Gray’s eyes weren’t working. The darkness was complete.

  But he could see Tomi’s core, however small, it glowed with a purple. He ran to her and felt her fur. He tried to pull her away from the door, but she was just so big. She was burning mana at an alarming rate. That was good news for Gray—he fed mana into her core until he was able to channel magic into his meridians. Then he, gave himself the strength to pull her away and get her into a hug.

  Freek’s squad was laughing and laughing, somewhere in that black basement.

  “Tomi, I’m here. I’m here.”

  Rynn called out to him. “Keep talking, Mr. No. We’ll find you. I’m with Ames and Midj. Just keep talking.”

  “Food!” he heard someone call out. “And there’s water. In a bucket. With cups.”

  “Get them!” Freek roared.

  “Fuck you!” That sounded like Froggy.

  The food and water were important, but that wouldn’t mean much if Tomi continued to yell. There were screams, yells, and fighting, and he heard the clang of a bucket being upended. Water gushed out onto the floor.

  The door opened, but there was still no light.

  Crewel’s voice rose above the din. “Is there someone who wants out?”

  Gray managed to get a hand over Tomi’s muzzle and clapped her mouth closed. He felt bad, and he figured she’d bite his hand off, but he was able to silence.”

  “No, Magistrate!” Gray called out. “We are all just fine. It is a very fine hole, the best I’ve ever been in.” Then to Tomi, he whispered. “Let’s just talk first. If you want to quit, after we talk, I’ll make that happen. Please. Nod if you understand.”

  The cat girl nodded.

  Crewel’s chuckle sounded like the rattling of a slaver’s chains. “Yes. A very fine hole. We’ll be back for the next two teams for another spirited Chaotica match.”

  He slammed the door.

  Gray held onto Tomi as she began to whimper.

  The hole basement had gone quiet during the exchange, but now the orcs were laughing.

  It was Kabe who shouted, “You should give up now, kitty cat. It’s only the first day. Can you do six days more? You can’t. You’re weak!”

  Duskdrop piled on. “Just like a Beastkin to break under pressure.”

  “What’s that fucking supposed to mean?” one of the bearkin on Froggy’s Thunder shouted. “Say that again, fairy, so I can find you teach how we are handling the pressure.”

  Before long, there was more fighting, shrieking, and even spellfire.

  It was enough for Gray to see where the groups were. And the little piles of ironbites on trays. The mana in muffins continued to glow for him as did the mana cores of the people around him.

  Ames’s core was the brightest—mana gushed into her. It was the pain of the moment—the cold, the fear of scorpions, the threat of violence. She was thriving in a way that made Gray so sad.

  Of course, with his bond, he knew exactly where Rynn was.

  He gathered them up and maneuvered Tomi next to the wall, next to the door, where they could create a little home for themselves.

  Eventually, Tomi started to weep….and the weeping turned to sobbing.

  Which made the orcs and the fae laugh harder.

  Someone was crawling toward them. Gray didn’t know who it was, and he prepared himself. He was going to fucking wreck them if they tried anything.

  But the were carrying an ironbite.

  It was Froggy’s voice in the darkness. “Here. I have some food. I know how you feel, Tomi. I hate it down here too. It’s the weight above. It’s the dark. But we’ll make it through. It’s all the Testing.”

  Mean Marla called out. “Those mother fuckers in charge want us to panic and cry. We have to…we have to be strong. Yes, we have to bash each other’s brains in out there on the Chaotica field, whatever the fuck that game is, but down here? No. It’s us against them. We can give Squad 23 some food if they need it.”

  “We can too,” one of the dwarves threw in. “We don’t think Squad 23 had anything do to with Thormud’s murder. Can’t speak to Sindara. But there’s no evidence either way. Just some fucking orcs shooting off their mouths.”

  “That you, Krain? I’ll fucking break your mouth, you fucking dwarf asshole,” Freek thundered.

  Then there was more yelling back and forth.

  Midj, though, didn’t care about any of that. “Can I have the food, Froggy?”

  A second later, Gray saw the shadowy form of Froggy hand the little muffin over to the goblin girl. Who immediately split the muffin in half. “Who else needs some?”

  Gray had never loved that little goblin girl more. She was willing to share even though she was so hungry.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  And he was surprised by the other squads. It was so easy to think everyone was in it for themselves, and most of the time, that was the case, but even in the worst of times, people could be kind.

  “We have food,” Gray said. “And we have water. But thanks, Froggy. Thank you, Marla. And thank you, Krain.”

  “I meant what I said,” Mean Marla said. “We’re in this together. Crewel has made an enemy today, that sadistic fucker. Once I get with a Watchfire family, he better watch his back.”

  She didn’t saw what the Magistrate had done to her while the rest of them had been in the river, but it couldn’t have been good. It had marked her.

  It took a while, but the rest of the room had found their own places around the basement, which was vast, far bigger than Gray would’ve thought. He saw the clusters of cores, and he found comfort in them.

  They were still wet from the river, it was frigid in the basement, and they weren’t going to be dry any time soon. They ate the ironbites, but Gray realized that something was wrong with his. It had a sour flavor, stale, and those bits of raisins ewere hard as a rock. His stomach boiled, and he felt himself on the urge of vomiting. He had to keep in control. He breathed, drank water, breathed some more, and focused on getting the mana around his core. He had to keep it there because of the rage.

  Every minute down in that cold, wet darkness was filling him with rage. Because of his Wrath Resonance, it drew in mana into him. He was pulsating with the magic, and that made his nausea even worse.

  A while later—how long, it was impossible to say, the door opened and the Magistrate burst in, flanked by Fieldkeepers who held lanterns. “I need the Savage Seven and the Lucky Bastards.”

  Gray took that moment to check out the basement. The floor was hard-packed dirt, the walls crumbling brick, and there puddles here and there. He didn’t want to think about them too much, but they were going to have to figure out a way to solve that problem.

  Mean Marla led her squad out followed by the Beastkin, who glared at the orcs, who glared right back.

  And then the door was slammed shut.

  Tomi let out a scream. “Please! I can’t—”

  Gray grabbed her arm. “Stop,” he said sternly. By the sea gods, he was feeling so sick, but he had to be strong. Not for himself. For his squad. For Tomi.

  She began to whisper, a shattered sound, ,like her soul was dying. “Please, Gray. I’ll die. The Madam isn’t…I was…please don’t make me talk about it. Please. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel the miles of brick and stone? The sky is forever away. I can’t breathe…I can’t…”

  Gray held her tight. He ended up with his back to the wall, clutching the cat girl to his chest, as she whimpered and sobbed and struggled. They’d been like before…after the Sixblood game, when she had done the impossible. And yet, she couldn’t help but despise herself for supposedly being weak.

  His entire squad surrounded her, touching her, whispering to her.

  It wasn’t helping. The orcs and fae started jeering at them again. Gray noticed that Pinch wasn’t one of them, but he remembered how she’d chided Tomi for crying. That she was a target.

  Was that still true? Well, if she was a target, they’d have to get through him first.

  In the end, what they said didn’t matter. People were always going to talk shit.

  They weren’t the game. The real game was between his ears. They weren’t the enemy. His own mind was…or in this case, Tomi’s mind and whatever terror she was re-living.

  Gray knew it wasn’t time to praise the benefits of self-mastery. No. Suddenly, he had the answer. “Why do you like history?”

  Tomi stiffened. “What?”

  “Why do you like history?” Gray repeated. “You’ve been in a place like this before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she wept, pathetically. “But I can’t talk about it. It makes it…it makes it worse. Please, oh please, oh please.” She was sobbing, breaking apart, and Gray was powerless.

  But it made sense. She’d been in a hole before, and it had damaged her. To think, it was happening again. It was such a horror.

  “Let’s talk about history,” Gray said. “Who is your favorite avatar?”

  “Zaccai,” she whispered. “Zaccai of the Fire. He was so afraid, always so afraid, and everything was against him.”

  Everyone grew quiet.

  Tomi’s voice carried. “Zaccai was just like us…he was just this person. And that’s the thing, Gray. In history, they were just people, who were scared, who were all kinds of fucked up, and still, they rose to the occasion. Zaccai saved the world. He was terrified of fire, couldn’t swim, attacked by demons constantly, but he got the trayah jalana. He awakened his core, and he fought the Troublemaker over and over. You know, my favorite Conflictagato is of Zaccai, and he has his powers, but it’s the night before he fights the Troublemaker for the first time. It shows him crying, full of doubt, praying to all the gods, all fourteen of them…maybe sixteen. I don’t know. Depends on who you ask. He is so scared. He didn’t know he would survive. But he did, and he won, over and over, until after he crossed the ocean—that’s the Marinatus—and fought the archduke for the last time. There’s Zaccai crying, and then there’s Zaccai victorious. We have a world today because of what he did.”

  “It’s the story then,” Gray said. “You like history because of the stories.”

  Before she could answer, Froggy called out, “Tell us about the second avatar. He’s my favorite.”

  Tomi laughed. “You mean Simon Benejj. You do know, that the only reason he had any real power was because he bonded with Aestia the Kind. It was that bond that super-fueled his mana core. And they worked together to unite all the blood races to end the Second God War. It’s why we call him Strong Simon, which is kind of bullshit because we don’t call his bonded Strong Aestia.”

  One of the bearkin on Froggy’s squad grunted laughter. “Strong Simon fucked his way to greatness. Others have greatness thrust upon them.”

  “Quick saying ‘thrust’ like that,” Froggy said. “It’s gross.”

  Laughter rippled through the basement.

  Tomi’s troubles weren’t over, but for that moment, she was okay.

  And all they had was that moment because the reality was, there was no world anymore. There was just the darkness and cold of the basement. And yet, with stories, they were making it a far warmer place.

  Gray whispered into Tomi’s ear. “We are avatars. We are going to be remembered. This will be your darkest moment, Tomika Ka. But like Zaccai, we will not only survive. We will thrive.”

  He wasn’t sure she believed him but she didn’t argue with him.

  When the Savage Seven and the Lucky Bastards returned, Mean Marla was in good spirits. Her team had won. By that time, Tomi was sleeping.

  She slept through Mean Marla’s return as well as the next two teams—Froggy’s Thunder and Squad 33, also known as the Golden, which were the dwarves.

  That meant that Gray’s squad would be going up against the orcs, the Wrath City Raiders.

  Good. He was going to make them pay. Sitting in that wrath gave him more mana than he could ever hope for. And he was going to use it to make Freek and those green fuckers pay.

  Hours and hours past.

  Gray’s couldn’t sleep. He knew, the minute he relaxed, Crewel would come. That was part of the torture… the not knowing. He had to focus on that moment and rest when he could. And yet, he couldn’t shut off his mind, and he soon gave up trying. He was still so nauseous, and his nose began to run. Getting a cold would be a real problem, and he wasn’t sure if Ames could heal that or not. She’d gone silent, and didn’t even reach for his hand, unlike Midj. He’d spent hours upon hours holding her hand now that Tomi was sleeping. Rynn had taken Tomi’s place in his arms.

  It was nearing midnight—not that they knew that—when Crewel came for them.

  “Squad 23! Wrath City Raiders! Your turn for Chaotica! And for the rest of you, don’t worry, your time in the hole has come to an end. Everyone will be going to the stadium.” He chuckled, and again, it sounded like rusty chains. “It’s going to be a long night for every single one of you. But why are we here?”

  The Fieldkeepers shouted the Testing rhyme.

  It was just more fuel to the raging fire filling Gray’s core.

  He’d never been more excited to cause violence than he was right then.

  And Rynn saw it. “Time to go to war,” she whispered to him.

  She wasn’t wrong.