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"You feel that?" Rook's voice cut through the roar of the crowd. "That empty space where something used to be?"
I was on my knees. Blood dripping from my mouth. The sand under my palms was hot, soaked through with sweat and whatever the hell was leaking out of the mark on my arm.
The hatchling had taken something.
I knew it the second I'd pulled it back. There'd been a tug, sharp and cold, like a fish hook yanked out of my skull. And now there was a gap. A blank spot where a memory should've been.
"Stand up," Rook said. He wasn't even breathing hard. "You've got more to lose."
I shoved myself up. My legs shook. The crowd was screaming but I couldn't make out words anymore, just noise, just pressure crushing in from all sides.
"What did you take?" I spat blood into the sand.
"Nothing." Rook smiled. "Your pet did that. Every time you call it, it eats a piece. Didn't anyone tell you?"
No. No one told me. No one told me anything.
I tried to remember breakfast. This morning. Yesterday. The memory was there, sort of—sitting on the crate outside Garrick's office, chewing on stale bread—but it was flat. Colorless. Like someone had told me the story instead of me living it.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" Rook tilted his head. "Try something older. Your first fight. Your first meal in the Pits."
I reached for it. Found nothing. Just the shape of the memory, hollow, like a house after a fire.
"Shit," I whispered.
Rook's mark flared, and his creature lunged. I rolled left, barely. Claws tore through the air where my ribs had been. I came up swinging but my fist passed through smoke. The thing reformed behind me, and I felt its breath on my neck, cold enough to burn.
"You can't win this," Rook said. He was walking now, slow, like he had all the time in the world. "You're fighting yourself. Every second you hold that bond, you lose another piece. By the end of tonight, you won't even remember why you started."
I dodged again. My shoulder slammed into the arena wall. The impact rattled my teeth.
"So what?" I shoved off the wall, fists up. "I'll forget breakfast. I'll forget yesterday. I'm still gonna put you down."
"Brave." Rook's smile didn't move. "Stupid, but brave. What about your mother?"
The world stopped.
"What?"
"Your mother." He said it soft, almost kind. "What did she look like?"
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
I knew I had a mother. I knew she was dead. I knew—
I knew nothing.
Her face was gone.
"No." My voice cracked. "No, that's not—"
"It's already gone, kid." Rook's creature circled me, low to the ground, waiting. "You gave it up the second you bonded that thing. The Void doesn't just eat your HP. It eats you. Memory by memory. Piece by piece. Until there's nothing left but the hunger."
I couldn't breathe. My chest was too tight. The mark on my arm was burning, crawling, spreading up toward my elbow like black frost.
"That's why they killed them all," Rook said. "Three hundred years ago. The Guild didn't wipe out Voidlings because they were dangerous. They wiped them out because no one who bonded one stayed human."
The crowd was chanting something. My name, maybe. I couldn't hear it.
All I could hear was the empty space where my mother's voice should've been.
"You're done," Rook said. "Call it off. Surrender. I'll make it quick."
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. The mark had reached my shoulder now, black veins spreading under my skin like roots.
The hatchling was inside me. I could feel it, coiled tight, waiting. Hungry.
It wanted more.
And I wanted to give it.
Because the rage was bigger than the fear. Bigger than the hole where my mother used to be. If I was gonna forget everything, if I was gonna burn down to nothing, I was taking Rook with me.
"Hey," I said.
Rook stopped.
"You talk too much."
I slammed my palm into the sand and called.
The hatchling tore out of the mark like something newborn and screaming. It was bigger this time. Faster. Its wings were still too small but its claws were long, jagged, wrong. The crowd's roar turned into something else. Fear, maybe. Shock.
Rook's smile finally died.
"You little shit—"
The hatchling hit his creature head-on. No dodging. No smoke tricks. Just impact, tooth and claw, a tangle of black and gray that sent up a spray of sand and blood. Rook staggered back, his mark flaring wild, and for the first time tonight he looked surprised.
"What the hell did you feed that thing?"
"Me," I said.
The hatchling tore into Rook's creature, ripping, shredding. Every hit sent a fresh wave of cold through my veins. My vision blurred at the edges. I could feel pieces of myself slipping away—names, faces, the smell of rain, the sound of a song I used to know—but I didn't stop. I pushed harder. Fed it more.
Rook's creature dissolved into smoke, and the hatchling turned on him.
He tried to dodge. Too slow. The hatchling's claws caught his chest, dragged him down into the sand. Rook screamed, and his mark shattered, black lines splitting apart like broken glass.
The crowd went silent.
I stumbled forward. My legs weren't working right. The hatchling was still on top of Rook, wings spread, teeth bared. Waiting for me to say the word.
"Kael." Rook's voice was wet, ragged. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. "You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what they'll do to you."
"I know you lost."
I pulled the hatchling back. It resisted, just for a second, and I felt another memory tear loose—my first night in the Pits, cold and scared and trying not to cry—but then it folded into the mark and was gone.
Rook lay in the sand, breathing hard. His chest was shredded. His mark was dead.
I knelt next to him. My hands were numb.
"Who sent you?" I said.
Rook laughed. It turned into a cough, wet and ugly. He reached into his jacket, slow, and pulled something out. Dropped it into my palm.
A badge. Silver. Engraved with the Guild's seal.
Still wet with his blood.
"They know," Rook whispered. "They've always known."
The arena lights went out.