“The second match shall proceed as follows. Team One, Joe Sloane of Ironward against Ikron Coras of Pratwith!”

Joe considered himself to be a pretty easygoing guy. It was a miracle that he was as chill as he was if where he came from was taken into account. His homelife wasn’t much of a rigid, regulated nightmare as Rafe’s – and probably Landon’s if the stories are true – but the Sloane family was associated with the Coat of Wolfram and have been for “many moons,” as his father would proclaim in his booming, drill sergeant voice. Essentially, they were soldiers working specifically under the Chromium Guard agency – the organization for private security for big names ran by the St. Chromus Kimber family.

What a mouthful.

Joe and his many other siblings – seriously, what was with the COW and making a litter of kids in one go? Parenting sounded like hell – were just the latest generation of cannon fodder, trained at an early age to be bodyguards, warriors, and cold-blooded killers.

Guess