The Hound hurtled towards the three gladiators, unleashing the compressed darkness around it to create an encompassing cloud which billowed to shroud.

Their weapons at the ready, the gladiators stood firm against the encroaching void. Although from how their heads turned to search, it was clear they knew not from where withing the crashing waves of dusk the monster would strike.

Amelia could venture a guess. From how fast her father’s eyes were now moving to follow the creature no-one else could hope track, and with his chin subtly shifting between the hunter and hunted, the Hound appeared to have chosen to focus its attention on a particular person.

“It’s after you Stanton!” Amelia shouted, hoping her words would reach him before the Hound could, as it lunged from its hiding place with teeth bared for the man’s neck.

Perhaps thanks to instinct, or maybe because he had heard Amelia’s warning, Stanton managed to duck beneath the snarling creature, which flew over him to land scrambling several meters away on the arena’s coarse sand.

. Turning about on all fours, the Hound sprung again, this time for Stanton’s exposed back. Only to be greeted by the shield bearing gladiator in a thunderous clash of metal on anvil. Pushed back several steps, the gladiator avoided being toppled, despite how far his back bent beneath the Hound’s crushing weight.

“I need help!” the gladiator yelled, as the Hound in its anger clawed hard against his shield. “Hurry!” he added, shifting his stance to barely avoid the beast’s maw that tried sneaking past his protection to gorge on his insides.

Developing a crude strategy from a dangerous position, the man’s gladiatorial ally quickly approached from the Hound’s blind spot with her trident at the ready. One body to block, another to pierce, the two of them managed to make the beast howl as the three-pronged spear’s tip glanced off the Hound’s chest.

Amelia’s supportive cheer died, replaced with a gasp, when the Hound howled a shockwave, and began quickly interweaving its dark magic into the severed chain dragging behind it. Like a serpent springing to life, the linked metal moved to entangle, preventing the trident from being sunk any deeper, coiling further still to bind the gladiator’s forward most arm against her own weapon.

Unable to pull herself free, and with the chains drawing her towards the Hound’s mouth, the woman shouted in turn for the shield-bearer to act.

“Don’t hesitate love, cut me!” she ordered, and the man shoved hard with his shield to push the hound back for enough time to pull loose the large dagger strapped to his hip.

Without hesitation, he cut his companion free at the forearm. A bloody stump the price paid to avoid the same end as the splintering trident which broke in half as the Hound’s jaw snapped itself shut.

The brief exchange, whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Amelia could hear some of them already beginning to chant Stanton’s name, as if urging him to join in the fight. But even with one ally binding her pruned limb with a strip of cloth she tore free, and another warily keeping a bloodied dagger trained on the Hound while adjusting his shield, Stanton remained proud as a statue.

Amelia scrambled to figure out why. Since Stanton most certainly was not the type of man to leave his fellow gladiators to fight for themselves. A notion she didn’t want to consider came when her father clapped a hand on his thigh in impressed entertainment.

“Good, good!” Havoc shouted boisterously, “A man should be able to stand by while his knights fight in his name! Nay, die in his name!”

Had her father made an arrangement with Stanton?

“Come on, there we go!” Havoc said with a clenched fist, when the shield bearer dared intercept the beast twice. Only for his weapon to be broken by the Hound’s writhing chains, leaving him open enough for a set of claws that raked past shield along flesh, stripping the gladiator of enough skin and muscle that in shock he collapsed, removed from the fight.

Martel caught Havoc’s hand with a napkin. “This Hound you found,” she said to him while cleaning, her voice hushed, “It almost seems… intelligent?”

“Intelligent?” Havoc dumbly repeated, as the gladiator who had lost her arm, pulled out her own dagger and went after the Hound with an angry cry of her own.

Already wounded, her footsteps unsteady, the chain the Hound kept in sporadic movement around it lashed out to clock the gladiator on the head before she could get in arms reach. Removing another to leave only one.

“I suppose in a sense, it is intelligent,” Havoc replied to Martel, carefully stroking his beard with a now de-buttered hand, “Smart enough to twist doorknobs at least,” he explained, gesturing towards the Hound with his thumb, “But in my opinion, there’s a pretty glaring personality issue working against the thing, so it shouldn’t matter.”

Martel, along with Amelia re-assessed the Hound to try and make sense of Havoc’s comment. They watched the creature walk back and forth between its felled prey and Stanton, before it stopped over the hand-less gladiator, lowered its head, and took a tentative sniff.

Amelia noticed Stanton’s crossed arms clench. She could only wonder why he was still choosing to restrain himself. The Hound too, must have sensed the man’s reticence, for it let loose a heinous, repetitive noise and directed its chained tendrils of shadow to whip the downed woman alongside her back. Inflicting enough pain for her to regain consciousness and scream Stanton’s name.

“It’s… It’s laughing…” Amelia whispered, as the Hound with an uncanny intelligence gestured with its head towards Stanton’s sword, then the ground, before finally, it whipped its chain once again, inches from the gladiator’s screaming face. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from sight of what was by all accounts, a monster negotiating a life for Stanton to lay down his weapon.

“That’s right,” Havoc said unsurprised, “They’re cowards who always get cocky and can’t actually learn. See how it threatens the boy? The stupid thing tried doing the same thing to me with my page.”

Disappointed to learn the Hound’s ‘glaring personality issue’ wasn’t anything Stanton could use to his advantage, Amelia found herself caring more for the fact the colosseum guards still hadn’t shown any signs of spiriting away the felled fighters.

“I knew this would happen,” Grace said, as she pulled Amelia’s head away from its musings and urged it be placed instead against her body, “You don’t have to watch all the blood and gore if you don’t want to you know.”

The princess’s words, surprisingly, did not ring true. Blood had never made Amelia queasy; heavens knew she had seen enough of it growing up. Usually, it was the reasoning behind the violence that managed to scare her. Taking advantage of the misunderstanding, Amelia buried herself against Grace, keeping a single eye cracked wide enough to watch Stanton stun the crowd by dropping his weapon, through the golden locks that tickled her face,

The hound, cackling, abandoned the gladiators it had laid low to move in for the kill. Stanton raised both of his arms, side-stepping the creature’s lunge to bury a fist against the side of its head. His footwork well trained, his gait fluid yet steady, Amelia watched in awe as the suitor from the Historian’s novel began chipping away at the Hound. Beginning a dance of death with the creature that seemed to only move faster the angrier it got from being denied a quick meal, again and again.

Amelia mustered the strength of her lungs to cheer Stanton on, though she couldn’t quite match the noise of the crowd as Stanton kept pace with the Hound and successfully bludgeoned the beast’s jaw with his knee, sending it reeling.

“Come on…” Grace said, adding her own words to the surrounding banter, “I bet half of my earnings on you pretty boy, don’t let me down now!”

Apparently, their kingdom’s princess had absolutely no problem enjoying the blood-sport. Unlike Amelia, who began feeling nauseous when Stanton’s twisting and dodging of the spiraling chain the Hound fired at him to impale, began showing signs of falloff.

For every close shave the man managed, and with every kick or punch given, Stanton began slowing down as minute injuries mounted. Until his energy dwindled to the point he failed to avoid an attack the Hound drilled through the sand, and was struck on his chest.

Amelia shrieked as Stanton fell on his back. Then, she whimpered with worry when Stanton twisted to roll and barely avoided the Hound’s spear of a chain which impaled where he’d been. But upon seeing the Hound’s form shiver and blur, Amelia could only mutely stare as the beast sunk into its own shadow, leaving behind its collar on the sand to travel along the swelling shade cast by its chain and re-emerge before Stanton.

“Huh, didn’t know it could do that,” Havoc commented, as the Hound bit down on Stanton’s shoulder, sending a fountain of blood spurting high.

“Why aren’t the guards stopping the fight?” Amelia asked Grace, no longer willing to let her doubts remain doubts. “S-Stanton and his friends might actually die!” she added, tugging on Grace’s sleeve for reassurance when the princess didn’t reply.

“I mean…” Havoc said, “It wouldn’t be a proper test if there weren’t any stakes.”

Astonished by what her father was implying, Amelia tried to stand up.

“Why are you always trying to run somewhere?” Grace asked, as she locked her arms around Amelia’s waist, keeping her seated, “I don’t care how much you like him Amelia, if he’s going to represent you against the Marquess, your dad’s right… he’s got to be strong.”

Shocked to learn Grace apparently also knew Stanton’s fight had been changed to a death match, Amelia didn’t know what to say. Nor how to feel, since she firmly believed a different method by which to test Stanton ought to exist.

“B-But I don’t want them to die…” Amelia said, only for the princess to tilt her head in confusion, when the crowd who had been holding their breath roared with approval, drowning out her complaint.

With tears in her eyes, Amelia returned her focus to where Stanton remained standing. Elated to find the man had accepted the Hound’s embrace in a strangling hug, showcasing at the same time how the monster had bitten down not purely on flesh but also the slave collar around Stanton’s neck. Unable to fully open its mouth, Stanton’s choice to engage the creature in a close-contact contest of strength, left the Hound with little room to try biting elsewhere.

“Decent choice,” Havoc said, as man and beast wrestled for control, “But the kid doesn’t have the endurance for that sort of tactic.”

Hearing her father confirm Stanton’s position remained dire, the only thing keeping Amelia from fainting ended up being a cool flask Martel raised to her lips.

“Come on dear, drink some water,” Martel said, while looking sternly at Havoc, “Really? Your daughter asks for the gladiator she admires to help your family in a duel, has made it clear she doesn’t want him badly hurt, and you’re still going to judge the boy by your standards? Even now?”

Havoc looked away from Martel to the arena’s sand, “I already sort-of tested him earlier,” he admitted, sounding aggrieved, “The boy is decent enough, this is meant to help him show off.”

Amelia couldn’t help it. She wanted to have faith in Stanton, but the stress was getting to her.

“S-Stanton might not be as strong as you daddy, but he’s better than most! Please, can’t you stop the fight?”

Havoc uncomfortably shifted in his seat. “Do you think I messed up?” he asked Martel, who tenderly reached to stroke the man’s face.

“If your daughter thinks he’s the one… Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to trust her? Didn’t you say you’ve already got a decent third fighter lined up?”

Havoc shut his mouth. He pushed himself up and began searching the transfixed crowd of nearby nobles whose attention remained on Stanton; currently returning the Hound’s treatment of his body by biting down on the monster’s own neck in barbaric fashion, drawing blood for blood as the Hound snarled and clawed where it could.

Placing an assertive hand atop the shoulder of a noble wearing an ornamental sword on his person, Havoc spoke to the man in a curt, commanding fashion.

“Give me your sword.”

“Pardon?” asked the noble, whose discontent frown turned upside down upon realising who had made the request. Clumsily, he fumbled to pull free the sword from its sheath. Presenting it with both hands to Havoc who accepted the gift.

“Of poor quality, but well maintained…” Havoc spoke. “I’ll find you a better one.”

“D-Don’t even mention it,” said the noble, wonderstruck by Havoc who raised his pointer finger, and began tracing a pattern into the sword’s metal using his nail.

“Burn.” Havoc said, in a language Amelia could not make heads or tail of, causing the sword to burst into flame in such a way its material might be mistaken for wood. “Now,” he added, facing his daughter, “The decision is yours.”

Placed on the spot. Amelia panicked and decided to believe in Stanton who lacked but one thing to help even his fight with the Hound.

“Throw it!” she shouted.

“Catch, boy!” Havoc yelled, his voice echoing outwards like the boom of a cannon. Loud enough to catch the attention of those who grappled with each other on the iron rich sand.

“Wait! Throw it lightly!” Amelia added, but she was too late in correcting her phrasing. The sword Havoc had thrown had already taken on the appearance of a flaming buzz-saw as it flew.

In a daze, Stanton turned towards the approaching light. The Hound, sensing a far greater danger than the man it was trying to kill, whimpered, tore free its mouth, and fled with its tail tucked beneath its legs. Amelia could already see it. The boy with dreams of becoming a hero, bisected by her father who never thought too hard before acting.

But the impossible happened. When Stanton, with an outstretched arm caught the blade by its handle and raised its tip skyward as if he had been chosen by heaven. With the way the crowd cheered, you would have thought so at least. But Amelia knew their enthusiasm stemmed primarily from the fact her father had bothered to show interest in someone. Fail and be eaten. Succeed, and Stanton’s future now looked as bright as the sword he briefly admired, before its reflective length was turned on the Hound.

Gnashing its teeth while growing its shadows, the Hound made sure to let Stanton know its life would not be so easily taken as it regained control of its chain and pulled, until the metal burst apart into several lengths of wrapped shadow it shot towards Stanton. Like slithering vipers who found their fangs purified by the fiery sword the man wielded to sever both metal and night. Piece by piece, ring by ring until the hound fell to one knee as it grew too tired to maintain control of so many pieces.

Stunned by how smoothly his weapon could cut, Stanton let free his voice in an emboldened cry before taking the fight to the Hound, who compressed its turbulent clouds in reply, growing for itself an armor to shield its already impressive body. Stomping its front paws, the Hound howled and answered his charge with its own. Beelining for Stanton in a final attempt to curtail the man’s life.

Raising his sword with both hands as they met at the middle of the colosseum’s arena, Stanton swung as they clashed and cleaved to earth the Hound’s severed head, putting an end to its cries.

“Knew it would be fine,” Havoc mumbled, and Amelia sank into her seat in relief, timidly clapping along with the rest of the crowd, as the colosseum’s guards began swarming the field to begin treating the injured.

She sat dazed, watching flowers be thrown out onto the field. While the idle conversation of her father and Martel entered into her ear as they began chatting away.

“Well, that was a mess. I’m assuming you let slip in front of the gladiators something to the effect of taking them on as knights if they managed to impress you?”

“You noticed?”

“Of course I noticed.” Martel replied, with sass, “Why else would the boy not participate from the start? In trying to secure a future for his friends, he nearly got them all killed. In my opinion, if your plan was to let him show off then you should have paired him with someone capable of drawing out talent without needing the use of their fangs.”

“Are you volunteering?” Havoc asked, playfully growling, “Because I only found one Hound in my travels. But I suppose you’re well trained enough if that’s how you think it should be…”

His question, made Amelia wonder how on earth her father could possibly know Martel dabbled in combat… Until she remembered her father was super-human. And had seen Martel without clothes.

Martel seemed to have realised this too, since she pushed Havoc back with one hand while hiding her blush with the other. “In a duel? Out in the open?” she asked, downplaying the question as if it were silly, “You’re talking nonsense. Our… Our fields of work are completely incompatible. Maybe on a busy street… Or in a forest…”

“What are they on about?” Grace asked Amelia, as they watched Havoc tease Martel further by asking the woman how exactly she would go about preparing for such a fight.

“I think they’re flirting,” Amelia answered, glad Grace appeared as pleased as Stanton, who relished in the audience’s noise as he took a victory walk to the side of the colosseum where the nobles were seated. Where servants were waiting to decorate the man with an embellished victory cape, and a bouquet to hold.

“Shush it you two,” Martel said, turning away from Havoc to look back at the arena, where her eyes lit up in excitement, “Oh my,” she said, patting Amelia’s knee, “I think he’s dedicating his win to you.”

Amelia could only stiffly smile as Stanton held up his flaming sword in their direction. He was covered in blood and had a huge grin on his face, but all Amelia could notice was Grace, who covered the front of her face with a fan as she returned Stanton’s gaze.

Maybe fate really did exist. The idea made Amelia jealous. She couldn’t help herself from pointlessly wondering what life might be like if she had managed to meet the princess before The Historian had written their novel. Left with only one option, Amelia stood alongside Grace and respectfully waved towards Stanton alongside the princess, until the gladiator bowed low and departed for a well-deserved rest.

“That’s half-time,” Grace said, when bikini clad women holding up advertisements began strutting about the arena, “Did you want me to get you anything while I turn in my bets?”

Knowing their time spent together in the future would lessen once Grace wedded Stanton, Amelia shook her head no. “I’ll come with you,” she said, “Let me just tell my dad.”

She found her father, who had left his seat at some point, with Martel at the top of the stairs. In the middle of talking with a knight who bore the king’s mark.

“What did he want?” Amelia asked Havoc, finding it strange the knight wouldn’t have arrived with a retinue of his peers.

“The king sends for me,” Havoc answered, directing his next question to Martel, “Something urgent, apparently. Did you want to stay? I can bring you along if you want.”

Astonished he would ask such a thing, Martel quickly refused. “It wouldn’t do for me to draw attention to myself. I’ll stay with the girls. Why don’t we meet again later?”

Scratching his chin, Havoc turned thoughtful, “Alright… But it’s too bad. I’ll have to think of a different way to help reclaim your family’s standing. I’d thought we could’ve brought it up with the King as a favor for him wasting my time.”

Then Havoc left. Just like that. After admitting he knew Martel’s background. And after having made it clear he could care less that her family had in the past been falsely accused of treason.

“A-Amelia,” Martel said, acting more timidly than Amelia had ever seen or read about, “I… I’ve been sort of just messing around, but… Umm… You wouldn’t mind if I seriously pursued your father, would you?”

Amelia took in the older woman who looked on the verge of tears. Knowing Martel’s life story, she could only feel pity. Even she hadn’t offered to help reinstate Martel’s family name for it would mean the king going back on his word. And yet her father had brought it up as if he were deciding whether to have his steak raw or cooked blue.

“As long as it doesn’t interfere with my lessons, I don’t care what you do,” Amelia said in jest, hooking her arm around Martel’s to lead the woman to where Grace waited; leaning against a pillar.

Together, they made idle chatter. All the way to the lower levels of the colosseum where Grace hurried away to line up to exchange her betting tickets for hard cash.

“Thank you,” whispered Martel, surprising Amelia since she hadn’t been expecting thanks, “I’ll… I’ll make sure to teach you everything I know until you’re the centre of attention at every ball you attend. I promise.”

“With a dad nicknamed ‘The Dragon’, that might be too much attention,” said Amelia, before her somewhat fanciful mood crumbled to dust upon seeing in the distance amidst the crowd, a particular person, disguised as a pauper with another beside him.

“Wait here for Grace,” Amelia said, hoping Martel wouldn’t notice the urgency in her speech, “I’m going to buy food then come back,” she added, unable to deny her need to know why the Marquess of Rutherford would be wandering the colosseum before the date of their duel.

“Alone?” asked Martel, her voice filled with worry. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you to yourself in such a busy public space.”

“Please, you know I have a plan for danger,” Amelia lied. Since she hadn’t actually brought the dragon tooth her father had gifted her in case an emergency happened. A silly mistake, however considering she hadn’t thought they would wind up separating for more than a few minutes, it couldn’t be helped.

“Just bring Grace back to our seats, by the time you two arrive, I’ll be waiting there for you!”