Chapter Twenty-One #2
The judges pull both of them into the center to chat. Adria is wearing her typical leathers, her blonde hair pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head. She looks like a lion ready to pounce as she takes her place in the circle.
Quinn, who’s dressed mostly in black, has borrowed the pauldrons of the Royal Guard to protect her shoulders. She lacks some of Adria’s confidence, but in its place, she wields some of that righteous fury Ronan was talking about.
I can’t believe it, but now I’m hoping she can pull this off. I still don’t know if I trust her, but it would be such a treat to watch Adria lose.
“Talk about fighting fire with fire,” Ronan says with a wink as they begin, taking his seat beside me.
Because they’re both fire-born.
I shake my head at him. “Who told you that you’re funny?”
“What do you mean? I’m hilarious.”
“We need to find the person who told you that. That’s your enemy.”
Taran, who’s standing to my left, chuckles.
The fight moves so quickly that it’s difficult to follow. They’re fighting fairly, at least, not a hint of fire magic in sight. Adria takes an early lead, but Quinn manages to score a couple of points in there, making it 3-2.
Ronan sighs next to me. “She’s feinting to the left still, but Quinn has either forgotten what I told her, or she’s too distracted to notice. It’ll be over in a minute.”
Taran nods.
“Have you so little faith in your friend?” I ask. I am sorely tempted to shout out to her, to tell her about Adria’s weakness.
But I need Adria to believe that I’m still on her side. I am still on her side. Aren’t I? Isn’t there a chance that it’s all a misunderstanding and there’s a perfectly good explanation for the food shortages?
Why do I find it so hard to believe the best in her and so easy to believe the best in Ronan?
“4-2!” says the judge. I didn’t even see the blow.
“Like I said,” says Ronan.
Quinn looks well and truly defeated out there. I want to see a glorious comeback from her, but I know Ronan’s right. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the wrong person wins.
Adria takes a low guard to bait an attack. Quinn falls for it, Adria feints to the left, then—
Quinn somehow dodges the cut that follows and dives for Adria’s hips.
“Oh, shit,” I say as they end up on the ground.
Grappling is allowed in sword-fighting, but the goal isn’t to knock your opponent out. It’s to score a hit on them with your weapon.
Someone forgot to tell Quinn and Adria that.
They’re wrestling violently on the ground. Quinn has Adria by the bun, dragging her as Adria knees Quinn in the stomach.
“Enough!” yells Ronan, but either they don’t hear him or don’t care if they do.
Adria kicks Quinn’s sword away as she reaches for it, going for her own.
But Quinn tackles her again. She pins Adria down, and for a moment, I think her superior strength will win the day.
“Stop!” yells Ronan. “No exchange!”
Quinn lifts her head in his direction, and Adria takes the opportunity to sock her in the jaw.
“You fucking bitch!” screams Quinn, spitting blood and punching down at Adria, who rolls to the side to avoid her.
Ronan gestures to the judges to step in. From their hesitation, they’re reluctant to do so, likely fearing for their own safety. But they finally do manage to split them apart, much to the disappointment of the crowd.
“You’re dead,” says Quinn.
But between her bloody face and her inability to observe what Adria is planning, she can’t make anything out of their next exchange, and Adria scores a quick tap to Quinn’s leg to end it.
“Victory!”
Ronan looks at me, and I don’t need to feel his feelings to know he’s thinking I told you so. “At least she won’t be as insufferable as Quinn,” he says as Adria takes a victory lap around the stage.
“Not for you, maybe,” I say with a groan. “I have to share a room with her.”
“There are other rooms in the palace,” he says with another fucking wink.
“I think there’s something wrong with your eyelid,” I say, trying to ignore the little surge of excitement that pulses through me at his words.
“Maybe so.” He winks again, just to annoy me, as he stands to announce the victor.
“I give you the Champion of the Blade, Adria of House Verran! All champions, please take the stage.”
One by one, the champions of each event ascend the platform at the front of the stage. Ronan announces each of them in turn, placing a laurel wreath in their hair with steady hands.
I’m not sure what I should do. Ronan said he would crown me Champion of the Bow, but I’m still not certain I deserve it. I keep my seat until he crowns Adria.
“Behold, your Champions of Sai! Truly, Sai has honored us by giving us these incredible athletes, mages, and fighters.”
Maybe he changed his mind?
“But of all the people we honor tonight, there is one who we honor above all others. She is the reason I’m standing here before you.”
Oh, shit. We’re doing this.
“I give you the Champion of the Bow, the Hero of Selara, Sylvie of House Verran!”
Ronan gestures to my chair. Instantly, I feel every eye in the room fall on me.
I slowly rise from my seat, my body stiff and heavy, crushed under the weight of their collective gaze.
The roar is deafening, of course. But what surprises me is the sudden flurry of color and movement descending from the stands above.
Flowers, I realize. They’re throwing flowers for me.
Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. A wind-born gusts up an incredible breeze of heavily scented petals—lotus, jasmine, water lily.
The blossoms float around me in a fragrant whirlwind, bathing me in their perfume.
It’s so beautiful and so kind it brings a tear to my eye.
“Come here, Sylvie,” says Ronan, gesturing to me.
Slowly, as if in a trance, I move towards him, overwhelmed with emotion. The other champions move aside to let me have the stage to myself.
I bow to Ronan, lowering my head to receive the laurel wreath.
He solemnly places it in my hair, and then he leans in, bringing his mouth to my ear. “You look good in a crown.”
My heart stops. Everything stops.
There is nothing here but us. Nothing here but him.
He says something after about Sai’s Champions, the parties that will follow, and the beginning of the Festival of Arts, but I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything, not even the deafening noise that continues through his announcements.
It’s like the arena emptied when he spoke to me.
This is real.
He wants me. And maybe it’s just a game. Maybe it’s all part of a plan or a scheme, but he put a crown on my head in front of the entire city. And he knew exactly what that would mean to them.
I feel two-hundred thousand eyes on me. I feel their pride and admiration.
I feel the weight of their expectations.
And I’m certain there’s no way for our plan to work, even if Adria tries to go ahead without me.
How could we possibly get these people on our side now? I saved Ronan. Me, a member of House Verran. Me, the daughter of the rebels, the traitors that plunged Selara into a five-year war we’d barely begun to recover from. Me, the sister of the woman who surrendered.
And I’d chosen to save his life when I could have let him die.
All Adria can see is what revenge against Ronan will feel like. But what happens after? Even if we can conquer Faros and take the rest of Selara before they can mount a response, what then? How do we rule over these people after that kind of betrayal?
These people who love me.
What was it that Hilaria said? “They’ll see you as their queen?”
I never wanted to be queen. But when Ronan holds my hand up in the air and they raise their voices in exultation, I can see it.
At Ronan’s side, I can see it.