Page 111 of Warlord's Plaything

This isn’t just about me.

This is war.

And if I say no, I might as well be cutting their throats myself.

"I need time."

Menias watches me.

Then, finally, he nods."Choose wisely, daughter."

And then, he’s gone.

Leaving me standing in the darkness, caught between blood and ruin.

36

XYRON

The screams come first.

Raw. Unrelenting. Ripped from throats that have nothing left to give.

The atmosphere in the dungeons is covered with the stench of blood, sweat, and the slow rot of men who have been left to fester in their own filth.

But this time, it’s not me.

Not yet.

It’s them.

The gladiators—the human slaves who thought they could defy their masters.

The same ones who once stood beside Hira, who fought with her in the pits, who saw her as something more.

Now, they’re nothing more than meat on the Council’s butcher table.

"You see them, don’t you?"

Kaelith’s voice slithers through the dark, smooth as silk, sharp as steel.

"Your little rebel whore’s precious warriors."

He gestures toward the stone slabs where half-dead bodies hang in their restraints, broken beyond recognition.

The flickering torchlight crawls across their skin, illuminating every cut, every lash mark, every shattered bone that juts through flesh.

They are not warriors anymore.

They are examples.

A guard steps forward, red-hot iron in hand.

There’s a moment of silence—a heartbeat, nothing more—before the iron is pressed against a man’s chest.

The sound is sickening.

Flesh sizzles.

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