Vaelra's arena was a bowl of blood and dust beneath a sky of banners. Ten thousand roared as the gates opened.Alonso stepped into the sand, half-starved, armed with only a rusted blade.Across from him, a giant lumbered
forward his body tattooed with slave runes."Fight," Thorne barked from the stands. "Make them cheer, Flameborn."The crowd laughed at the name.The giant
swung. Alonso barely ducked, the blade grazing his shoulder. Pain sparked fury and fury sparked flame.
Fire crawled along his sword. Gasps rippled through the
arena as the steel glowed red hot. He moved like wind and thunder, every motion guided by something ancient.When it ended, the giant lay burning on the sand.
The crowd's laughter turned to awe and fear.
"Flameborn! Flameborn!" they began to chant.
From that day, Alonso fought not to survive, but to rise. He
used the arena as his forge testing his magic, learning to channel flame through steel, through will, through rage.
He won a hundred battles. The slaves whispered his name in the dark as hope.
Eira, a sharp-eyed archer, became his ally; Kara, a fierce
fighter from the northern tribes, his guard and sister-in-arms.
Together they planned rebellion.
One night, Alonso stood at the edge of his cell, staring at
the moon through iron bars.
"Tomorrow, the Champion's Games," Kara whispered. "If you win, they'll make you Captain of the pits."
"If I win," Alonso said, "no one leaves in chains again."
The next day, the arena burned.
Flames erupted not from Alonso's blade, but from the ground itself. Chains melted, cages shattered, the sky turned crimson.Slaves rose screaming, not in pain, but in fury.
When the smoke cleared, Captain Thorne lay in the sand, his armor melted around him.Alonso stood above him, the crowd's fear reflected in his eyes."I am no man's property," he said, and turned his back on the corpse.
By sunset, Vaelra's slave pits were nothing but ashes.