Finally, the announcers' voices crackled to life, filling the room with noise. "We've got some interesting fighters here today. This is our final preliminary round—so next week it'll be all the winners from our last ten Tuv Fights, fighting to move up to the Puckers!" The other announcer laughed and cut in, "You hear that out there folks? Stay outta trouble this next week, or you could be fighting the cream of the crop!" They laughed again, continuing in their pointless, belittling banter; but beneath it, I could hear the longing in their voices, to be assigned to a real Letter Trial. Not the metal pit with sticks and swords that made up the Tuv Letter Trial.

The camera panned across the announcers, a pair of T's with dramatic makeup that gave them bruised eyes and bloody smiles, then sank past the cheering crowd, down sheer metal walls, and finally to the Tuv pit to where each man stood inside a painted red circle.

A K-guard had once told me it was painted in blood, but I was fairly sure that wasn't true. Blood ran over those floors every week, but the circle stayed. Blood was temporary. The Letter Trials were eternal.

The announcers began to list out the offenses of the men in the Tuv Letter Trial with their new unlettered names that didn't correspond to a level. Stripping the men of their lettered names and giving them another one, a name that meant nothing, just before they competed was supposedly a worse insult than the Trials.

Xyla and I both leaned forward as the announcer boomed out the names: "Wrecker, crime: stealing food and disobeying a K-guard's orders. Tornado, crime: Assaulting a K-guard. Boar, crime: Failing to Meet Work Performance. Dagger, crime...." They panned to the new, handsome fighter, whom they'd chosen to name Dagger, and below the table, Xyla took my hand and squeezed. This would determine what I would eat or drink for the next month, and I selfishly hoped it was something truly awful. Something that would make the others afraid of him and earn us a much needed win.

". . . Unlisted."

A few gasps and then excited whispers broke out over the room.

"I've never heard of them not listing a crime," Xyla whispered.

My mind spun. What was so horrible a crime they wouldn't even list it now? The Tuv Letter Trial was the very bottom trial, reserved as the final judgment, a slap in the face for those denied the honor to fight in their own sections' Letter Trial.

"Must be something they don't want us to get ideas about..." But I had no idea what. I could dream up a whole lot of horrible—nothing so bad that they wouldn't name it.

Xyla's brow furrowed and I knew she was thinking about the coin I'd slid down the table. I stared at Dagger, wondering if I was about to regret betting the only coin to my name on him.

The clock on the screen started counting down from sixty and my pulse quickened.

Too late now.

Most people only cared for the fight, but the sixty seconds before told almost as much about a person. I studied Dagger. He could have been a few years older than my sixteen, maybe closer to Xyla's age, but it was hard to say. His skin was healthy, golden, like the crust of fresh bread they served in the Tuv marketplace, his body like a coiled spring, his hair cropped short, almost military. A disgraced guard, maybe? Unlike the other men who trembled, his eyes traversed the pit, and then raised to look at the taunting crowd, betraying nothing.

My heart beat with the countdown. Ten. Nine. Eight...

"Remember," the announcer sang out, as the last few seconds clicked off the clock, "Live in the Beast."

Dagger opened his mouth. A shiver ran down my spine as my lips moved with his, as every person in the room repeated the same words as those in the pit.

"Die in the Beast."

The fight began.