Ty sat with the question because his first answer was ugly.
The man had tried to kill him. That should have been enough. It would have been enough for most people in the arena, and plenty of them would have called it justice while stepping over the body.
Ty looked at the burned stumps where the man’s hands had been.
"Because I am tired of watching people die for orders."
The man swallowed. The pills had dulled him a little, but not enough to make the room kind. His shoulders shook each time he pulled air in. The sealed skin along his wrists looked wrong, glossy in places and split in others.
Ty looked down at his own arms and found no comfort there. Acid had eaten through sleeves, skin, and whatever pride he had left about staying upright. He ran a thin line of black fire across a split near his ribs. The heat closed the worst of it and made the rest hurt sharper.
The man stared at the fire like it might turn on him again.
"Does surviving beside you mean I passed, or am I still a problem?"
Ty let the fire die against his palm. "If this place was fair, neither of us would be here."
The man breathed through his nose and nodded like that was more useful than a clean answer.
Ty pushed himself up with the wall. His knees tried to fold, so he waited until they stopped arguing. The next room would not care if he entered it tired. The arena had already proved that much.
"You were assigned to stop me from reaching the door."
The man looked away. "I was assigned to make sure you did not leave the room alive."
"Heissman put you in the floor under me."
"He gave the orders. The king approved the risk." The man shifted and nearly slid down the wall before catching himself with his shoulder. "I was told the acid would do most of it. I believed that because believing it meant I did not have to think about what came after."
Ty could have used that. He could have sharpened it, thrown it back, made the man sit in every ugly part of the answer.
He had no spare strength for cruelty that did not solve something.
"Tell me how much of that room belonged to you."
The man closed his eyes for a few breaths. "The acid was prepared before I entered. I held it, redirected it, warmed the space around it, and pulled the tendrils through the lower column. I could guide pressure better than mass, so I kept aiming at your hands."
Ty flexed his fingers. They still hurt, and the movement pulled heat through each knuckle.
"You were listening from underneath the whole time."
"My inward skill is hearing. Not better ears. More like pressure through walls. Steps, cloth, breathing, metal when it shifted." He opened his eyes again. "I knew where you were. I did not know what you were until you came through the acid."
Ty glanced at the closed door behind them. "Save the full lesson for someone with skin left."
The man’s mouth moved like he almost laughed, then pain changed his mind.
Ty found what remained of his bag and pulled the strap free from the man’s leg. The shovel head was useless except as weight. The bottles might matter. The pills definitely mattered, which made him want to distrust them.
He stuffed what survived into the torn bag anyway.
"Tell me the name Heissman used for you."
The man lowered his ruined arms against his chest. "My name is Tui-Lan, and I worked under Heissman."
"Did you work under him, or did he own you?"
Tui-Lan stared at the floor until Ty stopped needing the answer spoken.
Ty slung the torn bag over one shoulder. The strap held, barely. He started toward the next passage and listened for Tui-Lan’s footsteps.
They did not come, and Ty let the quiet make its point.
"The next room is where I am going. Crawl or walk."
Tui-Lan looked at him. "You would let me stay behind after all that?"
"I would let you make one useful choice."
Tui-Lan pushed off the wall. The first step nearly took him down. The second was better because he used the wall and stopped pretending he could hide the pain.
Ty slowed just enough that it was not charity if nobody wanted to name it.
The passage beyond the door was short. Too short for recovery. The walls were smooth steel at first, then stone, then a material Ty did not know, dark under the thin lines of ceiling light.
The next room opened without asking permission, hinges hidden somewhere inside the wall.
A checkered board covered the floor from wall to wall. Each square was wide enough for several people to stand on. Stone pieces waited on both sides, taller than Ty by enough that fighting one would be stupid without a plan. Pawns stood in rows with shields tucked to their sides. Knights had carved horse heads and real blades fixed to their arms. Bishops held staffs. Rooks looked like walking towers that had not decided whether they needed legs.
Someone had cleaned the squares recently. That bothered Ty more than dust would have. Dust meant age. Clean stone meant use, and use meant rules someone still bothered to maintain.
Ty stopped at the edge and kept both boots off the board.
"I was hoping the next room would be a chair."
Tui-Lan leaned against the entry frame, breathing hard. "The tournament does not usually reward hope like that."
"I have started noticing that pattern more often."
The board did not move. That made it worse. Moving things at least admitted they wanted to hurt him.
Ty crouched near the first black square and touched the surface with the back of his blade. No acid. No frost. No immediate tendril coming for his wrist. The square gave a low pulse through the metal, almost like it was waiting to be chosen.
"Tell me you know something useful about this room."
Tui-Lan shook his head. "I was kept under your stage. I know what Heissman told me, and he did not tell me what came after failure."
He stayed half a step behind Ty. Not loyal. Not safe. Just close enough that running alone would look worse than standing near the demon who had left him alive.
Ty rose and scanned the far side past the nearest rank of stone.
A door opened across the board and let in colder light.
The man who entered did it like the room had been built to receive him. Blond hair neat. Clothes torn only where torn cloth made him look tested instead of desperate. His boots hit the edge of the board with the confidence of someone who had always expected floors to hold.
He looked at Ty first, then at Tui-Lan’s uniform, then at the ruined ends of Tui-Lan’s arms.
"You two look like the board already took payment."
Ty rested the blade against his shoulder. "That depends on whether the board charges interest."
The newcomer smiled because he thought the line belonged to the game and not the wounds in front of him.
"Sir Aldric. My stage ended clean, unlike whatever happened here."
Ty felt Tui-Lan stiffen beside him before the man’s face gave him away.
Aldric stepped onto the nearest white square. The board accepted his weight with a faint click. He did not seem to notice, or he noticed and enjoyed being noticed back.
"Ty is enough, and I am not explaining the burns."
"My name is Tui-Lan, and I served in Heissman’s unit."
Aldric’s attention sharpened at the name. He walked closer, stopping two squares away when he got a better look at the uniform and the missing hands.
"You are kingdom personnel. Why are you walking with him?"
Tui-Lan looked at Ty, then at Aldric. His face had the tired look of a man realizing that surviving one room had only moved him into a different problem.
Ty wanted to step in front of the question and did not.
Tui-Lan needed to hear himself answer something eventually.
Aldric did not wait long enough to let silence settle into anything honest.
His hand went to the hilt at his hip, and his eyes settled on Ty like the story had already arranged itself for him.
"Did this demon take you hostage, or are you choosing that side?"