Chapter 33
Talisa
“Four,” the herald’s voice boomed over the grinding tumult of stone. “Three. Two.”
Mira was on her knees beside her twin, Juno’s limp hand clutched between both of hers. Her lips moved, chanting a healing or stabilizing spell.
“One.”
The grinding chaos of the floating slabs stopped abruptly as the last echo of the herald’s voice faded and the ending bell rang.
The great hunks of stone hung frozen in midair, dust and stone chips raining down to the arena floor.
Then the herald’s voice again, steady and cool as winter stone. “With both members of the Green Team having vacated their home base during the count, victory goes to Lady Cresta of Pomerado and Lord Bernardo de Espola. They advance to the semi-finals.”
From the nobles’ sections came a wave of polite, measured applause. I heard scattered whoops and whistles from the younger aristocrats, and several voices shouting congratulations to Cresta and Bernardo.
For their part, Cresta curtsied prettily, and Bernardo made an elaborate, sweeping bow from their perch on their home base before the two of them floated lightly down to the arena floor.
As they swept out of the arena, neither of them spared my sisters a glance.
A chorus of boos rose from the commoners seated in the upper tiers, mixed with groans and low, angry murmurs.
I heard someone shout, “Brutes! Those were first-years!” Another voice, shrill with indignation: “They killed her!”
All around me, spectators stood up, shading their eyes to get a better view of what was happening on the arena floor.
“Despicable,” muttered a second-year girl seated behind us. “They could’ve won without breaking that little girl’s bones.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
“For fuck’s sake,” said the boy beside her, his voice tight. “Those aristos enjoyed hurting her.”
I was on my feet, too, peering frantically across the arena. All I could see was Juno’s dark braid snaking out over the pale sand. The rest of her was hidden behind the mage-healers kneeling on either side of her.
I desperately wanted to be down there on the arena floor with the mage-healers, helping them with whatever needed to be done to repair the damage to my precious little sister.
Mira had backed off to give the mage-healers room to work. She stood a few feet away, her hands nervously wringing and her slight frame radiating the same anxiety I felt.
The cut on her cheek had stopped bleeding, leaving a glistening smear that looked black against her olive skin.
A pair of infirmary apprentices lifted Juno onto the stretcher. One arm had been tightly wrapped and was now strapped across her chest.
They wouldn’t bother bandaging her if she’s dead. I felt a surge of hope, though she might still be gravely hurt.
Her other arm hung limp over the stretcher’s side until a mage-healer gently lifted it and placed it alongside her body.
Then healers’ apprentices lifted the stretcher and carried Juno out of the arena. Mira followed close behind.
I watched them go. Every step the healers took away from me felt like my heart being pulled through my ribs.
“Talisa.” Elio’s arm was around my shoulders, and his breath was warm against my cheek. “She’s alive. The healers are with her. She’s going to be all right.”
I wanted to believe him.
But I’d seen the way Juno’s body had hit and folded around that slab. At the very least, she had fractured ribs and possibly internal injuries. She’d hit the edge of that stone hard enough to lacerate her liver or spleen. Or to drive a splinter of broken rib into her lung.
Even worse… what if the impact had fractured her spine?
Even with healing spells, that kind of injury might take months to heal properly.
I felt sick to my stomach. The infirmary tent. I need to get there. Now.
I twisted around on Elio’s lap. “I have to go to her.”
“I understand.” His amber eyes were dark with worry. “But the herald’s about to draw the teams for the next match. If we leave now—”
“Nemara take the next match! I don’t care about that anymore, not when Juno might bleed out inside—” My voice cracked.
“Talisa,” he said, firmly. “If our names are drawn for the next bout and we’re not in the arena, we’ll be disqualified. You’ll lose everything we’ve fought for—paying your fine, staying at the academy—”
“I said I don’t care.” My words came out sharper than I’d intended.
Elio just drew me tighter against him, his body warm and solid against mine, holding me in place when all I wanted was to run out the nearest exit and find my sisters.
“Talisa, Juno’s in good hands. You know that Mage-Healer Arsinoe and the others will do their best for your sister. Remember how well they treated you after the lab explosion?”
I nodded against his chest.
“If our names aren’t drawn for this next match, we’ll slip out and visit the infirmary tent,” he promised. “But we can’t leave before we know whether we’re competing in the next match.”
On the arena floor, the herald’s assistants were already at work, setting up the temporary dais and renewing their spells.
The slabs shuddered back to life, grinding against each other as they drifted into new positions.
The red and green sigils on the home bases dimmed and brightened as the spell matrices reset.
I nodded. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in the front of his robes, and concentrated on my breathing. I had to repair my tattered composure somehow before we were summoned for our own bout in the Fracture Arena.
“We will now announce the teams competing in the second match of the day,” the herald announced.
Reluctantly, I stepped backward out of Elio’s embrace.
The herald reached into the urn.
“The next teams to compete in the Fracture Arena,” he announced, unfolding the scrap of paper in his hand, “will be Miss Talisa of Bernswick and Mr. Elio Ferraro, defending the red home base.”
Curse my luck!
The herald’s hand went back into the urn. “And opposing them, Mr. Dante Santinus and Miss Mavia Kassel, defending the green home base.”
Dante’s head snapped around. Our eyes met briefly. Then he gave me a smile that contained equal parts resignation and grim determination.
“I wish we weren’t fighting our friends,” Elio said quietly. His hand found mine and squeezed. “After what just happened.”
“And I wish we didn’t have to go next.” My voice sounded strange to my own ears, flat and distant, as if it were coming from someone standing several feet away from me. “I don’t want Juno to wake up in that tent all alone.”
“Mira’s there with her,” Elio reminded me.
“I’d feel better if I knew she was going to be all right,” I said.
“I could go.” I turned to find Alara standing in the aisle beside our bench, her bright red hair pulled back in a messy braid, her thin shoulders squared beneath her too-large academic gown.
“I’m fast on my feet. I could run to the infirmary tent right now and find out how Juno is doing.
I’ll come back and let you know before your match starts. ”
Hope fluttered in my chest, fragile and desperate. “Would you?”
She nodded, her chin lifting. “Your sisters are my friends. I want to help.”
“Thank you,” I said. The words felt inadequate. “If Juno’s regained consciousness, tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can.” My voice cracked. “But I can’t go to her until we’ve finished our match.”
“I know.” Her expression was solemn. She squeezed my hand back, then handed her “Circle of the Open Hand” banner to Varrix.
He accepted it with a grimace. “I’m surprised they haven’t confiscated this yet,” he remarked as Alara slid past him.
Grateful beyond words for her support, I watched her race up the stairs to the nearest exit.
True to her promise, she was fast as a startled deer.
“Time to go,” Elio reminded me.
Dante and Mavia were already making their way down the stairs toward the competitor’s entrance to the arena.
Mavia offered a sympathetic smile as we caught up with the pair. “We can’t go easy on you.” Her tone was apologetic, but I saw the steely determination in her expression.
“We’re going to win,” Elio and I said in unison.
Dante’s eyebrows rose. He studied my face for a long moment, his gaze searching. Whatever he saw there made his mouth set into a hard line. He nodded once. “May the best team prevail.”
∞∞∞
“So, what’s the plan?” Elio asked as we emerged onto the arena floor.
The noise of the amphitheater pressed against my ears—three thousand voices talking, laughing, placing bets, all of them completely indifferent to the fact that my sister might have been crushed to death just a short time ago.
I peered up at the grinding chaos of the Fracture Arena. As before, the slabs constantly collided and rebounded, their edges sharp enough to shear through flesh and bone.
I tried not to think of Juno’s broken body, but it was impossible.
Focus, I told myself. You’ll need strategy to win against Dante and Mavia.
And then I remembered what had unfolded just before disaster struck my sisters.
“I have an idea,” I said. “We’ll need to coordinate Air and Water spells.”
“So, just like before?” Elio grinned at me. “It’s been a winning combination for us so far.”
I laid out my plan as we made our way over to our assigned home base.
The red sigil on the slab pulsed steadily, twenty feet above the sand. Its green counterpart glowed on the opposite end of the arena, across the churning expanse of grinding stone.
Dante and Mavia had already reached their home base and ascended to stand on it. Dante was testing the platform’s stability, his movements careful and measured. Mavia stood at the edge, studying their surroundings.
They were good. No, they were better than good. They’d survived two rounds of elimination against aristocratic teams with more training and better resources. They were here because they deserved to be.
Elio and I will just have to do better than them, I told myself as we joined hands and invoked a levitation spell.
As we floated up to our home base slab, I couldn’t help scanning the crowd for Alara’s copper hair.