Breath Before the Battle

POV: Seryna.

The stench of human waste and rotting stagnant sludge had clung to my skin for seventy-two hours. Down in the abandoned drainage vault beneath the arena, there was no breeze, no sunlight, and no mercy. The keepers had dumped me into a square stone pit where the arena’s raw sewage pooled before draining into the city river. The air down there was thick with sulfur and methane, a choki