Dangerous silence fell over the room.

Murmurs followed it.

Caught up in the battle, I hadn't given any thought to what would happen once it was over, or how the audience might react to a fallen champion.

I looked at the faces surrounding me, that reached high on their raised pews, and tried to sense the direction the mood was shifting toward, but their features blended together, becoming indistinguishable splashes of color.

Someone began to clap, and they were joined by another, then another, until the room was on its feet and cheering. I had wanted their love, I remembered, in the seconds before I entered the pit. In that moment, I should have felt magnanimous.

But I couldn't.

There was no pride in what the wolf had done, only a great horror.

Grizzelda was not my enemy, not really. The will of the circus and its powerful, mysterious Authority forced us to fight, and it was only through dumb luck that I was standing near her corpse. There was no glory here. Only meaningless death.

As my eyes swept over the crowd, I looked for the face of the one in control. The Authority should be there, for the Authority watched every fight.

Or was that a lie?

Above the tallest row of people, so high it touched the tent's ceiling, I spied a box; a room suspended in the air with a darkened window that offered a view of the pit.

That must be the Authority's private seating area, I thought.

The gangly man appeared beside me with an amused smile on his face. He grabbed my hand, unconcerned that he was soiling his own with Grizzelda's blood, and raised it into the air. At this, the cheering grew louder.

I felt no victory.

I should have refused to fight and let the bear end my life. At least my hands and soul would have been clean.

Several wranglers hurried by, scrambling to remove the remains of my opponent. It hurt me that her death was treated with no care or respect. She had been loved, hadn't she? She was the audience's favorite, their champion, but they paid her end no more attention than they would have mine.

The gangly man spoke but I did not hear him. I wanted to strangle him, but Myranda's hands were on my shoulders and she was leading me away.

"Well fought, well fought! I've never seen anything like it! Took down a champion in your first fight! You really are something special!"

She rambled on about how fortunate she was to be my caretaker. How she couldn't be more proud of my success. She said nothing about the pain on my face or the fact that I was naked.

We moved through a series of connected tents, never once seeing outside of them, until we stopped in the same room I had woken up in, with the bed that had held me prisoner. A large basin had been added, and Myranda instructed me to bathe. Fresh clothes were waiting once I was clean.

After I dressed, Myranda inspected my body for wounds, but it was a pointless task. The wolf had taken its injuries with it, and even the red line on my stomach was gone. Somehow I knew that when it appeared again, the wolf would bear no marks from its fight.

This made me strangely sad, that there wouldn't even be a scar to show Grizzelda's final battle. It didn't seem right, not to wear her remembrance. Perhaps I just felt guilty.

I wanted to cry and scream. I wanted to swear at Myranda and tell her I would never set foot in the pit again.

But all I did was stare numbly ahead as Myranda searched my skin.

"It's the same with everyone after their first fight," Myranda said of my silence. "Just shock is all. You'll overcome it."

She fed me another bowl of rice, this time with chunks of tender meat and sauce in it. I took each bite with indifference.

Myranda didn't mind my state, in fact, she might have preferred it, and believed stoicism was fitting for a winner.

When my meal was gone she motioned for me to lie down before pulling the straps over my arms and legs.

"Is that necessary?" I asked.

"Live through enough battles and you'll earn my trust. One day you might even be allowed to walk the circus unattended. For now, I must keep you safe."

"But I'm the champion. Is it right to—"

"You're not the champion."

"I killed Grizzelda."

"Yes. The old champion is gone, and now the circus will look for a new one. That's not you, not yet. You're a strong contender, for sure, but you'll have to win the heart of the audience first."

"I haven't already?"

"Continue giving a good fight and you will."

She checked my straps to make sure they were secure before closing an iron shackle around my ankle. Its end was chained to a ring embedded in the floor.

"In case the wolf decides to show," she explained. "Tomorrow there will be another show, and another the day after. This life has no pity for those who desire to live but refuse to fight. Embrace the circus. Learn to love the pit. If you don't, it'll be a miserable march to a painful end. I hope you bring me many victories, wolf."

My dreams were filled with gruesome visions of the pit. The stench of blood. The heat created by thousands of bodies packed together. The faceless Authority, ever-looming in the room above.

Myranda woke me and began what would later become our routine.

She loosened the straps around my arms so I could sit up and eat. When I was finished, she massaged the knots in my back and arms and legs, and then I was allowed to leave the bed and stretch—but the shackle around my ankle remained to tether me. 

I assumed this was the sort of thing every caretaker did with their fighter, though I wondered how someone could massage a creature like Srax.

Myranda fussed over my hair and smoothed the wrinkles in my clothing. 

"Caretakers must have pride in their fighter's appearance," she mused to herself.

I expected her to remove the shackle and lead me to the pit, but Myranda left without explanation. I waited in anxious silence until she returned with a decorative box adorned with ribbons. She offered it to me, and when I accepted it my arms struggled to hold the surprising weight.

"I thought the Authority was angry with you," she said, "that would explain why you were matched against the champion for your first fight. But now I understand the choice was made with great wisdom, because the Authority knew what you were capable of." 

She smiled and motioned to the box.

"It's a gift from the Authority."

I opened the box and peered inside. There, resting on a blue satin cushion, was a large, silver helmet, finely crafted and polished to a shine.

Shaped in the skull of a bear.

"Go on, try it out," Myranda urged.

I placed the helmet on my head. It was heavy, but padded on the inside with several layers of wool. Only the mouth of the bear touched my face, for the skull was several times bigger than mine. Sharp fangs pressed into my temples with the slightest pressure, but the helmet fit comfortably.

"It was made to your precise measurements with extreme care and craft. A reward for your victory."

I tapped the helmet with my fist and felt only a hint of pressure.

"Why is it shaped like a bear and not a wolf?"

"It's shaped like a bear because it is a bear."

I gaped at the woman. Sitting on my head was Grizzelda's skull, dipped in silver. I shivered, suddenly uncomfortable with the ornamentation.

"You honor her memory by wearing her," Myranda said. "Now, when the audience sees you, they'll remember how fiercely she fought at her end."

"How did I do it, Myranda? How did I take down a champion in my first fight?"

Myranda shrugged.

"Obviously, it's not impossible, though it's never been seen before. There's a bit of luck involved in every fight, I think. Fate, maybe. Grizzelda was seasoned, but she was also old. Her energy waned over the years, and she wasn't as graceful or as quick as she once was. No champion lives forever. It was simply her time to leave the circus. I think the Authority knew it, too."

I removed the helmet and held it in my lap. My fingers skimmed the smooth plating, and when I touched one of Grizzelda's fangs it pricked my finger.

Still sharp, I thought.

She must have been ready to die, but had waited for a worthy fight. It was just my luck that I was the one to deliver it.

"How long was Grizzelda champion?"

"I don't know. Many years."

"How many fights had she won?"

"All of them. Except the last."

Myranda looked at me as if I should have been proud of that fact. I wanted to pull the chain from the ground and wrap it around her head before climbing to the Authority's room to take revenge.

At the entrance of the pit, I was offered another potion. I accepted it without hesitation and moved through the tent flap.

The wolf emerged before the gangly man finished my introduction, and when it stood on four paws I heard the crowd chanting a new name.

"Wolf-king, Wolf-king, Wolf-king!"

My opponent was an orc. I never even heard his name. He was a good fighter, and his rage and jealousy at the sway I held over the crowd made him all the more dangerous. He spoke no words unlike Grizzelda, but was merciless in his pursuit to claim victory.

All the same, he fell, and more quickly than the champion that came before him.

The wolf shrunk back into the shadows and the gangly man held my hand in the air.

I accepted the audience's praise with a somber face.

My next fight was against thirty armored pixies who had magic at their disposal.

They fell more easily than the orc.

Bodies piled before my eyes, and in my mind they rose into a tower to glare down and damn me. In my dreams, I tore the tower down with my teeth and cried as I went.

I killed Elves. Barbarians. Ogres. Two fully grown elephants.

Each time a new opponent entered the pit, there always came a moment when I looked at them in awe. Before my eyes walked beings I once yearned to see, some of them I hardly believed were real. I admired their unique faces and abilities, and marveled at the magical wonder of their existence. They were the creatures of stories I loved and held dearly in my heart.

And it was my task to end them.

Their final cries and whimpers rang through my head long after their lives had ceased.

I never got the chance to exchange a word with any of them, as fighters were not allowed to meet each other outside of the pit. I did, however, have countless chances to watch my would-be opponents in battle. I refused to have a favorite, even when I saw the same fighter several times. One day I might have to fight them, and I didn't want fondness to threaten my safety.

In the first days after my victory over Grizzelda, I often thought back to the conversation I'd had with Ken the Jester, and the wisdom he gave to soothe the guilt I suffered for killing Hansel and Gretel. At the time, I feared what I would become the day taking a life no longer bothered me.

"You're not a killer," Ken had assured me. 

I shuddered to imagine what the kind jester would think of me now. 

I learned that I was Myranda's sole charge, which was uncommon, for the caretakers of the circus usually tended to several fighters. She was proud of the fact, though in private she admitted to receiving jeers from the other caretakers for it.

"You're the first circus wolf in hundreds of years," she revealed to me, "and I intend for you to last a long time, which means my attention must be fully yours."

I often heard her at the edge of the pit, boasting to any who would listen that her wolf was the next champion. Between fights and rest I was given the chance to train, using feeder stock as easy targets. I participated only once and was instantly put off by the idea.

Feeders, I learned, were regarded as useless objects. Their only purpose was to die, either in training or a portion of the circus show called, "The Feeder Act". It was an abhorrent practice where the audience delighted in seeing new tortures devised with the sole intention of creative death, be it drowning or burning or crushing. I never again saw the changeling I had arrived with, and understood the creature was long gone. 

I fought, I ate, I dreamed. I lost count of the lives that were ended by the wolf, until my fear of the pit dwindled into apathy.

But victory came with its share of pleasures.

I no longer ate bowls of plain rice. Now, entire roasted animals were waiting in my room after battles, and vegetables and bread and savory broths. The cot I slept in was replaced with a feather mattress wrapped in silk sheets, and the ugly red and orange walls were hidden behind pleasing green and blue drapes. The sparse room quickly filled with treasures and furniture, from the audience and the Authority.

Some of the audience began wearing helmets that resembled mine, with chipped silver paint covering a crudely-fashioned bear skull. It was their way to show they had come to see the wolf, and every victory was met with dancing and joyful noise. It was not unusual for the beast to rear back on its hind legs and release a howl to signal it enjoyed their praise. I held no more power over the transformation than before, though I noticed the pain that once tortured me at its arrival disappeared over time. Now, the change was as effortless as putting on new clothes. The wolf came and went as it pleased, and when it learned that the pit satisfied its desire to fight and eat, I no longer had to beg for it to appear. As with Grizzelda, the audience threw trinkets into the pit; bones, flowers, squares of lace, letters of admiration. Simple things at first, that became more lavish as time wore on.

A new cape with a note pinned to it, asking the wolf to honor its giver by wearing it during a fight.

A golden chalice that refilled itself when it was empty.

An ointment to rub into my skin, which helped me sleep without dreaming.

The wolf and I were adored equally, and the audience seemed to get a particular thrill out of watching the transformation, to the point where they voiced their disappointment whenever the wolf appeared at the pit instead of the boy. But the audience was never left wanting, for each fight concluded in the wolf's disappearance. It had no desire, I came to understand, to stay when there wasn't blood to shed. At my request, Myranda became vigilant about having a cloak ready to throw over my body when I became a human. Sometimes the audience offered one as a gift.

Eventually I was granted the Authority's trust and was no longer bound with straps or shackles. I was free to venture from my room when I was pleased, and was met with admiration from passing caretakers. Even the crow men, on the few occasions I saw them, gave respectful nods.

Then came the show where my introduction changed.

"Wolf-king," the gangly man announced with reverence, "the Imperishable Beast in the Sand—and our beloved Champion of the Pit!"

The audience released a howl that mimicked their favorite animal. 

But I loathed the circus. I hated everything it stood for, and no matter how many gifts or favors were showered upon me, I refused to embrace its customs and people. Indifferent and unafraid as I had become toward the fighting, there was always a moment when I looked at the bodies my wolf had mangled and felt a pang of terrible remorse. 

The wolf delighted in the blood it spilled, but I was ashamed.

I did what I was forced to do, but I knew it would not last.

The circus was a cage, and I would not spend the rest of my life trapped within its wretched orange and red walls.