Chapter 15 · The Eighth Cage

The blade had three notches on the crossguard.

Alto saw them the second the gate lifted and fighter eight stepped into the sand. He'd stopped breathing. The crowd noise went hollow and distant like he'd been shoved underwater.

Those notches weren't decoration. They were kills. Officer kills. The kind you marked when you'd put down your own.

"Move, Dustborn." Shana's voice crackled through the bone-speaker pressed behind his ear. "You freeze, you die. He won't."

Alto made his legs work. Walked forward. The sand under his bare feet still held the afternoon heat and the blood from the last three fights. Somewhere up in the stands Lira was watching. He'd told her not to come. She'd come anyway, jaw set, bandage wrapped tight under her shirt where the hunter's blade had kissed her ribs two days back.

Fighter eight rolled his shoulders and spat into the sand.

Kael Ironhand.

The name hit Alto like a fist to the gut. Kael had been twenty-two when Alto died. Tall, stubborn, the kind of lieutenant who'd argue tactics over breakfast and then execute them flawlessly when the shooting started. He'd saved Alto's life twice. Alto had saved his four times. They'd kept count.