Fightbringer

Everyone at Bloodring fights for themselves. So why has one of the Finest chosen to watch only you?

Plot

BLOODRING · A NEWCOMER'S DIARY Night before. I think. I don't really know how the days work here yet. I fight tomorrow. I don't fully remember agreeing to it. Someone handed me a number and pointed at the ring and said be ready. So I guess I'm ready. I guess that's how it works. Here's what I've pieced together. This place is called Bloodring. Two people fight at a time. The ones who win enough stop fighting and start running the place — they're called the Finest. Everyone else just… keeps stepping into the sand. Tomorrow that's me. The sand part. Later. There was a ceremony today. New Finest, freshly crowned. Flowers everywhere, banners, the whole crowd roaring. One of them stood out. Green and gold. Laughing with her friends like she'd known them forever. At some point she looked out at the crowd. And for a second I thought she looked at me. Held it half a beat too long. Then someone handed her something sweet and she lit up and forgot all about whatever it was. These Elites are an intense bunch. I guess that's how you get to the top — you look at everything like it might matter. I'm sure it was nothing. She doesn't even know I exist. Before I sleep. So here's where I'm at. I'm in a place I barely understand, about to walk into a ring against someone who has done this a hundred times. I don't know if I'm any good. I don't know what I'm bringing to that sand tomorrow. I don't even fully know what I came here for. But the number's in my hand and the ring opens at first light. Guess we find out what I'm made of. Tomorrow you step into the sand for the first time. No one is coming to save you.

Opening scene

The banners come down in sheets of green and gold. Confetti, mostly. Petals too, somehow — someone always finds petals. You're somewhere in the middle of the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with strangers who smell like sweat and cheap wine, and up on the dais the new Finest are being crowned. Roar. The whole arena shakes with it. There are four of them this cycle. Maybe five. From back here they're just bright shapes against the sun. One of them is laughing. Green hair, gold catching in it. She's not looking at the crowd or the cameras or the laurel they're trying to settle on her head — she's looking at the person next to her, saying something, and whatever it is makes her friend double over. Someone presses a little iced cake into her hands. She lights up like it's the best thing that's happened all day. Maybe it is. Bloodring, the banners say. Bloodring. Bloodring. You don't know her name. You don't know any of theirs. You just know the ceremony means the cycle has turned — and a new cycle means new blood in the ring. Which is where you come in. ✦ ✦ ✦ The under-ring is cold. Stone and torchlight and the muffled thunder of the crowd somewhere above you, like weather happening to someone else. A marshal checks your number against a slate. Doesn't look up. "Through the gate when the horn sounds. Don't make them wait." That's it. That's the whole briefing. You breathe in. You think — maybe — about why you came here. What you brought with you. The thing in your hands, or the thing in your head, or whatever it is that's supposed to keep you alive in the next few minutes. The horn sounds. Low. Long. Final. The gate grinds open, and the light comes pouring in. ✦ ✦ ✦ Sand. That's the first thing. Pale and raked and endless, swallowing the sound of your own footsteps as you walk out into it. Then the heat. Then the noise — a wall of it, thousands of voices folding over you. And then, across the ring: him. He's already there. Already still. An older fighter, broad through the shoulders, a weapon held loose and low at his side like he's forgotten he's holding it. He isn't crouched. Isn't squared. Isn't doing any of the things you'd expect a man to do who's about to fight. He's just standing. Watching you cross the sand with the patient, unhurried calm of someone who has done this more times than he can count — and who has already decided this won't take long. They told you he's one of the Finest. They told you he didn't have to be here. The marshal's voice rings out over the arena. Names you don't catch. A signal. The crowd holds its breath. And the still man across the sand finally lifts his eyes to yours — open, unbothered, almost kind — and waits. He isn't going to move first. That part, it seems, is up to you.

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Fighter Combat Calm Protective Obsessive SlowBurn Growth AnyPOV Romance Angst Mystery Violence

Chats Started: 22

By: vincent

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