When I first stepped through the gates of Vaelrin, there were ninety-one of us.
Ninety-one bodies, ninety-one stories—some broken, some burning, all desperate. Some came from clans with names carved in history and from gutters no one dared name. They came with jagged teeth and sharper blades, with nothing left to lose or everything to prove.
Now? Only fifty-two remain.
The rest of us?
We're the ones who refused to fall.
I stand just outside the threshold of the Second Storm, the corridor thrumming with latent electricity. The walls sweat from the heat of the arena beyond. Somewhere in the metal above, turbines churn like a sleeping beast.
I glance around at the others.
Survivors. Monsters. Maybe both.
But a few? A few have names.
.
.
.
Kael Riven leans against the far wall like he owns it. Storm-grey eyes under dark hair, face half-shadowed, half-arrogant. When he catches me looking, he doesn't smirk this time. He just nods—like we've already shared something irreversible in that first fight.
.
.
.
Rei Nox is crouched by the terminal, rewiring something with a rusted circuit chip she definitely stole. She's from the Iron Wastes—small, wiry, dangerous. Her braid is wrapped in copper wire. Her mind moves faster than her hands, and her hands could kill you before you blink.
"You know the floor in Sector Three collapses every seven seconds," she mutters, not looking up. "Unless I kill its timer. Which I will. Unless I die. In which case—don't go left."
"Comforting," I reply.
She gives me a crooked smile. "I like to keep expectations realistic."
Jace Myrren leans against the wall beside me, spinning one of his pistols around his finger like he's at a tavern show, not a deathmatch. He has clan blood—rich blood—but exile carved something sharper in him. His jacket's torn. His knuckles bruised. His eyes, soft only when he thinks no one's looking.
"You okay?" he asks.
I raise a brow. "Since when do you care?"
"Since you dragged my half-conscious body out of a spike pit in Trial One."
"That was strategy," I say flatly.
He grins. "You keep telling yourself that, Nyra."
I don't correct him.
Not about the name. Not about the lie.
A red light pulses overhead. Warning. Countdown.
Sixty seconds.
Then comes the voice—no longer the cold bark of the intercom but something deeper. Clipped. Electric.
"Contenders, prepare. Phase Two begins now. Welcome to the Second Storm."
This isn't about strength.
It's about endurance. Instinct. Control.
Survival.
I tighten my grip on my crescent blades. The air is thick with ozone and the scent of scorched metal. Everyone's already moving—pacing, stretching, bracing.
The gate screams open.
Not creaks. Not slides.
It screams—like the metal itself is trying to warn us.
Heat punches us in the face. A rush of static coils down my spine, sharp and cold and electric. I squint against the blinding flicker of lights above us—then step into the arena.
I'm already on my feet before the voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
"The Second Storm begins. All participants, report to Platform Six-at end. No weapons. No delay."
No weapons. That's new.
The arena isn't a battlefield. It's a trap.
I exchange glances with Rei Nox, the wiry techborn with scars mapped across her knuckles like circuitry. "Bet this storm isn't weather," she mutters, strapping his gloves on anyway. Beside her, Jace Myrren slings his dual pistols into the locker with a grunt, his eyes storm-dark. "Whatever it is, it'll be bad. They've thinned us from fifty-two already."
As we move through the steel corridors, I catch glimpses of the others.And some faces are familiar to me.
Tariq Venn, the Sandbreaker from the southern dunes, his braid heavy with bone charms.
Liora Syne, an ice-caster from the northern brink, her fingers crackling with frost even now.
Valeen, silent as ever, face half-covered, rumored to have killed a judge during round one.
Kael walks just ahead, that calm, unreadable stance he always holds. His shoulder brushes mine once as we descend. He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to.
We reach the edge of Platform Six.
The floor splits open with a hiss, revealing a vertical drop, abyss-dark, spiraling downward. Wind howls from below. Not air. Not natural. Something summoned.
"This is the Second Storm," the intercom voice says, distant and cold. "A vertical gauntlet. Descend through four levels. Survive all, or don't return."
We jump.