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A bove us, the arena continued to collapse section by section. The air grew thicker with smoke from the burning stands, and the harsh calls of Talfen war horns seemed to be coming from every direction now. Through gaps in the smoke, I caught glimpses of the chaos in the stands and flames that were licking the sky, and then the colossal head of the beast that loomed over me.

It descended toward me, each hot breath stirring my hair and making my armor steam. In that moment, staring into an eye larger than my shield, I saw death in a thousand possible ways - crushed, burned, torn apart, swallowed whole. Years of chains and torture had taught this creature to hate, and I was so very, very small.

Then something shifted in that ancient gaze. The fury and hunger melted away like spring frost, replaced by a warmth I recognized from our quiet moments in the cage. With a grace that belied its enormous size, the dragon lowered its head to the blood-stained sand beside me. Steam curled around my boots as it exhaled, the sound almost like a sigh.

My hand trembled as I reached out, but muscle memory took over. Just like in the cage, I found that spot behind its eye ridge where the scales were smaller, smoother. The familiar rumble of contentment vibrated through its whole body as I rubbed small circles there, though now that rumble shook the very ground beneath my feet.

"You're free," I whispered. "Go, before they bring worse chains."

"Livia!"

I turned to see Tarshi running toward us, his arms full of the ends of the iron chains that were still linked to the great iron collar around its neck. Blood ran down one side of his face, and his armor was scorched from dragon fire, but his eyes were sharp and focused on the dragon behind me.

"I won't let you chain him again!" I yelled at him, grabbing at his arm and trying to pull the chains from his grip.

"These aren't to hold it." He began throwing the chains across the dragon's neck, just behind its head crest where the scales were thickest. "These are for you to hold onto."

"What? No, I can't-"

The dragon's head shifted slightly, bringing one golden eye level with me again. In its depths, I saw something I hadn't expected - not just freedom, but purpose. It inched closer, nearly nudging me off my feet.

"He's chosen you," Tarshi said, moving behind me. "You're the only one who ever showed him kindness."

"But I-" My protests were cut short as Tarshi's hands gripped my waist. Before I could react, he lifted me as easily as a child and set me astride the dragon's neck. The scales were smooth beneath my legs, and radiating heat that penetrated even through my armor.

Around us, the other gladiators had given up any pretense of fighting each other. They worked together now, using fallen weapons and debris to try and break through the heavy doors that led to the ludus. If they could get through, there might be a chance to escape through the underground passages. But the ancient wood held firm against their desperate efforts.

"I can't leave them," I said, though my hands had already found their way to the chains. "Marcus, the others… Octavia… I need to find Tavi!"

"Octavia got out through the stands, I saw her go. And the others will find their own way out," Tarshi said. "But you?" He looked up at the burning sky, where more dark shapes were gathering. "You have a different path."

The dragon's muscles tensed beneath me. I could feel its eagerness to be airborne, to taste true freedom after so many years bound to the earth. More sections of the arena were catching fire now, and the smoke was becoming unbearable.

"Go," Tarshi said, stepping back. "Before it's too late. And Livia?" He met my eyes one last time. "Make them pay. Make them all pay."

"Come with me!" The words burst from my lips before I could stop them. I couldn't leave him here, not after everything. I just prayed my reptile friend would allow another to ride him.

Tarshi's eyes widened in surprise, then darted to the arena walls where the imperial soldiers were slaughtering the townsfolk in a desperate attempt to reach the gates. I struggled to feel pity for those who had cheered and laughed while my friends, my family, died for their entertainment. I looked back down at Tarshi.

"Come with me," I said again.

For a heartbeat, I thought he would refuse. Then a fierce grin split his face.

"Why not? I always wanted to die spectacularly."

He gripped the chains and swung himself up behind me with the fluid grace that marked him as something more than human. The dragon shifted beneath us, adjusting to the new weight, and I felt its muscles bunch as it prepared to launch skyward.

Then I saw him - Septimus, still standing by the last broken column, hammer dangling from nerveless fingers as he stared at the destruction around him. Blood ran from a gash on his shoulder, and his armor was black with soot, but he was alive.

"Septimus!" I screamed over the growing roar of the fires. "Come on!"

He looked up, and I saw the moment his mind tried to reject what his eyes were seeing - me, the arena's most notorious prisoner, astride the dragon we'd just freed. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The dragon had begun to move, its claws leaving deep furrows in the sand as it sought space to spread its wings. We were running out of time.

"Trust me!" I reached toward him, but we were already too far. "Please!"

Tarshi leaned out, extending his arm. The dragon's movement had brought us closer to Septimus, but we were still passing him by. If he hesitated even a moment longer...

I saw the war in his eyes - years of imperial conditioning against a race of people that even now threatened our home fighting with the survival instinct that screamed to take any chance, any escape. Behind him, another section of the stands collapsed in a shower of burning timber, and Septimus leapt out of the way as the debris crashed towards him. Tarshi lunged forward, hanging down, one hand gripping the chains, the other wrapping viselike around Septimus's wrist, pulling him clear. The half-breed's inhuman strength made it look easy as he swung the larger man up behind him.

"One more?" I whispered, pressing my palm against its scales. A rumble of assent vibrated through its entire body. My eyes found Marcus among the group of gladiators still hammering at the ludus doors, his sword now being used as a makeshift pry bar.

"Marcus!" My voice cracked with desperation as we lumbered closer. The dragon's claws left deep furrows in the sand, its wings half-spread and ready for flight. "Come with us!"

He turned, and I saw the same shock cross his face that I'd seen on Septimus - disbelief warring with wonder. The sword slipped from his fingers as he stumbled toward us, ash and blood streaking his face.

"Livia?" His eyes darted from me to the dragon, then to the burning sky above where dark shapes wheeled and dove through the smoke. "What are you doing?"

"Escaping. Come on!" I reached down, offering my hand. "We can all be free!"

But Marcus didn't move. His expression shifted, and I recognized the look he got before matches - calculating, strategic, always thinking three moves ahead. "If we run now," he said, voice tight with regret, "Drusus will never stop hunting us. You know what he's like. He'll track us across the empire if he has to."

"We'll be on a dragon! He can't-"

"And when the raids are over? When the Talfen retreat?" He shook his head. "Better to stay. Fight. Earn our freedom properly, together, like we planned."

Above us, something screamed - a sound that made my bones vibrate and my vision blur. We were out of time.

"Please," I whispered, but I could already see the decision in his eyes.

"Stay and fight with us," Marcus pleaded, reaching up toward me. "We can defend our home, together."

"Home?" The word tasted like ash in my mouth. "This was never home, Marcus. It was a cage. A prison."

"But it doesn't have to be anymore." His voice cracked with desperation. "Once we earn our freedom, we can build something real. Something ours. A quiet place, just us, away from all this." His eyes shone with a future I'd never seen, never wanted. "We could be happy, Livia."

"I told you," my words came out soft, broken. "I've never wanted that. Never wanted quiet."

The dragon shifted restlessly beneath me as Marcus's expression hardened, reality finally cracking through his dreams. "Then what? You still crave vengeance? After all these years?"

"Yes." The truth of it burned in my chest like dragonfire. "And I'll have it."

"That's a child's hope!" His voice rose, raw with frustration and fear. "How many times must you learn that it will never happen? The empire is too big, too powerful-"

"What happened to never stop fighting?" I demanded. "You taught me that!"

"For a future!" He slammed his fist against his chest. "Our future! Not this... this suicide mission of revenge!"

In that moment, as the city burned around us and the Talfen screamed overhead, I finally saw the truth. All this time, Marcus had been trying to save me, to reshape me into something softer, safer. Someone who could want the gentle life he dreamed of. But that person had died in the flames of my village, and her ashes had given birth to something harder, something that could never rest in a quiet home.

"You never really saw me, did you?" The words fell like tears between us. "You just saw what you wanted me to become for you. I'm sorry, Marcus, but I will never be that woman." His face crumpled, and I watched his dreams shatter in his eyes.

"Livia, please... don't throw everything away. We've worked so hard, come so far."

"For what?" My hands shook on the chains. "Another pretty lie? After what he did to me last night, how can you still believe Drusus will ever grant us freedom?"

His jaw tightened, and I saw the shame and rage flash across his face - the same helpless fury I'd seen in his eyes as the guards had held him down, forced him to watch. "We'll make him pay for that, I swear it, but-"

"Pay? With what? More fights? More scars? More of his games?" The memory of Drusus's touch made my skin crawl. "He showed us exactly who has the power. Who will always have the power, as long as we stay in his world, playing by his rules."

"And this is better?" Marcus gestured at the chaos around us, his voice raw. "Running away on the back of a dragon with a half-breed? That's your vision of freedom?"

"At least it's real freedom!" The dragon shifted beneath me, responding to my surge of emotion. "Not just a longer chain, not just more chances for him to-" My voice broke, and I couldn't finish.

"He'll hunt you down!" His voice cracked with desperation. "He'll hunt you down and tear you apart. Is that what you want?"

"I want to live!" The words burst from me like they'd been trapped for years, maybe they had. "Really live, Marcus. Not just survive. Not just exist in this cage. I want to find the people who killed my family, who razed my village to the ground and I want my vengeance for them. And if I die pursuing that, then so be it! But I can't just exist in this... this cage you're so desperate to make comfortable."

Something in his expression changed then, a dawning realization that made his shoulders sag. "That's all it's ever been to you, isn't it? You and me? Even the future we planned was just another cage to you."

"Marcus..." The pain in his voice made me reach toward him, even as the dragon's muscles bunched beneath me, preparing for flight.

"No." He stepped back, shaking his head. "I thought... I thought if I could just show you another way. If I could help you see that peace isn't weakness, that there's more to life than fighting and vengeance..."

"Come with me," I whispered, one last desperate attempt. "Please. We can find a different way, together. Something that isn't this."

His face twisted with pain. "You think I don't understand wanting vengeance? After what he did to you? After what I was forced to-" He cut himself off, fists clenching. "But vengeance is just another chain. Another way they control us."

"No," I said softly. "It's what keeps me alive. What gives me purpose. And if you ever really knew me, you'd understand that."

"I know you," he insisted, but there was uncertainty in his eyes now. "The woman I love wouldn't throw her life away on a suicide mission."

"The woman you love doesn't exist." The truth of it burned like acid. "She's just a dream you created, someone soft enough to want your quiet life. But I'm not her, Marcus. I never was."

The ludus doors finally splintered behind him, and I watched him glance back, before looking back up at me.

"Then who are you?" he asked, and I saw in his eyes that he already knew the answer, had always known it, just never wanted to accept it.

"I'm the daughter of a burning village," I said quietly. "I'm a dragon rider. I'm the fire of vengeance they'll never see coming. Through blood and steel, I will forge myself into the instrument of their destruction. And I can't be anything else, not even for you."

He swallowed, and stepped backwards towards the door, and I felt my heart shatter inside me.

"Be safe," he whispered, the words carrying a finality that cut deeper than any blade. "Be..." He stopped, seeming to realize there was nothing left to say that wouldn't be another attempt to change me, to tame me into something I wasn't.

The other gladiators' victory cries echoed across the arena, calling him back to the only life he could understand, the only freedom he could imagine. One where the chains were visible, where the rules were clear, where survival meant knowing your place.

He turned away, each step widening the gulf between us - between his dreams of earned freedom and my wild, desperate need for something more. Between the woman he wanted me to be and the avenger I had always been.

I watched him walk away, memorizing the straight line of his shoulders, the proud set of his head. The way he'd always carried himself like a free man, even in chains. That had been what I'd first loved about him - his unbreakable dignity. Now it was what was taking him away from me.

The dragon shifted restlessly beneath me, its muscles coiling with the need for flight. Through our connection, I felt its understanding of loss, of leaving what you love behind to survive. Perhaps that's why it had chosen me - it recognized something of itself in my broken pieces.

"Goodbye," I whispered, though he was too far away to hear it now. Just a silhouette in the doorway, straight-backed and certain. My strength, my anchor no more.

The dragon gathered itself, muscles coiling like springs beneath me, and in that moment our hearts beat as one - both of us caged creatures about to taste true freedom. The power building in its body thrummed through me, electric and wild, a storm about to break.

Its wings spread wide, midnight black against the flame-lit sky, and the downdraft sent debris scattering across the blood-stained sand. The very air seemed to hold its breath as the dragon tensed, preparing for that first mighty leap toward the stars. I pressed myself against its neck, feeling the heat of its scales, the thunder of its heart matching my own frantic pulse. The chains that had once bound us became my lifeline as I wrapped them tight around my hands. Behind me, Tarshi's arm locked around my waist, his breath quick with anticipation against my shoulder. I prayed that Septimus had found something to hold onto.

Then the world tilted, and my stomach lurched as the dragon launched us skyward. The ground fell away in a dizzying rush, the arena shrinking beneath us as we clawed our way into the smoke-filled night. The wind tore at my clothes, stung my eyes, sang in my ears with the voice of freedom.

As we lifted away from the blood-soaked sand, I saw Marcus one last time through the smoke - a lone figure reaching toward something already gone, while around him, our world burned to ashes. Then he too was gone.

Higher we climbed, each powerful beat of those magnificent wings carrying us further from the earth, from captivity, from everything I'd ever known. Below us, the burning city spread out like a map of fireflies, the chaos of the rebellion reduced to tiny, distant movements.

Through our connection, I felt the dragon's fierce joy, its exaltation at finally breaking free of its earthbound prison. Its emotions crashed through me like waves - triumph, liberation, an almost painful ecstasy at feeling the wind beneath its wings again after so long.

We burst through the layer of smoke into a clear, star-strewn sky, and I gasped at the pure, cold air. Up here, above the chaos and pain, above the burning remains of my old life, I felt something shift inside me. The last chains fell away - not just the physical ones that had bound me to the arena, but the invisible ones: fear, doubt, the desperate need to be what others wanted.

Banking into the wind, we joined the other rebels on their dragons, a deadly dance of shadows against the night sky. Below us, Marcus and his choice grew smaller and smaller, until they were just another light in the burning city we left behind.

I was no longer bound to the earth or to anyone's dreams but my own. I was a creature of air and fire now, of vengeance and storm. As we soared higher into the darkness, I threw back my head and let out a cry that was half laugh, half sob - the sound of a caged bird finally spreading its wings, of a weapon finally finding its true purpose.

The night wrapped around us like a cloak as we turned east, toward the distant mountains where my enemies waited, unknowing. Behind us, the city burned, and with it, the last traces of the woman I might have been. Ahead lay only wind and stars, and the promise of retribution.