She smiled without humor. “Tell my mother I kept the ribbon.”
Silence. Then the roar of twenty thousand voices.
She looked back at the pit. The beast’s body was already being dragged away. Another name would be added to the archway. Another bag of coin pressed into her bloodied palm.
But Ararza was not thinking of victory.
“I am not afraid of the dark,” she whispered, and drove Whisper up through its lower jaw into its brain.
She touched the hollow fang at her throat. “So was the first one.”
Then it slammed backward into the wall.
Volume 26: closed. But the story was not over.
She sidestepped at the last breath, rolling under the sweep of two claws, and came up behind its left flank. Whisper bit shallow—a line of black blood. The beast spun, furious, its tail whipping like a falling tree. She leapt, tucked, landed on its back.
As the twin suns set behind the arena spires, the young female fighter walked slowly toward the healers’ tent. Behind her, the crowd chanted her name. Ahead, only the dark mouth of tomorrow. Ararza Vol 26 Young Female Fighter
Kaelen raised an eyebrow. “The champion’s purse for Vol 27 is a death sentence, Ararza.”
The Gornox shuddered. Its grip loosened. She fell, rolled, and watched the mountain topple.