Shattered Fate

The wind that passed through the Colosseum gates carried with it the weight of a thousand stories—of warriors who fell with honor, and others who lived with disgrace. Godwin's boots struck the ground with purpose, but his soul trembled beneath the surface. He had walked into the arena countless times before, but this was different. The audience's roar barely registered in his ears; their excitement felt cold.

This wasn't just another match. This was a reckoning.

Across the sand stood Ryke.

Tall, sharp-eyed, calm—too calm. The crowd loved him. He was young, skilled, and arrogant, the kind of fighter who smiled before he hurt you. Godwin wasn't afraid of his skill. He wasn't afraid of dying, either. He was afraid of failing again.

His brother's face flashed in his mind. Tiberius. The only person who ever truly understood him. They had trained together, bled together, risen through the Colosseum together. Then, one day, Tiberius was thrown into a match he wasn't meant to survive.

No one questioned it. No one dared.

They said it was fair. That's what the officials claimed. But Godwin knew Tiberius. He would never lose that way—not unless something was wrong.

So when the offer came—a quiet word passed through the ranks, a chance to fight Ryke—Godwin took it. No questions. No fear. Just purpose.

Maybe if he won, he'd gain the answers no one was willing to give him. Maybe if he defeated the golden son of the Colosseum, someone up top would finally break their silence.

The gates behind him slammed shut with a metallic clang.

This was it.

The announcer's voice echoed across the arena, "In the left stands the steel of the Dominion, the man forged in war and shadow—Godwin! And in the right, the prodigy, the stormbreaker—Ryke!"

The cheers swelled like a tidal wave.

Ryke tilted his head, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement. "You look serious, old man."

Godwin said nothing. His body relaxed, but his mind sharpened like a blade drawn from its sheath.

The bell sounded.

And the world exploded.

Ryke moved like lightning—fast, precise, dancing on the edge of arrogance. Godwin met him with solid strikes, his footwork rooted in years of military training. The clash of fists and feet echoed like war drums, a back-and-forth of fury and form.

But Ryke was younger. Quicker.

And something about the way he fought—it felt rehearsed. As if he had trained to fight someone just like Godwin. Every counter came too easily. Every dodge too clean.

Godwin adjusted, using angles and timing, but Ryke kept grinning.

"You fight like a soldier," Ryke said mid-combo. "Predictable."

Godwin's patience snapped. He charged, slammed Ryke backward with a brutal elbow, but the younger man rolled through, springing to his feet with a laugh.

The crowd erupted.

Godwin's breaths grew heavy. His bones ached. He wasn't old, but Ryke made him feel like it.

Still, he stood tall.

He remembered the long nights he and Tiberius spent training in silence. The times they stood side by side on the battlefield. The way his brother smiled before every fight—like he wasn't afraid of death.

"I'm not fighting for glory," Godwin muttered under his breath. "I'm fighting for you."

He felt the fire return.

With a shout, he surged forward, fists flying. Ryke staggered as one punch connected clean across the jaw. Godwin pressed in, driving him back. Blow after blow. A flurry of pain.

But then—it turned.

Ryke ducked low and spun, sweeping Godwin off his feet. Before Godwin could rise, a vicious knee crashed into his ribs.

Crack.

Air fled his lungs. He coughed and tried to roll, but Ryke was already on him, fists raining down like thunder.

"Stay down," Ryke snarled, voice low now, serious. "You're not ready."

Godwin's vision blurred. Blood stained the sand beneath him. His limbs screamed. Still, he pushed himself up.

Tiberius wouldn't have stayed down. Neither would he.

But the truth was cruel: he was losing.

He could hear the crowd, still cheering, still entertained. As if none of this mattered. As if his pain was just part of the show.

And maybe to them, it was.

But to him—it was everything.

Godwin staggered to his feet, his ribs burning with every breath. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, trying to blink the fog from his eyes. Ryke stood a few steps away, shaking out his arms like a man preparing for a morning jog, not a life-or-death battle.

"You're still standing?" Ryke muttered, half in disbelief, half in disdain. "You're tougher than you look." Godwin didn't respond. His body screamed at him to stop. His knees wobbled, his fists felt heavier than lead, and every inch of him ached. But he planted his feet again, silently daring Ryke to come closer.

His brother's name rang in his skull like a bell tolling at a funeral.

Tiberius.

He saw flashes of him in that very arena. The same sand. The same crowd. The same false promises of fairness and honor.

Tiberius had entered a match smiling. Godwin had watched from the upper stands, full of pride, not knowing that it would be the last time. Tiberius had gone in expecting a fair challenge. What he received instead was a slaughter.

It wasn't Ryke who fought him then—it was someone bigger, faster, ranked far too high for the match to ever be justified. The Colosseum passed it off as a tragic fluke.

But something deeper had always bothered Godwin.

Tiberius didn't go down easily. He'd fought tooth and nail until the very last second. His body was broken, but he didn't beg. Didn't plead. Even when it was over, there was no fear in his eyes—only confusion.

Why?

Why did this happen?

Why was I put here?

Godwin knew those were the questions that haunted his brother as he drew his final breath. He had felt them echoing in his

And now—he was beginning to understand. own soul ever since.

Ryke wasn't just skilled. He was surgical. He moved with the confidence of someone who knew what was coming, as if he'd been told what to expect.

Like he'd prepared specifically for this match.

Godwin charged again, trying to push the pain aside. He feinted low and came in with a looping right hook. Ryke ducked under and countered with a brutal palm strike to the throat, then a swift knee that dug into Godwin's side—right where his ribs were already cracked.

He dropped to one knee, coughing.

Ryke circled him, eyes cold now. "You should've stayed in the past. The Colosseum isn't a place for relics."

Godwin glared up at him, bloody and bruised. "You talk too much."

He lunged, catching Ryke off guard with a punch to the gut. It wasn't strong, but it made Ryke step back. Godwin rose again, refusing to stay down.

But the world around him spun. His ears rang. He saw double. Blood trickled from his temple, down his cheek, hot and metallic.

The crowd was growing louder. They wanted a finish. They wanted blood.

Godwin had given everything he had. But it wasn't enough.

Ryke came again—calculated, efficient, ruthless.

A straight punch rocked Godwin's jaw. Then another. A kick slammed into his already-broken side, lifting him off the ground and sending him crashing to the floor.

The sand welcomed him like a grave His vision faded to black around the edges. His limbs stopped responding.

Tiberius. Was this how it felt for him? Alone, betrayed by a system they had both once believed in?

Godwin's body refused to move.

His chest rose and fell, slower now. The coldness crept into his limbs. The sounds of the Colosseum dulled. Ryke stood over him, looking down without triumph—just pity. "You don't belong here."

He raised his foot for the final strike. The crowd held its breath.

And then—everything stopped. A sound like wind cut through the air. Ryke's eyes widened.

Blood sprayed across the sand. Godwin blinked. For a moment, he didn't understand what had happened. He thought he had died. Thought the gods had shown him mercy.

Then he saw Ryke collapse beside him, lifeless.

A clean slice across his neck. Standing behind him—

A woman. Dressed in white, untouched by blood or sand, her presence brought the arena to silence.

Long white hair framed a face too elegant for a battlefield. Her eyes, cold and piercing, scanned the stunned crowd. In her hand was a platinum dagger, gleaming under the sunlight.

Lirae Avelyn.

The White Silk Blade.

Her name rang through the Colosseum like thunder in a church.

And she wasn't done speaking...

Godwin collapsed, breath barely dragging through his lungs. The pain was slipping into numbness now—his body cold, disconnected, distant. He couldn't lift his arms anymore. Couldn't even blink away the blur.

Above him, Ryke loomed like a phantom, bloodied and grinning. "You're just like your brother," Ryke sneered. "Too proud to crawl. Too weak to stand."

Godwin didn't speak. He couldn't. He had nothing left.

But then— A shift. It was subtle at first. Like the wind holding its breath.

And then everything happened in an instant. A blur of white dropped from above, too fast for the eye to track. A flash of metal, a single movement—elegant, precise, final.

Ryke's body froze, a thin crimson line trailing across his throat. Then he dropped.

Dead before he hit the ground. The Colosseum erupted in gasps and disbelief. Even the announcer's voice faltered, his words stolen by the shock.

Standing where Ryke had been was a woman cloaked in flowing white, her figure poised and graceful amidst the chaos. The blood on her blade hadn't yet touched the ground.

Lirae Avelyn. The White Silk Blade. She stood in silence for a moment, her presence alone enough to still the arena. Her white dress rippled like silk in the wind, unstained but radiant, contrasting the violence she had just delivered. A dagger—platinum, sleek—was sheathed once again at her thigh.

Every fighter knew her name. Every spectator knew her myth. Cold, beautiful, unreachable. The woman who moved like wind and struck like silence.

And now she had appeared—not in a match, not in a stage of ceremony—but here

She knelt beside Godwin, brushing away the blood at his temple with the back of her glove. "You fought longer than even we expected," she said softly, her voice clear and musical—but solemn. Godwin's vision swam. He blinked, barely aware of her words.

"We gave you this chance—Elias and I," she continued, speaking only for him to hear. "We knew this fight could break you. But we also knew you deserved it. You deserved the chance to rise on your own terms." Her tone hardened slightly. "But what we didn't expect… was Tyr."

Godwin's breath caught. Lirae looked away for just a moment, her gaze heavy. "He's Ryke's father. A Rank C fighter. And the man who forced Tiberius into that match. The one your brother died in."

The silence inside Godwin shattered.

Everything slowed.

Everything inside him ached, burned, spiraled. "He knew your brother wouldn't survive," Lirae whispered. "And still he made it happen. Not for honor. Not for glory. For power. To eliminate a threat.

She rose slowly, her white dress trailing like mist behind her.

"You nearly died proving yourself," she said, loud enough now for the officials above to hear. "But we won't let them rewrite this story."

She looked down at him one last time—calm, unreadable, resolute.

"This is not your end, Godwin. It's your beginning." And then she vanished, just as quickly as she had arrived.

Only the dead body of Ryke, the blood in the sand, and the roaring silence remained.