“I who have spent my life mastering my shadows, I am now their prey.”

Albert Camus

1022 LC, Gegenes

Kanna knew this:

She was beneath the star of Danu, on Lifrasir, in Gegenes. She was in the Theatre, in Gegenes, which was not part of the Solarian empire, which meant it was free.

Through black iron bars, Kanna watched the Theatre’s players circle the stage. Weapons flashed in the haze of the setting sun as they tore into each other in a macabre dance, a reminder to those that watched that at least they were alive.

Tilting her head back, she breathed deep. The night was coming. She could taste the cool welcome of it through the copper and musty adrenaline that clung to her throat.

It had been nearly five seasons she had awakened blank and bleeding on the vestiges of battle. Her memories from before were vague shadows, half-formed sensations. But her body knew how to move, how to break an enemy.

It remembered longing and waiting.

It remembered death, and it knew darkness.

The dark was alive inside of her, a feathered thing with teeth, constantly scratching.

The growl of the audience rose to a crescendo, excitement and disappointment ringing in tandem as they tallied their wins and losses.

The gate unlatched and scraped open. The body of the previous contestant was dragged through in front of her, his feet leaving furrows in the sand. His blood was a trail leading to a cold stone in a musty room where they would place stones on his eyes and hand the shell of him over to whoever bothered to claim it.

A throat cleared, almost polite. Kanna clenched her right hand then released it, repeating the motion to ease the stiffness in her fingers as she stepped through the grates.

Her opponent had already entered on the other side. He was bulky like most Gegenii, the muscles on his ochre arms veined in relief, his blonde hair smoothed back and tied tight enough to pull at the corners of his eyes. He circled the arena, a short knife strapped to his thigh and the point of his gladius held out to the crowd to raise their fervor.

Kanna brushed the palms of her hands against her own sheathed blades. On her right, the black blade was simple and almost crude to the untrained eye. Something about it told her it was a set, that it should match, but the one she carried on her left was ever so slightly longer, the handle wrapped to hide what was beneath.

The sand beneath her feet was uneven, gouged where fighters had dug in or stumbled, sticking in clumps where blood pooled from previous fights. The crowd’s frenzied howls rose when she appeared, the voices driven to a mad pitch after a long day of heat and blood.

She drank in the feral energy of it. It crept over her skin and thrummed in her bones. The darkness stirred in response, fluttering inside of her. She calmed it, pressed it down and held it tight in the caged hollow of her ribs.

Kanna checked the guards around her forearms, pulling them tighter against her skin. The man turned to her, the gladius pointed in her direction, before mockingly sliding it across his throat.

The corner of her lip curled as she finished adjusting the bracers.

If she knew nothing else, she knew this place and its false soldiers playing at war couldn’t kill her.

The idea was almost laughable. Since arriving here, she’d stopped counting the bodies that had fallen at her hands, didn’t know if there were numbers that could hold them.

The man widened his stance, held his weapon at ready, then charged in.

He would have fought before, had probably known victories here or elsewhere. He was confident, sure in his step, but had sacrificed stance and balance for a show.

When he neared, she shifted one foot back and stepped aside.

The man stumbled past, and she allowed him the precious time to regain his balance. He whirled on her, surprise gleaming in his pale green eyes. The fleeting surprise narrowed into anger.

Kanna pulled in a breath and calmed the waves of darkness inside of her that demanded to be set loose by the call of it.

Closer now, her opponent swung his free fist. But he telegraphed his every movement in the readying pull of his shoulder, the shift of weight in the flat of his feet. It connected against the bone of her cheek and she moved with it, staggering to the side.

He knew how to throw a punch.

Kanna knew how to take one.

She let out her breath, her tongue darting out to taste the copper of her own blood. The pain reminded her where she was, what she was.

Kanna twisted and kicked straight on, her foot landing squarely in her opponent’s chest. It knocked the wind from him, sending him stumbling back. Then she moved in.

He swung the gladius, but she was too close now. She curled her arm around the one that wielded the blade, jabbing up at his jaw with her palm. His head flew back and her hand went to the back of his elbow, knocking the nerves there. His hand opened, and his blade dropped.

He wrenched free and grabbed at her, trying to use his size advantage to ground her, but she twisted as she fell. He couldn’t hold her, her small frame shifting out of his grip.

She took the fall on her hip, using her other leg as leverage to shove off the ground and roll. The sand caught in her hair, scattered in the wind as she straddled him and punched down. Blood sprayed from his mouth as soft flesh splintered against teeth.

A flash of light caught the corner of her eye as she struck again.

He’d unsheathed the knife at his hip, an inelegant tarnished thing. He swung and sliced through the skin of her arm before she rolled away.

The sand stuck like salt in the fresh wound, and the pain brought the darkness. She could feel the black in her eyes, the loss of control threatening as she crouched on all fours in the sand.

She pressed her hand against the wound and it came away slick. She kept her head down, focusing on the grounding pain, the warmth of blood against her skin.

While she hesitated, her opponent took advantage.

Kanna’s head snapped back and she sprang to her feet. She side-stepped again, this time catching his foot with hers as he barrelled past.

His leg locked straight.

She slammed her other foot down, hard and fast.

His knee popped, his screams echoing as the ligaments tore.

Now hobbled, his hands grasped at the sand as he scrambled away from her, dragging his newly useless leg. Kanna drew her blades and stalked after him, her steps even and controlled while the shadows writhed in the pit of her, grasping and hungry.

The man’s hands found the discarded gladius. In a last desperate measure, he used his good leg to launch himself at her.

Kanna dodged and drove both of her blades into the back of his neck, following him down to the sand. The tips scraped through bone and muscle, sliding into the sand and stopped only by the pressure of the ground beneath them.

His body flinched, his soul flickered, and he stilled.

Kanna withdrew her blades and rose to standing, releasing the breath she held, every muscle in her body uncoiling.

The audience howled as their tension broke and released, but the sound was a muffled vibration in Kanna’s ears as their mass blurred into a shapeless thing.

Above the stands, sapphire pennants snapped against the mottled tapestry of the setting sky. The sun’s last rays slanted over the Theatre, casting shadows on the walls that surrounded the stage.

Kanna tilted her head back, shut her eyes to feel the dying warmth of the sky, and the shadows calmed for the briefest of moments.

It was almost like remembering.