When I returned to the room behind the portcullis, with the crowd still cheering behind me, I found Denzel waiting for me with a smile on his face and arms opened wide to welcome me back.

"That was amazing!" he said, walking towards me, "the crowd loves you! What was that ice power, is that from the ice -"

He couldn't finish his sentence as my fist planted itself firmly on his face, sending him tumbling a few feets on the ground. It was something I had wished to do since the first day, but I never could as he wisely always talked to me behind some barrier or another, be it bars or walls. Seeing my burst of violence, the staff of the arena tensed up, but remained still, deciding to observe from a distance after seeing my performance.

He immediately sat up, blood dripping from his nose, and shouted, "what the fuck?! That could have killed me!"

"It didn't tho," I said, as a matter of fact.

He spat out some blood. "Are you going to do shit like this again or can we talk like civilized people?"

I shrugged. "No, I'm fine now, feel free to talk."

"Good." he said, getting up from the dusty ground, before wiping away the blood on his face with a handkerchief, revealing a completely healed nose, "As I was saying, you performed way better than I was hoping, and definitely better than anyone in the crowd expected."

He snapped his finger and a boy came running with a small leather pouch. He gave it to Denzel, who then threw it at me. When it landed, it revealed the gold coins it contained.

He pointed at the bag. "That is your portion from the entrance fees, plus your portion of the bets placed against you. Every volunteering gladiator gets a five percent of the cut."

I picked up the pouch, which, despite its small size, had quite some weight to it. "I would have expected you to keep the portion of the bets to yourself. You're being awfully honest for a slaver bastard."

He smiled at me. "Please, our relationship is now that of business partners, isn't it?"

I crossed my arms. "I don't buy it. What do you want?"

He sighed. "During your match I received some offers."

"Well, spit it out."

"One came from the city guard, they asked if they could employ you to train their ranks. They rarely have the chance to train with something, or someone, much stronger than a normal person in relative safety."

"I have no problem with it, if the pay is good and they aren't complete idiots. Let's do it like this, they will pay me and I will give you ten percent as a commission for finding me the job, and you haggle for the price, sounds good?"

"I was thinking of -"

"It's outside the arena, take it or leave it," I cut him off.

"Fine." He raised two fingers. "The second offer comes from another patron of the arena like me, he wants you to fight against a cyclops, but this time it will be bare-handed. He doesn't want you to kill one of his best fighters."

I shrugged. "Sounds fine to me."

He nodded, then raised a third finger. "The third offer is to fight against ten men in the arena. They will be fully equipped."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Are they slaves?"

"They were legal-"

"No."

He joined his hands as if in prayer and said, "please, just this one time. I swear it will be the first and last."

I scoffed, "as you will swear it will be the last, the next time you ask me to, or the time after that. I said no."

He clicked his tongue. "Fine."

"Is that all?" I asked, as I started to feel like a second punch would do him good.

"Yeah, sure, you can go home," he said, waving me away.

I nodded and walked past him, back towards the covered wagon that had brought me to the arena.

The ride back was uneventful. When I returned to my room, I found two pieces of parchment, a bottle of ink, and a quill sitting on the table of my room. I wanted to sit down and write to Tasha immediately, but I also didn't want to botch it and, since I had limited resources, I couldn't write copy over copy of the letter until I found one I was satisfied with, so I decided to try something a bit unorthodox.

I had taught Tasha how to write mostly by tracing the letters on the snow, so I was no foreign to using the ground as my sheet. I went outside my room and, using a small twig from one of the short bushes in the garden, I started writing the draft of my letter on the ground.

I was at my second attempt when Denzel returned with his small escort, seeing me crouching in the middle of the yard with a stick in my hand, he was curious enough to come up to me and ask me what I was doing.

"I'm trying to write a letter I'm satisfied with. I didn't want to waste any parchment." I answered him.

"I've never seen those characters," he said.

I nodded. "It doesn't surprise me. I made them."

He didn't say anything else, choosing to instead leave me there to do my thing as he went into his mansion, a pensive look on his face.