My legs stopped working somewhere between the arena floor and the tunnel.
Not dramatically. Not a collapse. Just a slow, creeping realization that the muscles in my thighs had filed a formal complaint with the rest of my body and were refusing to participate in forward motion. I leaned against the tunnel wall and let the concrete hold me up while the roar of twenty thousand people faded behind me like a tide pulling out.
Three fights. Julian, Reyna, Natalia. In the span of one afternoon.
My ribs felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to them from the inside. The regenerator brace whined against my chest, working overtime and probably writing me a strongly worded email about workplace conditions. The Dragon Witch's Ring pulsed on my finger with residual heat. My bat hung from my right hand, the grip tape dark with sweat and flecked with ice crystals that hadn't melted yet.
