Page 11 of Bonded To The Arena Master

It fails.

Zira’s authority concerns lineage, house assignments, and breeding stock. It serves demon bloodlines on a plane where their own Matrons produce too few children.

None of that should involve an apothecary who has spent her adult life avoiding the notice of powerful houses.

Yesterday’s Volvath patrol returns to mind. Black hair across broad shoulders. A broken right horn glimpsed through red dust. For one heartbeat, a stranger carried the outline of the demon I buried 10 years ago.

Now the Council calls me before it.

Coincidence is a luxury for people whose lives belong to them.

I lift the summons and trace the dead edge of Zira’s seal. Draxon serves the Council. He carries out its sentences. He commands the Grand Arena and House Obsidius, a bloodline powerful enough to attract a Matron’s attention.

I have no proof that his name waits behind tomorrow’s order.

I do not need it.

The summons has reached into the grave I made of the past and found him there.

At dawn, it will drag the ghost back into my life.

4

DRAXON

The sentencing ledger records death in black ink.

Lesser punishments appear in red. Fines, confiscations, labor assignments, broken horns, and public beatings fill the narrow columns beneath each house seal. The clerk responsible for this week’s record possesses a cramped hand and an unfortunate habit of crowding his figures against the binding.

I read every line regardless.

The storm presses against House Obsidius. Thunder vibrates through the floor beneath my desk, while lightning flashes beyond the tall windows and catches on the black spires of Ti’lith. Dawn has not yet arrived, though dawn means little beneath clouds that rarely permit sunlight to touch Galmoleth.

A single wall sigil illuminates my study.

The room contains only what I require. A broad stone desk, two chairs for petitioners, shelves for arena records, and a locked cabinet holding the Council’s private decrees. No rugs soften the floor. No trophies interrupt the bare walls. House Obsidius has accumulated wealth and honors for generations. I display neither where I work.

I turn another page.

Yesterday’s execution appears near the bottom. The clerk has recorded the charges, the Council’s judgment, and the time of completion. I press my seal beside the entry and continue without revisiting the arena.

A Volvath guard received ten lashes for abandoning his post. A Zonak worker lost a month’s wages for selling access to a restricted storehouse. Two human servants were transferred after fighting over rations. No formal hearing was required for them. Their lord decided where they would be sent, and the matter appears here only because it altered his labor count.

The law concerns itself with rank before conduct.

This is neither secret nor injustice by demon measure. Birth establishes purpose. Power establishes authority. Those beneath obey those above. A demon who dislikes his place may challenge an equal or destroy a rival, but complaint alone alters nothing.

The next page contains an error.

Five riels were seized from a merchant convicted of false weighing, but the total accounts for four. I compare the entry with the confiscation record, then mark the discrepancy with a silver stylus.

Someone will answer for it. A missing riel may be careless arithmetic or theft. The distinction matters to the demon responsible, not to the punishment if the coin remains missing.

The study door opens.

No knock precedes it.

My fingers bend the stylus.