Chapter 9 The Fated Champion
THE FATED CHAMPION
ORAZIO
She’s beautiful.
That’s the first thing I thought when I laid my eyes on her again.
Why’s Harley looking at her like that? was second. His dopey smile and too-honest eyes betraying his infatuation with the new ‘friend’ he made at the library.
This must be a dream was third, right as her name rolled off my tongue.
Alice.
Five letters that haunt me.
I’d recognize her anywhere, the broken beast inside of me screaming out at the whiff of her sugary sweetness that I catch in the air.
She’s different than the last time I saw her, but only in the way age changes a person. Platinum bleached and toned hair has darkened to a natural, light sand, and soft curves have filled out her short frame.
If I were ten years younger I’d be happy. Ecstatic. Relieved to see her again, no matter the circumstances. But now?
Why the fuck is she in Meadowbrook?
Our brief exchange passes in a blur. Harley hurriedly pushes Alice into the dressing room, and I find myself clenching my jaw so tight that my molars might crack. My whole body, in fact, is wrought with tension. Every muscle is flexed. My knees are locked. The vein on my forehead throbs.
Years ago, I’d learned to accept things as they were.
No Alice. No Champion. No tourney. No crown.
I didn’t like it. But I’d accepted it. There wasn’t another option, at the time.
No Alice meant no future. Not at home, at least.
“Will you let me explain before you freak out?” Harley asks, suddenly in front of me. His wide brown eyes plead his case.
“Absolutely fucking not,” I snarl. I already know what he’s going to say, and I already know Jessa’s the mastermind behind this bomb being delivered to my shop.
She knows I have a soft spot for Harley, and she also knows I never would have agreed to meet with Alice if they’d told me she was back.
I’ve made it clear that we were to move on from our delusional dreams of reclaiming Arcadia. “Why would you bring her to me?”
“I thought maybe you’d be happy,” Harley whisper-yells. “Or at least feel the same excitement we did when we realized who she was. Jessa thinks that if we gain Alice’s trust, then she’ll be open to the idea of—”
“We have three months until our birthday,” I snap. “And it’s clear she doesn’t remember us. You cannot possibly expect her to help if she can’t even remember who we are.”
“I know you asked us to stop looking for her years ago, but this is home we’re talking about,” Harley pleads. Lithe hands grip my biceps, giving me a gentle shake. “Arcadia needs you. It needs her. And she’s your Champion, Ori. You’re meant to be.”
“No.” My head shakes, and cruel, silent laughter huffs from my nose as I break his hold. “No, she’s not.”
“Stop lying,” Harley says. A deep-rooted frustration cracks his voice. “I understand not wanting me, but how could you forsake your bond?”
A tiny traitorous needle of hope pokes between my ribs, threading through my heart.
“Harley.” I sigh. My fingers itch to cradle his cheek, instead, I force my palm to rub over my own stubbled jaw. “That’s not why you and I—"
The dressing room door creaks open, and the woman I once dreamed of knowing steps out. Harley immediately turns his attention on her, wiping away all his pain and worry in favor of a cheery smile.
More words are exchanged between the three of us, but it’s a blur as I move on autopilot, marking Alice’s hem at Harley’s request.
But when my gaze wanders, stalling over her chest where three rings lay, the few stitches hoping to mend my broken heart rip open.
I’ve seen those rings before, on fingers laced together. My inner beast howls at the memory, and the wound in my chest bleeds as fresh as it did seven years ago on the subway, when I saw her with him and she didn’t remember me.
No. Alice isn’t mine.
Not my Champion. Not a future I can count on. Not anything to me.
I still alter her dress.
I don’t want to. And at the same time, I do. My beast is desperate, and it will take whatever scrap of a claiming it can—to make something for her, and for her to wear it.
My fingers snap together, and my shears slice through silk.
I cut. I pin. I sew. I steam the wrinkles out and iron the seams between steps. I get lost in the monotony of stitches; it calms my beast some, just as my mother said it would when she first taught me. I check the length on a mannequin, and then I stare at it until my eyes burn.
I picture her in it, and I hate myself for it.
As I pull the dress off the form, I catch a whiff of her scent—vanilla and sugar—and nearly choke on it.
I stuff the dress in its garment bag, and in the throes of my roiling anger, I make Harley a matching tie with the scraps.
If they want to entertain the notion that she’ll stay—that she’ll remember who she is and suddenly accept a fate she clearly never wanted—then they can go at it. She’s a waste of their time, and I will have nothing to do with it.