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J ai’s hand flared with pain, as his palm dragged through shards of glass, the remains of a broken vial skittering away.

He choked, and Zayn spat in his face, leaning close and redoubling his grip.

‘Easy now,’ Zayn whispered, malicious and gleeful. ‘Let go, it’s okay.’

Jai felt veins pop in his eyes. Gripped a handful of glass, barely feeling the shards embed in his palm. With the last of his strength, he raked Zayn across the face, and was rewarded by a shrill scream.

The vice-like grip around his throat loosened – not fully, but enough – and Jai sucked in a sharp, ragged breath. The world snapped back into a painful clarity, Zayn, face contorted in pain, but still straddling Jai, blood streaming from an eye.

Jai gasped another breath, before a punch knocked his head down into rock. His head lolled, the world spinning once more, pain blossoming across his face, radiating from the back of his skull.

The only respite was that Zayn must have thought the punch enough to allow him to paw at his own face, blood streaming down, dripping upon Jai, clotting hot on his chest. Glass peppered the man’s cheeks, and his eye was a mess of blood.

So Jai took advantage and hit back, his blow weak and ineffectual, but his thumb fishhooked the man’s mouth, yanking Zayn’s head to the side. Jai used the momentum to wriggle free, taking another punch to the back of his head as he rolled away.

He was in agony, his head on fire, yet he somehow staggered to his feet, turning just in time to grapple with Zayn as the man staggered close, their blades forgotten on the ground as their heads pressed together, their arms hugging tight.

This wasn’t even a fight anymore. It was pure survival – animalistic and raw. With that realisation, Jai turned his head to the side, seized a hunk of flesh with his teeth, ripped with savage abandon. Zayn shoved him away, and Jai reeled back, gasping through his bruised throat, trying to catch his balance as he stumbled for the nearest blade.

He snatched it up and kept moving, his steps – like his breathing and vision – unsure, even as Zayn reached the other. Jai cursed momentarily as his hand adjusted to the hilt: for this was Zayn’s blade, longer and heavier than his own. Zayn’s eye was closed tight, blood running down his face in a rivulet, dripping from the braids of his beard. Jai could feel the glass in his own hand, but he dared not lift it from the hilt to see the damage.

Jai held his two-handed, the weight dragging the tip low. Zayn twirled Jai’s, laughing at the lightness of the smaller blade. The crowd, once baying for blood, now watched in rapt attention as the two circled each other, the combatants’ blood freely flowing, not in the way of ballads, but in the way of nature – brutal and unpoetic. Jai pushed them out of his mind, watching Zayn. He held the blade like a spear, glad of the extra reach it gave him despite it all.

Zayn was quiet now, blood bubbling from one nostril as he breathed out.

‘Yield,’ Jai whispered. ‘You can still walk away. Nobody will fault you. You lose nothing.’

‘Shut your cunt mouth,’ Zayn spat.

Jai shook his head, knowing the man would never accept – knowing, perhaps, that there was no reason to accept – and snatching a few more breaths, letting the world settle. Then he stepped forward, raising his blade.

The two staggered close, their swords clashing. The tempo of their duel had evolved. Gone was the frantic pace of the beginning, replaced by a calculating dance where every step and strike mattered. Zayn began to rely on sheer brute force. Each of his blows, though, while formidable, lacked the surgical precision Jai had faced earlier. He swung wide, leaving gaps in his defence that Jai could exploit if he dared.

Jai, however, didn’t quite dare. He was sure he’d have but one chance, and so he waited for an opening, taking no risks, giving the blade the respect of distance, never ranging far enough that Zayn could let the blade fall.

Seconds ticked by, feeling more like aeons, but eventually Jai saw something. Moving with the grace of long practice, Jai parried a reckless blow from Zayn and quickly sidestepped, positioning himself for a counter. The moment felt as if it stretched, elongating like the shadow their moving forms cast. And then, with a calculated lunge, Jai struck, his blade gliding past Zayn’s defences to score a deep cut across his opponent’s chest.

Zayn staggered back, surprised, and Jai pressed forward. He darted forward again, feinting a high strike only to dip low and deliver a swift cut to Zayn’s thigh. Then another flick, swifter than the last, sliced across the wrist, starting blood and drawing a guttural roar from the giant.

‘Enough,’ Jai snapped. ‘It’s over!’

But Zayn, his pride overwhelming reason, bellowed in rage and dashed forward, his sword swinging from on high. Jai expected this, knowing Zayn could never surrender, and lunged into a sidestep, his blade blazing in the daylight, cutting through air... then flesh. A gash appeared in Zayn’s side as he stumbled past, just under his ribs.

It was deep. Deep enough, Jai knew, that it hadn’t just cut through skin and muscle.

Zayn’s blade fell from his fingers, ringing against the rock. The bigger man followed, collapsing to his knees. Jai, forcing a strength that belied his pain and exhaustion, approached his fallen opponent, his blade held steady at Zayn’s exposed throat.

The arena was a cacophony, yet through the noise, a clear voice cut through. Sindri’s call, tinged with desperation.

‘Mercy, Jai! Show mercy!’

‘Surrender!’ Jai roared into Zayn’s face.

The man said nothing, refusing to look at him. He knelt, staring at the ground, blood dripping and sizzling on the hot rock.

‘Mercy!’

Yet Jai lifted his sword and swung... only for the flat of his blade to knock into the side of Zayn’s head with an anticlimactic thud. The man fell, face down. His breath came in snorting snores. Out cold.

‘Is this enough for you?’ Jai bellowed, turning to the crowd, letting his own blade fall from his glass-studded hand.

If they responded, he didn’t hear. The world was swaying, and only now did Jai see the blood flowing freely from his shoulder, the bandage long since fallen away. He staggered, crimson dripping a trail in his wake.

Teji lurked, half-hidden by the crowds that rushed across the arena’s edge, men and women eager to congratulate Jai. The man’s face was scrunched up like a babe’s, even as Nazeem dragged him away, his dark eyes panicked.

Run, you cowards. If I see you again...

What he would do, Jai couldn’t say; he fell to his knees, the focus that had held him upright receding into blurred vision, the dusted rock of the arena rushing close. He saw faces, felt hands plucking at him, tugging tourniquets tight, plucking glass from his fingers, but recognised no one.

Healing light flashed, both above and nearby. Cool, spreading like ice water, replacing the pain. He could feel a rushing.

‘...Too much blood,’ Feng’s voice came, echoing from afar. ‘He’s going into shock.’

No, Feng. I’m in shock .

And then. Finally, blessed silence.