When I was a child, I wanted to be a gladiator more than a mercenary or a wizard.

  Contract work wasn’t as glamorous. There weren’t as many legendary tales about most of the work that the Blood Coins have done. But the gladiators fought each other in dramatic fashion. Romanticized styles. Long unnecessary slashes, superfluous motions like a dance. Loud cries and grunts that were mostly performative.

  Uncle Thorne said the matches were fake. My father disagreed.

  Once, we went to the coliseum as a family. I was around eight years old. The Midway Pit was a lot smaller than many of the mainland arenas. The hard-packed sand circle was slightly reddish, having not been replaced since the previous fighting season. A wall of typical Midway concrete, made with sand dredged from the ocean floor and studded with the shells and teeth of subaquatic leviathans, surrounded the fighting space.

  The stands for the crowd were poorly constructed, with imported wood forming bleachers that groaned as we climbed to our seats. Tarps, bleached white by the sun, offered some protection overhead, but the spaces between let in light to scorch anyone who happened to pick the wrong spot.

  That day, the big match was touted as “Lighting versus Thunder”, a showdown between an elf and a dwarf, both a rare sight, but the real hero was Merlinus, the ‘Fisher’.

  He entered the pit to cheers from the crowd, fishing being the biggest profession on the island. A scale breastplate hung over his shoulders, each protective plate shaped like a fish scale, a shiny turquoise that transitions to gold at the bottom.

  His fighting style was alien, but on theme. In his right hand, he swirled a net, the ends with small, round weights, the ropes thick like a ship, obviously intended to ensnare people and not fish. In the other hand, a short spear with a jagged harpoon head. A pair of short swords hung from each hip.

  A tall woman with braided hair came out to face him. She wore light armor. Single long sword. A style similar to the one that I was learning.

  Father preferred the one-on-one matchups. A martial purist. Though the crowd fancied paired fighters with interesting fusion spells, he wanted to watch steel spark with steel, hear the thud of a mace on a shield.

  On the sands, the Fisher feinted tossing the net, the other fighter stepping naturally to her side, but then the spear lunged right at her. She deftly parried away the wooden shaft, letting the steel point go by her.

  The whole time, Father provided his lively commentary. “Amazing footwork by Fisher here…watch how he never loses balance…oh, she could wear him down and wait until his pivot leg loses strength…”

  “Flint. Shut up. For once,” Uncle Thorne said.

  Father only smiled in response through his red beard, but then continued on anyway.

  The woman lunged with a longsword, and the Fisher tangled her entire arm and the sword in the net, twisted it, and forced her to let go, losing the weapon to the mass of rope. She drew her sidearm and jumped…

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  “Never leave your feet,” Father said.

  The Fisher’s spear found her mid-air.

  “Once you leap, your motion is predetermined. The last thing you want to be is predictable in a fight,” Father said.

  “It looks cool, though,” Uncle said.

  “That it does. Until you’re bleeding into the sand.”

  The arena allowed the woman fighter to live, but I heard she died of her wounds during recovery. I never heard what happened to the Fisher. It’s hard to keep up with all the comings and goings of gladiators, especially with most of the death matches happening in arenas elsewhere.

  All those memories came flooding back, mostly because of my current contract: a private match against the Drowned gladiator house, the only one still on Midway.

  Down in the vault of the Blood Coins headquarters, I run my hand along the memorial coins of the fallen, feeling the magic thrum.

  “Why don’t we start a gladiator house?” I ask. “It would be a good side income.”

  “Those fights are fake. Remember?” Uncle Thorne asks. “Besides. Our contracts are tilted to our side. We can pick ones we are comfortable with the risk. Gladiators? Success is a coin flip. Those aren’t favorable odds.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Too bad.” Word has gotten around Midway about my ability to grow steel skin. Now, I need to vary the spells I bring.

  Be unpredictable.

  One coin hasthe face of a noseless, scaly person. Huge eyes that took up most of the face.

  “That was Riptide. Called her Rip,” Uncle says. “She never came back from a contract to scrounge up a shipwreck. Haven’t had a merfolk Blood Coin since.”

  I replace her coin with my father’s on the custom-made chain around my neck.

  “Let’s see what magic is here,” I say.

  “Let her rip,” Thorne says.

  “That’s terrible,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.”

  I cast the spell, and at first, it’s not apparent what is different. It could be something obvious, like now I can breathe underwater, but that’s not something that’s easy to test. The air does feel different. Thicker perhaps.

  I jump into the air, and it feels as if it’s water. Thick. But I also float. I use my arms and legs in a simple frog stroke around the room. It’s not as useful as just flying, but still, to defy gravity is something useful indeed.

  Drawing my sword, I slice and stab at the air a few times. Those motions are not slowed down as if in water. I sheathe the blade and draw my bow, firing an arrow into the corner of the room. It’s not slowed down. Being able to fire from on high, anywhere I please, will have its uses, and it lasts for almost 10 minutes. Not nearly long enough for me to ‘fly’ anywhere off of Midway, but long enough to get to the top of the alabaster lighthouse if I wanted.

  Later that day, I still feel the magic from Riptide’s coin, so I keep it before heading to the merchant’s district. The private match is in the dining hall of one of the richest families in Midway. A long wooden table filled with a feast, sausages, fruits, a roasted pig, and fried birds of all shapes and sizes. The chairs are spread out at the far walls of the room.

  I’m ushered into the room, and someone announces my presence. “Zane Steelborne. Leader of the Blood Coins!” There is no applause.

  “And his opponent, an old veteran! Returning from retirement. Drowned’s very own!”

  In walks an older man. Bald head now. Grey hair on his sideburns. But the armor is unmistakable. Scales, turquoise to gold, flecks of rust scattered throughout like a disease. Spear on one hand. Net in the other.

  It’s the Fisher.