People in the crowd are studying Veric and the name doesn’t match the man.

A simple mask was never going to hide his identity. Tidebreaker glimmers on his back like a Christmas tree on display, and his posture screams ’I was raised with money’ the moment he stands at parade rest. The mask is an alibi, not a disguise. It’s a signal more than a shield. A message to everyone who recognizes him: ’I’m trying to stay anonymous. Treat me like a nobody.’

But, slowly, I start to understand the real reason behind the choice of name.

A name as stupid as that one, paired with the mask, makes people think the Prince of Azure is a fool. They’re going to come in hard. They’re going to come in arrogant. They’re going to come in without bothering to study his defense first. He wants them to underestimate him until the shield reads them the riot act.

Whether that’s the only reason, or whether there are others tucked behind it, only Veric knows.

Veric really is a good man. Even when his first instinct is to think about profit, on the inside he’s just someone slightly lost—a son waiting for someone to guide him, since his father is too busy running the corporation and the throne to do it himself.

"Sands. Get ready. I’m about to hand you the biggest merchandising window you’ll ever get."

I can’t keep the expression off my face: confusion, disbelief, complete failure to follow.

"What the hell are you talking about, Veric?"

He just smiles. A smile that momentarily fills me with a serious sense of dread.

He drops into combat stance and shouts loud enough for the entire Oathring to hear.

"Where the hell is the bastard who’s supposed to fight me?"

Death’s Lantern appears out of nowhere inside the ring.

His body slowly comes into focus, like a magic trick performing its own reveal. The air thickens around him as he resolves, a layer of fog rolling in from nothing and settling at his feet. The crowd quiets in waves, ring outward, as if the silence itself is contagious.

He is enormous.

A man at least six foot seven, broad enough that his shadow takes up two of Veric’s. The torso of an ogre—pure slabs of muscle layered under a long black overcoat thrown open at the chest. A black tuxedo vest underneath, immaculate. A high-collared dress shirt. A black top hat pressed low across the brow, hiding the eyes. Small and round, dark glasses sit just under the brim of the hat. His hair is long, falling past the shoulders in pale strands the color of bleached bone. The skin of the face is pale to the point of looking embalmed. The jawline is sharp, the cheekbones higher than they should be on a man this big. Every part of him is precisely groomed.

The aura coming off him is wrong. Macabre, in the original sense—the slow horror of inevitability. A ferryman of the world of the dead, taking a smoke break in our world before going back to work.

His voice rolls out low and gravelly, paced like a sentence read off the docket of purgatory.

"Are you ready... Soline... Prince?"

He knows who Veric is.

Hard to say ’who doesn’t’ by now. My plan was for the mask to deliver a quiet request to the crowd—keep my identity discreet—but instead it’s become gratuitous mockery now that the announcer is using a nickname on the public address like a punchline.

’This is going to spread... fast...’

Death’s Lantern removes his small dark glasses.

His eyes are literally on fire. Burning a necrotic green that doesn’t carry warmth—doesn’t carry light, either. The flames consume something else instead, maybe his soul.

By custom of the Oathring, fighters choose their names based on their abilities or something inherent to them. Death’s Lantern. Seems like the lanterns weren’t a metaphor.

"Are you ready?" the judge asks.

Veric nods. So does Death’s Lantern.

"Ladies and gentlemen. The match is about to begin."

A short silence falls across the arena. The tension stretches.

"Fight!"

Death’s Lantern walks calmly toward Veric.

As he closes the distance, I feel the energy shift through the perimeter pillars. The temperature of the air changes. The colors of the arena dim by a fraction.

That’s a unique class.

"Veric. Be careful. This isn’t a normal fighter." I send the warning through the comm.

"Neither am I." He answers like the stubborn ass he always is.

Death’s Lantern holds his hand up in front of his own face, fingers spread, palm out. The fire in his eyes pours out from the sockets, threads down his face, splits at his shoulder, and runs along each finger of the raised hand. It spreads through every inch of the arm and he repeats the motion with the other hand. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Two gauntlets of necrotic green flame engulf both his forearms.

He bumps fist against fist. The sound isn’t flesh, and it isn’t metal either. It’s something deeper—as if a chorus of souls screams in despair from the contact point.

The crowd hushes.

After watching the display, Veric narrows his eyes. His confidence seems visibly drained away. I start running through phrases I could send him through the comm, anything to raise his morale.

But suddenly, he doesn’t need them.

He steps out of his combat stance. Stands fully upright. Lets out a long breath. Then bellows across the arena.

"COME AT ME, YOU WAILING SACK OF SOULS!"

He slams his gladius against the face of his shield three times. The metal rings loud.

In response, Death’s Lantern vanishes again for a moment. We can feel the crowd holding its breath.

In the same instant, he materializes directly above Veric in mid-air, his entire arm telescoping into a straight, descending punch aimed directly at Veric’s face.

Veric raises his shield at the last possible moment.

A metallic clang detonates—and underneath it, riding the impact like a second voice, the wailing of a hundred souls fills the entire arena at once.