury.
She hadn't won.
She had survived.
And survival, here, was starting to feel like something far more complicated than victory.
The ruin pulsed again—sharper this time. Not a whisper, but a warning. Like it had tasted her fury and wasn't sure whether to welcome it… or fear it.
Nyra felt her shadows twitch in response, no longer soft—hungry. They coiled around her like wolves circling a wounded master, unsure if they should guard or consume her.
A low thrum settled in her bones, steady and ancient.
You are not a child anymore, it seemed to say. You are not lost. You are found. By me.
And Nyra, like a girl no one wanted, a girl who never belonged, finally exhaled.
It felt good to be alive.