The pit wasn't deep. It was a shallow, circular depression in the center of the training chamber, about twenty feet across. The dirt floor was dark and compacted, stained with things I didn't want to think about. Torches had been lit around its rim, casting long, dancing shadows that made the space feel both exposed and claustrophobic. Kael and the Curator stood on the edge, silent observers at a gladiatorial match for an audience of none.
There was no ceremony. No grand announcement. Kael just pointed at me, then at another boy. "You two. In."
I knew him. Not his name, but his face. He was the one who had worn the expensive shoes on the first day. They were scuffed and torn now, just like the rest of him. He was taller than me, broader in the shoulders, but his eyes were wide with a frantic, cornered-animal terror. He looked at me, and I saw my own fear reflected back. We weren't warriors. We were just kids. Scared kids who were about to be forced to kill each other for a bowl of watery gruel.
He clutched his own rusty dagger like a lifeline. I held mine, the cold, rough metal slick with the sweat from my palm. It felt alien in my hand, a tool for a purpose my mind still refused to fully accept.
We stepped down into the pit. The dirt was cool under my worn-out sneakers. The silence was absolute. The other three survivors watched from the far side of the chamber, their faces pale masks of horror and a grim, undeniable relief that it wasn't them. Not yet.
"Begin," Kael's voice boomed from above.
Neither of us moved. We just circled each other slowly, two unwilling dancers in a ritual of death. My heart hammered against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through. Every lesson from the last two days churned in my head. A weapon does not hesitate. Perform or break. The only real training is a life-or-death fight. They were just words. This was real. This was a boy who probably had a family, who had a life, who was just as lost and terrified as I was.
"What is this?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "We don't have to do this. We can just… refuse."
I saw the flicker of hope in his eyes, the same desperate hope the Caverns had tried to use against me. I remembered the boy Kael had broken on the first day, the one who said 'I can't'. I remembered the screams in the dark. Refusal wasn't an option. Refusal was just a different way to die, and it probably meant neither of us got breakfast.
"They'll kill us both," I said, my own voice sounding hollow and distant.
The hope in his eyes died, replaced by a raw, chilling despair. And despair, I was quickly learning, was a close cousin to violence. He screamed, a high, ragged sound of pure frustration, and charged.
It wasn't a skillful attack. It was a wild, clumsy lunge, his dagger held out in a desperate thrust. All the training, all the pain, it evaporated in the face of real terror. Instinct took over. I stumbled backward, my foot catching on a loose patch of dirt. I fell, hitting the ground hard.
The boy was on top of me, his weight pinning me down. He raised his dagger, his face twisted in a mask of panic and regret. For a heartbeat, the world froze. I saw the torchlight glint on the rusty metal. I smelled the sweat and fear coming off him. I was going to die. Here, in a dirty pit, killed by another scared kid, thousands of miles from a home I would never see again.
Then the cold knot of rage in my stomach, the one forged in the Caverns, ignited. The injustice of it all—of Lucas in his castle, of me in this pit—flared into a white-hot fury. No. I was not going to die here.
As his arm came down, I twisted my body hard, throwing all my weight to one side. The dagger plunged into the dirt beside my head, close enough for me to feel the cold metal graze my ear. His momentum carried him forward, leaving him off-balance for a critical second.
I didn't think. The part of me that was James, the high school kid, was gone. The thing that was left, the thing the Association was building, acted. I brought my own dagger up, not in a wide swing, but in a short, brutal jab. It was an ugly, desperate move. There was no finesse, no technique. Just pure, survival-driven instinct.
The rusty metal met soft resistance. The boy grunted, a sound of surprise more than pain. He looked down at the hilt of my dagger protruding from his stomach. His eyes widened. He looked at me, his expression no longer angry or scared, just confused. He opened his mouth, but only a wet, gurgling sound came out.
He collapsed on top of me, a dead weight. His blood, hot and sticky, soaked through my thin shirt. I lay there, pinned beneath him, staring up at the impassive torches. The silence of the chamber rushed back in. It was over.
I had killed him.
I pushed his body off me, scrambling backward until my back hit the dirt wall of the pit. I looked at my hands. They were trembling violently. His blood was on them. On my shirt. I felt a wave of nausea so powerful my vision swam. I bent over and threw up the tasteless gruel I had fought so hard for.
Above, the Curator watched, his face an unreadable shadow. Kael's expression was also impassive, but I thought I saw that same flicker of cold approval in his eyes.
I had won. I was alive. I would get breakfast tomorrow.
But as I sat there, shaking in the dirt, a horrifying truth settled over me. The boy in the expensive shoes hadn't been my real opponent. He was just a victim, same as me. My real opponent was the system that put us in this pit. It was the Curator, and Kael, and the entire Shadow Association. And in that moment, I hadn't fought them. I had done exactly what they wanted. I had become their monster.
The James who walked into that pit died with the boy. The thing that crawled out was different. Colder. Harder. Broken in a way that Kael would never see, because on the outside, I was whole. I had performed.
The Curator turned and walked away without a word. Kael stared down at me for a long moment. "Clean yourself up," he grunted. Then he was gone too.
Hooded figures entered the pit and dragged the body away, their movements efficient and practiced. They didn't even glance at me. It was just another piece of trash to be disposed of.
I stumbled out of the pit and back towards my cell. As I walked, the Curator appeared from a side corridor, blocking my path. He looked down at me, at the blood and grime covering my clothes.
"You were slow," he said, his dry voice cutting through my haze. "Hesitant. But you are alive."
He threw a thin file at my feet. It landed with a soft thud.
"Your first real assignment," he continued, his tone devoid of any emotion. "A merchant in the lower city. He sells information to the demon's agents. He has a wife and two children. You will eliminate him tonight, and you will make it look like a robbery gone wrong."
He paused, letting the words sink in. My first mission wasn't to kill a monster. It was to murder a man in his home. A man with a family.
The Curator leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Do not fail. The Hero's safety already depends on you."