A bell rang. The crowds outside screamed—a sound that sent Stix’s heart soaring. Winning nights at the Cleaved Man had been fun; winning the Slaughter Ring was, she couldn’t deny, exhilarating.

The door to the Ring swung outward, and thick, brown water spanned the length of the arena. Afternoon sun glinted off its still surface.

“Get to the other side!” A boot hit Stix’s spine. She fell headfirst into the enormous pool, and water crashed over her. Her breath pushed from her lungs and nose, and she let herself fall for several eternal moments. Her power lanced out—a vast sweep of sensory awareness to gain her bearings. Reaching, connecting, controlling.

The water was deep, as if they’d removed not only the dirt that used to be here, but several stories’ worth of it. It was also filthy, brackish, muddy, and pumped in straight from the marsh.

Most important of all, the water was not empty. Three massive creatures tangled and writhed on the silty substrate floor, each trying to move fastest. Each trying to get ahead and swim toward Stix with their lithe, serpentine bodies covered in silvery fur.

Sea foxes.

Stix summoned a wave to launch her upward, and the water complied. She broke the surface, flying high, water shaking off her.

Ice. She froze the water’s surface, and her body slammed onto it. The bellowing crowd thrummed through her. It seemed to swell and boom in time to her heart, in time to her magic.

She gathered her feet, eyes squinting for the door she had to reach in order to end this round in the Ring. Not that she was ready to leave just yet. “I’m here,” she called, opening her arms to the stone ruins. “Show me what you want me to see.”

The voices got no chance to answer before the ice vanished beneath her. Stix dumped back into the water and teeth zoomed in.

Fine, she thought as she sank fast. If ice wasn’t allowed, then she would attack instead.

She blasted out her waters, slamming away the nearest fox before its teeth could connect. A second blast, a third before she twisted like a diver and aimed herself straight down. Her ears swelled against her skull. She felt the substrate approaching, a stretch of flat nothing that she could not control, but that water had seeped into.

Above her, the sea foxes were changing course. They’d be circling back soon.

Stix’s hands touched silt. Her eyes shuttered. Back, she commanded the water. Away. Then she repeated, Back away.

It took the water longer than usual to obey her—not because it did not want to, but because it was so vast. So many minuscule droplets that had to separate from their siblings. Back away. They pulled, they stretched, they disconnected one by one, starting at the pool’s surface and spiraling down.