In the arena, where life is cheap and spectacle is everything, Rey must decide what kind of game he’s willing to play.

As the largest kingdom in the Known World, the Empire of Sagrada is built on the keystones of conquest: gold, glory, and the Dying God. But when Princess Rosa unexpectedly finds herself the next heir to the throne, she is determined to change Sagrada for the better—until her father announces a glorious tournament of gladiatorial fights and blood magic, with Rosa’s hand and her throne as the prize.

In a desperate bid to win her own hand, Princess Rosa chooses Rey, a trans swordsman from the colony of Himala, as her champion in her father’s tournament. Kidnapped by Sagradan conquistadors and raised as a fighter, Rey is equally desperate to win his freedom and return to Himala with his partner, Teo. But, haunted by the past and his own quest for revenge, Rey is soon caught up in the destructive spectacle of the games, where the cost of power is blood, and the true prize is yet to be revealed.

[Note: I received a copy of this manga through NetGalley on behalf of Viz Media to review, but due to the size of the watermarks on the pages, I will refrain from sharing the illustrations from the book here as it’s too distracting and hard to read.]

This is a thrilling first volume in a world based off of Spain and the Philippines, during a time of conquistadors and colonizers and an interesting religion unified around a Dying God.

The manga opens with Princess Rosa praying for her deceased brother, and she offers up her blood to bless herself, her people, and her reign. Juxtaposed with that is a bar fight with Rey, a trans swordsman, and his partner Teo, where they are called “savages” by a wealthy-looking swordsman.

Upon Prince Alfonso’s death, the King of Sagrada decides to hold funerary games at a large stadium that resembles the Colosseum, featuring gladiatorial fights that eventually end in death. Through a chance encounter Rosa meets Rey and his friends, and after tragedy, Rosa picks Rey to be her champion fighter in the gladiator games, the winner of which gets to be Rosa’s betrothed.

At first the fights have winners and losers that are allowed to live, but later the King changes the rules so that everyone has to fight to the death. Before those rules are set in stone, though, Rey is killed by a swordsman and is resurrected via the Dying God’s power. To show the connection between him and the God, roses grow from Rey’s body after his resurrection.

The fights are brutal–lots of beheadings and lost limbs–and we get a clear picture of how the colonizers look down on the colonized. The blood magic doesn’t seem as bad as it could be until we get to the Spoliarium, which has some disturbing imagery surrounding the former fighters who lost their battles.

There is a lot that happens in this jam-packed volume that I don’t want to spoil, so I sort have been dancing around things in my review. But I do want to say that the manga is thrilling, dark, and exciting, and the artwork is unique and gorgeous. The first volume ends on an exciting note, just before something even bigger is brewing.

I am desperately interested in continuing this series not only to see how things come out for Rey, but to see how the King’s machinations play out and if a dark empire can be burned down. And what does the Dying God truly want? There are so many questions needing to be answered and I can’t wait for volume two.