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Chapter Twenty-Four

A ries

“Our new master fed us well, but not out of compassion. He saw only credits. It’s how his mind worked.

If any of his fighters might be worth more dead than alive, they were expendable.

” The words taste like ash. “Fights on certain planets were lucrative. Those fights had no rules, no mercy. Just slaughter for the crowd’s entertainment.

I’d proven myself brutal enough to survive, but Kren… ”

My hands clench as the memories assault me—his gentle soul trying to harden itself for the arena, his practice sessions growing desperate as the death matches loomed closer.

“He wasn’t a killer,” I tell Callie, my voice rough. “No matter how hard they tried to make him one. The night before his first scheduled death match, I found him practicing in the ludus …”

I see it as though it were yesterday, just like I’ve watched it ten thousand times or more in the annums since it happened.

“You should be resting,” I said, watching him repeat the same defensive sequence for the hundredth time .

“Can’t.” His movements were precise but held an edge of panic. “If I can just get this right…”

“Kren.”

“The Garroxian fighter tomorrow, he favors a low strike followed by—”

“Kren!” Moving to block his next sequence, I gripped his shoulders. “Stop.”

His eyes, so like mine but holding none of my darkness, finally met mine. “I don’t want to die, Ari.”

“You won’t.” The promise burned fiercely in my chest. “I won’t let that happen.”

I pause, my gaze arrows to Callie’s hand, squeezing the air as though my hand were in it. It blurs as my eyes lose focus.

“But I did,” I grit out, the guilt threatening to choke me. “I let exactly that happen.”

I swallow, feeling compelled to tell the truth.

“No. That’s a lie. I didn’t just let that happen…”

Callie flips her hand palm down to clench her thigh as though she has to clutch onto something to be able to stay and listen to the end of my tale. Spark’s protective dome pulses with waves of comfort, but nothing can ease the weight of what comes next.

“The match…” My voice breaks. “They put him against Selaxx the Flayer. A sadist who specialized in slow kills. I was scheduled right after, could only watch from the holding pen.”

It had been raining that day—a cold, driving rain that turned the arena sand into bloody silt.

I can still hear it drumming against the stone facade, mixing with the crowd’s roar and Kren’s screams. Every storm since then brings it all back—the metallic scent of blood, the sound of falling rain while my brother died below .

The roar of that long-ago crowd fills my ears. Then Kren’s first scream as Selaxx’s blade opened his flesh…

“It wasn’t a fight. It was torture. Selaxx played with him, carved him up piece by piece while the crowd cheered. I tried to break through the gates, but the guards…” My nails draw blood in my palms as I remember. “They held me back. Made me watch as my brother was flayed alive.”

Spark’s light dims to deep gray, matching my anguish. Beside me, Callie makes a small sound of distress but keeps her promise to stay silent.

“Kren fought as long as he could. But when Selaxx severed the tendons in his legs, left him crawling in his own blood…” The memory threatens to overwhelm me. He looked right at me through the bars. His eyes… I’ll never forget his eyes.

They held no accusation, no anger. Just a plea. Only trust that his big brother would save him the only way I could.

“Please, brother,” he pled, and his voice was the same one that used to beg me for just one more story at bedtime. Blood bubbled from his lips as he reached toward my position. “Please… end it clean.”

Selaxx laughed, raising his blade for another cut. The crowd’s bloodlust reached fever pitch.

“End it,” Kren begged. “Don’t let him… please, Ari…”

I broke free then. Disabled three guards getting to the arena floor. The crowd was screaming, not in bloodlust anymore, but shock. A gladiator interfering with another’s match meant death for both of us.

My hands shake as I force myself to continue. “Selaxx turned to face me, but I didn’t… I never even looked at him. All I could see was Kren. My brother. What was left of him.”

The words catch in my throat, but Callie deserves the whole truth. “Kren smiled when he saw me coming. Actually smiled, through all that pain. Like he knew… knew I’d find a way to help him, just like always.”

Spark wraps us both in waves of deep purple light as my tears finally fall.

“His hand tried to reach toward me, fingers slick with his own blood, and for one terrible moment he looked exactly like the little boy who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms.”

I force myself to continue. “I made it quick. One strike, right to the heart. Clean, like he asked. The last thing he mouthed was ‘thank you,’ and then…” My voice breaks completely. “Then he smiled. Even dying, even after all that pain, Kren smiled at me like I’d saved him.”

Though I’ve watched this memory a thousand times, it hurts now more than ever before. Perhaps it’s that I have Callie by my side, that she’s holding my hand—that she’s with me every step of this torturous journey. Her cheeks, streaked with tears, tell me she’s feeling my pain.

“They executed Selaxx for failing to stop me from interfering,” I continue finally.

“Would have executed me too, but apparently the crowd’s bloodlust had turned to something else.

They actually cheered when I killed my own brother.

Called it ‘poetic justice’—one of their favored gladiators showing such brutal efficiency. ”

My mouth is so dry it takes me two attempts to swallow.

“The murder charges were filed that same day. Under Garrox Prime law, killing another gladiator—even in mercy—carried a mandatory death sentence. But as long as I remained enslaved and profitable, my owner could delay extradition indefinitely. I spent annums knowing that warrant waited for me, knowing that freedom might eventually lead to my death.”

“Our master…” A bitter laugh escapes. “Always one to turn a profit, started marketing me as ‘The Kinslayer’, the gladiator so ruthless he’d kill his own blood. Raised my value in death matches because everyone knew I’d do whatever it took to end a fight.”

Finally dredging up the courage to look at Callie, I expect to see horror, disgust. Instead, her eyes hold tears and something that looks dangerously like understanding.

“So now you know,” I say roughly. “Why I deserve whatever punishment they give me. Why I tried so hard to push you away. The things I’ve done…”

It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to die. But for the quickest moment, that thought, which used to live in my mind every waking moment of the day, comes back to hound me.

“I’m going to talk now.” She says. “Unless you ask me to stop.”

I don’t. Knowing her mind matters. The truth has stayed buried, not out of malice, but in the hope that if she could discover who I truly am—see my heart—she might look past the monster I’ve become.

When I don’t ask her to stop, though I don’t have the courage to look her in the eye, she continues.

“Mercy. Dear God, you showed him such mercy.” A dam opens up in her. I don’t know where her tears come from, but they’re a torrent. Her pain and sadness burst from her.

“Mercy?” The word comes out sharp. “I killed him, Callie. My own brother.”

She dashes the tears from her cheeks.

“As you spoke, I tried to crawl inside your skin and imagine what it must have felt like in those moments, but I didn’t have the strength, Aries. I couldn’t pretend, not even for a second , to feel what it was like to be so merciful to your brother at such a high cost to yourself.”

She reaches to touch me, but pulls her hand back at the last moment .

“You ended his suffering when he begged you to. Saved him from a horrible death at the hands of a sadist.” Her voice holds absolute conviction. “That’s not murder, Aries. That’s love in its purest, most painful form.”

Her hand squeezes and squeezes and squeezes as she whispers, “Dear God, I wish I could touch you.”

She gets the bright idea of putting her hand out and Spark curls into it. I touch its other side, keeping the prescribed distance, but somehow feeling as though we truly are touching. She is giving me all of her support.

“You are amazing and loving, and you did the hardest thing a human could be forced to do, even knowing it meant your own death. Aries, you’re my hero.” Her mouth keeps working, but no words come out. It’s fitting. What else can this perfect female say?

I want to scoff, tell her I’m no hero, but it would be cruel to spit that at her. So I sit with it. I don’t know how long we stay like this, with little Spark connecting us, with Callie giving me all of her support and affection.

When I finally return from my trip into the past, I have a new definition for mercy.