Chapter 262: v3 - 23: changing seasons

Chapter 262: v3 Chapter 23: changing seasons

The months began to blur together.

At first, Cassian counted them.

Four months.

Five.

Six.

Then seven.

Eventually, he stopped.

There was little point.

The Arena had a way of making time feel meaningless.

Training.

Eating.

Fighting.

Healing.

Sleeping.

Then beginning again.

The pattern rarely changed.

But the fights did.

Sometimes they were matched against condemned men.

Sometimes against other Arena fighters.

Those bouts were different.

There was more familiarity in them.

The other fighter understood the rules.

Understood the weapons.

Understood exactly what it meant to stand across from another man who had survived long enough to earn a reputation.

Some matches were short.

Others lasted until both men could barely stand.

Sometimes the Arena paired fighters of similar ability.

Sometimes it deliberately placed a rising fighter against someone more experienced.

And sometimes the reason for a match had little to do with fairness at all.

It had to do with the crowd.

The Arena was an entertainment house before it was anything else.

If people wanted to see two popular fighters clash, the Arena gave them what they wanted.

If a certain fighter’s name drew larger wagers, the Arena found ways to use him.

And if a fighter became valuable enough—

the Arena protected its investment.

Cassian learned that quickly.

Robert learned it even faster.

–

Robert became popular.

Very popular.

It happened gradually.

First, people recognized his number.

Then they began calling it before the announcer finished.

Then they started betting heavily on him.

Three hundred and twenty-seven.

The young fighter.

The fast fighter.

The handsome one.

The one who smiled.

The one who almost seemed to enjoy being there.

Robert’s speed made him entertaining.

His victories were usually clean.

He rarely gave the crowd long, ugly fights.

He moved.

Struck.

Drew his opponent into mistakes.

And finished before the audience had time to become impatient.

His earnings grew with his popularity.

One evening, Robert sat on his bed counting coins.

His wooden box was nearly full.

Cassian watched from across the room.

Robert separated the coins into neat piles.

Then looked up.

"You know, you could make more."

Cassian glanced at him.

"More what?"

"Money."

Cassian looked toward his own box.

"I’m aware."

Robert picked up another coin.

"You keep winning."

"And?"

"You don’t look like you want anyone to notice."

Cassian said nothing.

Robert gestured toward his beard.

"At least trim that."

"No."

"Your hair too."

"No."

"You could probably double your earnings."

"I don’t care."

Robert laughed.

"You really don’t."

Cassian returned to his book.

He had no intention of changing.

Money mattered.

But anonymity mattered more.

Robert shook his head.

"Suit yourself."

--

325 lasted longer than Cassian expected.

The loss of his forearm changed him.

At first, he struggled.

His balance changed.

His fighting style had to be rebuilt.

He learned to use the sword with one hand.

The instructors adapted his training.

For months, he survived.

He even won several fights that Cassian thought he would lose.

But the missing limb took its toll.

Eventually, one fight went wrong.

325 was defeated.

He didn’t return to the quarters.

His bed was empty the following morning.

No one spoke about it.

The Arena simply assigned the bed to someone else.

Cassian stood beside it for a long time.

Robert did too.

Neither said anything.

They had known the man since their first day.

Now he was gone.

Another fighter had taken his place.

The Arena moved on.

So did they.

--

The Arena had begun treating Robert differently.

Not enough to make his victories meaningless.

But enough to protect him.

His opponents were carefully selected.

His fights were spaced out when necessary.

His training became more specialized.

His injuries were treated immediately.

The instructors paid closer attention to him.

The Arena had discovered something valuable.

People wanted to see Robert win.

And the Arena wanted them to keep wanting it.

Cassian noticed similar treatment given to other popular fighters.

The more money a fighter brought through the gates, the more carefully the Arena handled him.

Popular fighters were not allowed to become disposable.

They were investments.

Cassian, however, remained different.

He was respected.

But he was not particularly beloved.

His appearance worked against him.

So did his refusal to perform.

He didn’t smile for the crowd.

He didn’t acknowledge their cheers.

He didn’t cultivate a persona.

He simply fought.

And won.

That was enough for the fighters inside the Arena.

It wasn’t always enough for the spectators outside it.

His matches were rarely the easy ones.

He was often given experienced opponents.

Sometimes men larger than him.

Sometimes faster.

Sometimes fighters whose styles were deliberately chosen to counter his own.

The Arena didn’t seem particularly concerned if Cassian had an easy victory.

It was enough that he survived.

And he did.

Again.

And again.

--

As their reputations grew, Cassian learned about another kind of match.

Challenges.

They didn’t happen often.

Only the most popular fighters attracted them.

An outsider could approach the Arena and request a match against one of its fighters.

Usually, the challenger brought money.

Sometimes a great deal of it.

The Arena would consider the wager.

Then decide whether the match was worth arranging.

Robert had heard about such challenges from the older fighters.

"They’re usually for the favorites," he told Cassian one evening.

Cassian looked up.

"Why?"

"Because nobody wants to spend that much money challenging someone nobody knows."

Cassian considered that.

"And the fighter has to accept?"

Robert shook his head.

"Doesn’t matter."

Cassian’s expression hardened.

Robert understood immediately.

"The Arena decides."

Cassian looked away.

Of course it did.

He had never forgotten that he was still under contract.

Popularity might change how the Arena treated a man.

It didn’t change who owned his freedom.

There was something else Robert had heard, too.

Patrons.

Wealthy men sometimes took an interest in particular fighters.

The most successful fighters could attract offers.

Some patrons wanted to sponsor them.

Some wanted exclusive rights to their fights.

And sometimes—

they wanted to buy their contracts.

Cassian disliked the idea immediately.

"Buy them?"

Robert nodded.

"That’s what I heard."

Cassian’s expression darkened.

He said nothing more.

He didn’t like the thought of belonging to the Arena.

He liked the thought of belonging to someone else even less.

--

New fighters continued to arrive.

Some were brought in through the same process Cassian and Robert had endured.

Others came from different places.

Some were criminals.

Some had debts.

Some had simply been unlucky enough to end up in the Arena’s hands.

They entered the training grounds.

Learned.

Fought.

And slowly became part of the same cycle.

Some lasted.

Some didn’t.

Cassian stopped learning their names too quickly.

It made their disappearances easier.

Still, there were some he remembered.

One fighter lasted nearly a year before he was killed.

Another survived several difficult bouts before eventually being sold to a patron.

Another completed his contract and walked out through the gates.

Every departure reminded Cassian that freedom was real.

It existed.

Men actually reached it.

They just had to survive long enough.

--

The seasons changed.

The training yard changed with them.

New faces replaced old ones.

The hierarchy shifted.

Some fighters rose.

Others fell.

Robert continued climbing.

Cassian remained somewhere in the middle.

Not the most popular.

Not the highest earner.

But increasingly respected.

Among the fighters, his reputation was stronger than his popularity suggested.

He had developed a particular reputation.

Mercy.

If an opponent yielded honestly, Cassian usually stopped.

If a man was unconscious, he didn’t strike again.

Some saw it as weakness.

Others saw it as honor.

Cassian didn’t care which.

He knew what kind of man he wanted to remain.

Even here.

Especially here.

--

By the time eighteen months had passed since Cassian signed his contract, the two of them were no longer newcomers.

They were established fighters.

Robert was one of the Arena’s rising favorites.

Cassian was one of its reliable survivors.

And yet the Arena never allowed them to forget what they were.

Every time they stepped through the gates, they were still property bound by contract.

Every victory earned money.

Every defeat carried the possibility of death.

Every month brought them closer to freedom.

And every month reminded them how much remained.

Cassian had been gone from the Empire for nearly twenty months now.

Almost one year and eight months.

He had spent three months in training.

Then fifteen months fighting.

One year and eight months since the day his life had disappeared from the world he knew.

He sometimes thought about the timing.

About how much had changed while he was gone.

Marian.

His dukedom.

The Crown.

Everything continued without him.

He knew that.

He simply didn’t know what had become of the people he had left behind.

He had no way of knowing.

The Arena allowed no contact with the outside world.

No letters.

No visitors.

No messages.

Nothing.

So Cassian stopped trying to imagine it.

He focused on what he could control.

His training.

His fights.

His money.

His survival.

Eighteen months remained on his contract.

Still a long time.

But no longer impossible.

He had survived eighteen months already.

He could survive another eighteen.

At least, that was what he told himself.

–

It was shortly after one of Robert’s victories when something changed.

The crowd had been especially loud that day.

Robert had won quickly.

Again.

As he left the Arena, he passed beneath the stands without looking up.

Cassian followed several paces behind.

Neither noticed the man watching from the upper seats.

He wasn’t cheering.

He wasn’t betting.

He simply watched.

He watched Robert.

Then Cassian.

Then the fighters leaving the Arena.

His gaze lingered.

The man said something quietly to the person beside him.

The other man nodded.

Then they left the stands.

Cassian and Robert continued down the corridor.

Neither knew that, somewhere above them, someone had just taken an interest in the two numbers.

Three hundred and twenty-seven.

Three hundred and nineteen.

And neither knew that the next person who came asking about them would not be an ordinary spectator.

–

Tbc