Page 21 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

This?

This is power.

Naga don't fight to destroy. They fight to prove.

Strength is not just for winning. It is for claiming.

A body that falls here doesn't fall in disgrace.

It falls in worth.

I tear my gaze from the pit, from the bodies writhing in combat, and shift my focus to Xirath.

He doesn't watch me.

Not directly.

But I can feel his attention like an unspoken weight against my skin, pressing without force, assessing without demand.

He is waiting.

For what, I don't know.

To see if I will turn away?

To see if I will weep at the bloodshed?

I hold his gaze for a breath before looking back at the fight.

Let him wait.

A warrior lunges, his blade carving through the space where his challenger had been only seconds before. The dodge is seamless, as if the second fighter had already predicted the movement before it happened.

A counterstrike, quick, decisive.

Blood splatters the sand, and the crowd roars.

I exhale.

This is their way.

This is how they decide who is worthy.

I should not belong here.

But I do.

The thought slithers through me, cold and unwelcome, but I don't push it away.

I have spent my life running from cages, escaping from hands that would brand me as theirs.

Yet Xirath has not tried to break me.

He has not thrown me to these fighters, has not demanded my obedience, has not forced me to my knees.

He only waits.

That is worse. I don't understand what I am supposed to do with that.

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