A shock of ice.
Elias gasped as cold water slammed into his face. His body tried to react on instinct… then gave up. He collapsed heavily onto the sticky floor, his head pounding, his mouth filled with blood and metal.
"Calm down."
The voice was deep.
Tired.
Real.
Elias blinked. The light was low, yellowish. Concrete walls. The smell of sweat, rust, and stale alcohol. He tried to move. A sharp pain tore through his ribs.
"Thirty-eight fights," the man in front of him said. "Thirty-eight times I've watched you enter that arena. And never… never have I seen you like tonight."
The man's name was Kael.
He was crouched in front of him, an empty bucket in hand. A face shaped by years and blows, clear eyes, lucid. Someone who had survived long enough to recognize what does not die.
"You always let yourself get killed," Kael continued. "You took the hits. You fell. Then you got back up. But tonight… tonight, you were ready to kill."
Elias didn't answer.
His mind was still locked on an image.
The white leaf.
The tattoo.
The laughter.
"The man you saw in the crowd," Kael went on more quietly, "he's not just anyone."
He paused.
"He's a personal enforcer of Seren Vale."
The name landed heavily.
Elias clenched his jaw. An old tension woke in his chest. Seren. The Order. Everything he had fled came rushing back, intact.
"The symbol you saw," Kael added, "that's the new emblem. Since she took power, the Order has changed."
He straightened slowly.
"Public morgues? They belong to them. Bodies are scanned. Memories extracted. The poor become reserves for the rich."
Elias finally looked up.
"You following me?" Kael asked.
Yes. He was.
"I was a fighter too," Kael said. "A rebel. I lost. But I survived. I have a place. A bunker. Discreet. Off the grid."
He held out his hand.
"Come with me. I'll explain the Tower. And what they're really hiding inside it."
Elias hesitated.
Then he took the hand.
He pulled himself up painfully, his body broken—but his mind finally aligned. For the first time since leaving the morgue, he was no longer trying to die.
He finally knew who he was going to live against.