The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Ashfall

The Ironworks Arena held four thousand seats.

On the first night of the Open Gate qualifier, about nine hundred of them were full.

Roz sat in the glass booth with a headset on and her hands flat on the desk.

The name on the big screen above her read ASHFALL.

She had drawn the logo herself, a burnt tree with one white leaf, and she had registered it under a legal name nobody could claim.

Beside her sat the paramedic, who was calling plays in a low, even voice.

Nina was at her left, and the cook was at her right.

The fifth seat held a twenty-year-old flanker with a green streak in her hair.

She had walked into Low Ladder three weeks ago and refused to leave.

Gabriel was not in the booth.

He was somewhere in the back corridor with a visitor's pass Nina had signed for.

The league would not let him through the front door.

"Remember," the paramedic said in her ear. "Nobody pushes before the two-minute mark."

"They'll all push at two minutes," Roz said. "That's the point."

The match began.

Their opponents were a team of regional champions with a rack of silver cups, and they opened with the high rail.

Everybody did.

Roz led the cook down the east vent.

They came out under the rail and took two of the enemy before the others had turned around, and round one was theirs.

The crowd murmured, small and surprised.

Round two went to Ashfall by the roof route, and round three by a feint at the vent that left four enemy players looking the wrong way.

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