The coliseum still echoed with the roar of the last fight. Even behind the walls of the waiting bay, Luke and Elias could feel the vibration through the stone — a heartbeat made of sound and light.
Luke sat slumped against the wall, chest still rising and falling hard. His sword lay across his lap, cracked but still holding. Elias was grinning like a madman, a strip of bandage tied across his arm where he'd taken a glancing hit.
"You know," Elias said between breaths, "I can't feel my fingers."
"That's because you tried to punch a guy wearing steel gauntlets," Luke said, smirking.
Elias laughed weakly. "Still worth it."
They sat there for a while, both too exhausted to move but too wired to rest. The faint hum of the tournament echoed through the stone corridors — the clang of gates, the boom of the announcer, the cheers that followed victory.
Luke looked at his hands. They were trembling.
"That rush…" he whispered.
"Yeah." Elias leaned back, eyes half-shut. "I've never felt anything like it."
"Up there — when everyone was watching — it's like…" Luke searched for words. "Like we weren't rats anymore."
Elias opened one eye. "We weren't. For a few minutes, we were knights."
Luke chuckled, but the sound was thin. "Knights with scrap armor."
"Still counts." Elias closed his eyes, smiling. "We'll do better next round. I can feel it."
Luke didn't answer right away. He just stared at the sliver of light filtering through the cracks in the door — golden, clean, unfiltered. The kind that never reached home.
---
Far below, the Undercity buzzed with noise.
Workers crowded around a rusted holo-screen bolted to the canteen wall, its image flickering in static bursts. The tournament broadcast reached even here, the Nova's gift to the lower class.
"Look at those two," one miner said, wiping grime from his face. "Never seen anyone fight like that."
"Did you see the tall one? The way he dodged that spear?" another said. "Something about him looked familiar."
"Nah," a third laughed. "If we had fighters like that down here, we'd all be free by now."
But as the footage replayed — Luke's grin, Elias's stance — the laughter faded. A quiet unease spread through them.
One old man leaned forward, squinting. "No," he whispered. "That's… that can't be…"
The image glitched, flickering again — but not before the camera caught Luke raising his head, sweat-streaked and smiling under the light.
The old man swallowed hard. "Looks just like that fool from Sector Eight. The one always late for the lifts…"
No one spoke after that. They just watched in silence as the next round began, the cheering above echoing through the pipes — a sound that didn't belong to them, yet somehow, tonight, it did.
---
Reina stood in the mid-city plaza, staring up at the massive display that hung between two towers. She wasn't smiling, but her hands were trembling ever so slightly.
Her new uniform — clean, crisp, one step closer to the surface — felt heavier than she'd imagined. She had come to watch out of formality, she told herself. Because the Nova's command said every citizen should.
But when the two fighters appeared on screen, something in her gut twisted.
Sector Eight tags, she thought. That can't be right.
She recognized the posture, the rhythm — the way they covered for each other, the wild teamwork no trained soldier could mimic.
Luke and Elias.
She didn't dare say it aloud. Instead, she crossed her arms and watched, her jaw tight. "Idiots," she muttered. "Absolute idiots."
But her lips betrayed her — curving just slightly into something that almost resembled pride.
---
Back in the waiting bay, the two sat side by side, eating from tin bowls of tasteless rations provided for the contestants.
Elias poked his food with the handle of his spoon. "Do you think they'll talk about us?"
"Who?" Luke asked.
"The crowd. The people watching. Maybe even the Nova himself."
Luke snorted. "The Nova doesn't even know we exist."
Elias grinned. "Then we'll make sure he does."
Luke smiled faintly, shaking his head. "You always say the stupidest things."
"And yet," Elias said, leaning back, "they usually work."
Luke looked at him then — really looked. The fire in his friend's eyes wasn't just excitement anymore. It was hunger.
He wasn't sure if that scared him or made him want to keep fighting.
Somewhere far above, the announcement bell rang, calling for the next match.
Luke stood, stretching. "Guess that's us soon."
Elias stood too, rolling his shoulders, that wild grin still there. "Let's show them the Undercrown bleeds harder than gold."
Luke chuckled. "You mean shines harder."
"Same thing."