Today, everyone would be a gladiator.

Phage lowered her arm and stared at Kamahl.

He stood a hundred paces away, his staff grounded in the sand. Druidic robes ruffled in the wind. Beneath gleamed his barbaric armor. If anything, his new devotions had made him more muscular. He would be a formidable foe, except that he hoped not to kill but to save. That was his weakness.

Phage shrieked and ran toward him. She glanced into the stands and saw bars descend across the betting windows. It was time to fight. Some fans would rage. Let them. It would only deepen their desire.

Feet were not fast enough. Phage launched herself in a series of forward flips. The world spun end over end. Blue sky tumbled with tan sand.

Kamahl rammed his staff into the ground, and it drew mana. Power surged through the wood, crackled up Kamahl's arms, and filled his frame. He lifted the staff horizontally above his head.

Flipping toward him, Phage smiled. No matter how he blocked her-head, hands, waist, chest-he could not block all. Whatever won through would strike him and rot him to nothing.

"Good-bye."

Rounding out her last flip, she launched herself into the air and hurtled down upon Kamahl.

His arms were locked on his upraised staff.

Phage reached around it to kill.

Kamahl was not there. With an easy sidestep, he had moved out of the way.

Shrieking in anger, Phage raked one hand out to catch his shoulder. His tattered robes disintegrated. It was all she could do.

It was not all he could do. He whirled around, swinging his staff toward her back. She had not even struck ground yet when the stout pole whacked her spine. Air rushed from her lungs and blood from burst vessels. The strike left a welt, but it would take a better hit than that to break her spine.

Phage crashed down in the dust. It caked her face and hands and pasted itself across her sewn-up gut. She scrambled up and spun to face him.

He was already a stone's throw back and still retreating.

The wild ovation of the crowd devolved into hisses and moans. These folk had come to see attacks, not retreats.

Kamahl shouted, "I do not wish to harm you. Sister."

"It is too late for that," she spat and hurled herself toward him again. Sand flew. The welt from his staff was already healing. It had not weakened her body but only strengthened her hatred.

Kamahl would die today. Phage had no brother but the First.

She didn't flip this time, keeping her eyes on him. He would not escape.

Kamahl merely stood, staff in hand to one side. He didn't even brace for attack. Only his robes moved, and the green magic that climbed across his staff. The power peeled away the first of the stalk's hundred rings. It was as though the staff were a tight scroll that unrolled before Kamahl. It eclipsed him for a moment.

No thin shield would stop Phage. She barged toward it like a bull toward a sheet of paper.

Spinning suddenly, the staff rolled itself back together. It spun and snapped, and Kamahl was gone.

Phage dived through empty air, somersaulted once, and came to her feet. She spun, searching for her foe. He was gone utterly. Only his staff remained, standing in the sand as if rooted there. Power mantled it, buzzing menacingly, but otherwise the arena floor was empty.

Cheers gave way to nervous laughter, then to expectant silence.

In that hush, Phage heard Kamahl's voice.

"I will take you with me." The sound jangled with energy.

"You will not!" she snarled.

"If I must maim you, I will take you." He was near that staff-perhaps within it. Had the scroll rolled him in with it?

Phage cautiously approached. "You are skilled at maiming me."

"I mean only to save."

"You'll have to kill me," Phage said, reaching her hand toward the staff.

"We shall see." Suddenly he emerged, boot first.

The metal sole shoved from a fissure in the wood, caught her jaw, cracked it, and flung her sideways in the sand.

The crowd roared. They were on their feet.

Phage was off hers. She spun and fell on her face.

The rest of Kamahl followed his boot. He stepped onto the sands and stood there above her, glowering. "I did not want to do that."

She didn't respond. She couldn't. Her jaw was in two pieces. Though the power of the Cabal raced through her veins, working to realign bone and heal flesh, Phage had momentarily become Jeska again, struck down by her brother.

"You will not speak," he said. "Then I will."

The crowd's noise died away as one of Braids's spells took hold. She had known there would be great speeches given before the killing blow, and she had made provisions to let those words be heard throughout the stands.

"Forgive me, Jeska. Though you are the one whose skin has turned to poison, though you are the tool of the Cabal, I committed the evils that brought about your doom. I should bear this curse, not you. Forgive me, Sister."

Many folk began to boo, especially those who had betted on Phage.

"Come with me," Kamahl pleaded. "Let death be drawn out of you. Let life flow back in. Come with me."

The catcalls grew louder. Phage listened to them, to her brother, to her own secret heart.

"You needn't even rise. Just remain there. The bell man is beginning his count. Let the bell toll, and come back with me to be healed."

She turned her head upon the sand to see the great cylindrical bell and the bellman with mallet in hand. She looked along the stands to the royal box. Somewhere within that darkness sat the First, watching her.

"Only a moment more, sweet Jeska. Let the death bell toll and return to life."

Kamahl stared down at his sister. She knelt before him, not the all-powerful death dealer that she had become, but his little sister. He had struck her down again. This time, though, he would heal her. He would not rest until she was healed.

Kamahl dropped to his knees before Jeska. "Forgive me," he muttered one final time. Looking up from her hunched figure, he saw the bell-man lift the mallet and swing.

It never struck. Phage struck instead.

From a full crouch, she hurled herself like a ram at his chest. Hands, head, shoulders, all butted him backward. Her touch dissolved the last of his leafy cloak. It made his metal breastplate steam.

Kamahl tumbled backward, Phage landing like a hellcat on his chest. His armor cracked and shattered. He rolled again to throw her off. In the spin, he lost his staff, but if he hadn't spun, he would have lost his life.

Phage was hurled one direction and Kamahl the other. He clambered to his feet. Her handprints showed in black on his chest, and the wound in his belly suppurated. Kamahl stared at Phage.

She crouched low and stalked him, a predator waiting for him to run.

Kamahl backed away instead.

The crowd hissed him and cheered her. Kamahl had suddenly become the villain and she the hero.

What had happened? A moment before, Jeska lay there, ready to be healed. Now she was utterly gone, and only this incarnation of death remained. He could see the print of his boot on her jaw, healing even as she approached, but her eyes would never heal. In them, the imprint of his evil was profound.

Kamahl's hands closed to fists. The power of the perfect forest was depleted in him. He needed his staff. It could heal the rot on his chest and cleanse the unhealing wound on his gut, but it lay behind Phage. It might as well have lain in the afterlife. Perhaps, if he could circle around…

"Now that I can speak, I will," Phage said, rubbing her jaw as she patiently pursued him. "You think I am doomed and cursed. I am not. You think your wounded sister lies hidden in my black heart. I have no heart in which to hide her."