This world was the heat of the sun bringing a sticky dampness to her back. It was the white noise roar of the crowd baying for blood like rabid wolves, and it was the pain of fists beating her skin and whips tearing across her flesh.
Her world was pain. But not her own.
This pain belonged to her victims. They weren’t chosen by her, these poor fools. They weren’t technically her victims, just the prey that the masters set before her. But she enjoyed the chase, didn’t she? She enjoyed the way their bodies went lax under her hands or whatever weapons they threw down from the walls. They were her victims, her kills.
Cass’s victim today was a waifish man, shorter and thinner than her. The pits had not been kind to him, and chunks of his once-lustrous auburn hair were missing, as well as half of a slim, pointed ear and several fingers. He wasn’t doing well, and Cass knew this would be his last fight. So did he.
Normally this would cause a panic in her prey. They kicked and scratched and wouldn’t give up until the bitter end, no matter how hopeless it was. Not this one. He attempted to hit her once when he stumbled into the ring, but she could see that the guards had had their fun with him beforehand. He wasn’t just weak, he was pretty. That never went over well near the end, not when the fighters were empty and broken.
Cass caught his wrist mid-swing and yanked him close, sliding an arm round his waist in an almost tender embrace as she reared back and smashed her forehead against his nose. He lost his footing, stunned and bleeding twin rivers from each nostril, but she didn’t let him fall. He gave a soft groan, almost a sigh of defeat. He didn’t need to speak for her to know he wanted it to end. She could give that to him.
But not kindly. Never kindly. That wouldn’t be a fun show.
Cass’s arm tightened around the waif’s waist for the slightest moment and she felt the eyes of the masters burning into her back. She felt the phantom bite of a lash. Cass let the waif drop like a sack of grain, and he groaned louder now. She had nothing but her body to finish him, and she knew that simply ending things wouldn’t be sufficient. This crowd was howling.
The sun beating down on her head made her thoughts feel sharp and wrong, as they so often did. It was why she thought to do what she did next. Taking her bare foot, half-buried in the burning hot sand of the pit, she pushed her heel slowly against the waif’s cheek until his head was wrenched painfully far, the tendons in his neck straining. He whimpered and choked, trying to breathe through the pile of sand and dust his face was being smashed into. His fingers scratched into the dirt for a moment before climbing up her leg, clutching at her desperately. His nails scraped her sweat-slicked calf and left dirty trails.
The crowd began to hush, and in the growing silence, a new sound began. Whispers. The deafening, formless sound of the void, the death knell for every pit fighter in Irzul. The crowd whispered their prayers, their curses, or just hissed in anticipation as she reached for the waif’s hand, prying it from her leg. It took no effort. He was ready.
Cass wrapped her fingers tightly around the waif’s wrist, her body coiling with tension in the moments before the kill. Preparing for that indescribable feeling. Giving a bone-cracking jerk of the waif’s arm, she pulled sharply on his body while stepping down hard onto his face. A single choked whimper was all the noise he made before the sickening pops of his shattered neck reverberated through the ring.
The whispering stopped. The waif went lax beneath her, and it was as if she could feel his spirit leave him, passing through her with that wave of despair and pain… and relief. The relief that it was over now. He could be free, if only in the next life.
When she lifted her foot from his cheek, it was damp with his tears. The sun burned them away within moments.

“Why did I say that to him? Why did I fight with him in the first place? Papa doesn’t need any more shit, especially not from me. Shit. Jesus,” Kit grumbled under his breath. He had a travel easel and canvas tucked under one arm, and his fold-out painters’ kit dangling from his other hand. The sun was warm on his back, filtering through the trees and dappling his already dappled skin. It was a gorgeous day, and he was in a horrendous mood.
Unpacking was harder than he thought it would be. Not because he hated it here or because he missed their old house. Fuck that place. But it was that stupid box. Someone, probably his misguided aunt, had put some of mama’s clothes in with papa’s. Finding them there, smelling them, remembering her… Kit still felt sick. His dad hadn’t deserved Kit yelling at him about it. He knew papa would rather burn all of her shit in a fire rather than have it anywhere near his son. But sometimes Kit’s heart and brain didn’t get along.
So he yelled at his dad, said shit he didn’t mean in the slightest, and left him standing alone in the kitchen with that unbearably sad look on his face. Kit just had to get away. To find a place without the silence of a nearly empty house, but the peaceful quiet of sunlight and wind-rustled trees and fresh air. His feet carried him in lopsided circles around their property. At one point he hopped a narrow stretch of the creek, and then a few minutes later he found himself in a huge stand of cherry trees.
The air was sweet and sticky, perfumed so strongly by the cherries that it was nearly all Kit could smell. It was incredible. The way the sunlight filtered through the leaves painted every little red globe in golden spots. There was so much shade. Kit snatched a handful of cherries from the nearest branch and popped one in his mouth, the juice exploding on his tongue.
This was a good spot. The best spot. He curled himself against a tangle of roots at the base of one of the trees and set up his easel and paints, glancing around for the best slice of this little orchard, when a soft trill caught his attention. He looked down to find a gray-striped cat curling around one of the trees, looking at him curiously.
“Hello, pretty. Are these your cherries?” Kit asked, voice hushed as though he would spook the cat otherwise. The cat mrrp’d at him, trotted closer, and flopped down onto its back in the grass, wiggling until a patch of sunlight fell perfectly across its belly. Kit bit back his squeal of delight, popped another cherry in his mouth, and started mixing his paints.