Chapter 37 #2
The banner shuddered as my spell reached it. The violent contractions of its threads slowed, just slightly, the searing white light dimming to a hot, painful gold.
“Let the power go,” I forced my voice to remain soft and my tone calm. For this to work, I couldn’t make demands or let my desperation show. “Slowly. Gently. You don’t have to push. Just… breathe it out. Like this.”
I drew in a deep breath, held it for a beat, and exhaled, long and gentle.
All the while, I continued to offer it my healing spell. I didn’t command it to obey me. I invited it to absorb my spell and heal the wound I sensed hiding beneath the searing light.
This is how Mama had invited fevers to break, or chronic pain to recede—with patience, with certainty, with the absolute conviction that the body could heal itself if someone guided the process.
The banner shuddered again. Time was running out. The high shriek of overstrained spell-threads vibrated through my bones.
Then, all the gods be thanked, I felt the banner exhale some of its stored magic.
A deep, resonant pulse rolled outward from the banner in a visible wave of white-gold light. It hit the failing wards and sank into them, not to tear but to repair. The crack above the arena sealed.
“Yes, just like that,” I encouraged.
It was so, so hard to keep my voice soft and my energy calm when I wanted to dance with triumph and relief.
Another pulse, this time more gold than white. Magic bled against the wards and brightened the winter sky for a moment before dissipating harmlessly.
A third pulse, the light now dimmed from gold to amber, and the hum stopped. The surrounding air cooled so abruptly that my breath misted white in the sudden stillness.
The banner’s spell-threads darkened, leaving the crimson silk to flop limply against its splintered pole.
“Zero.” The herald’s voice cut through the silence. “Victory to Talisa of Bernswick and Elio Ferraro, by opponents’ yield of banner. They advance to the final round.”
Three thousand voices rose at once in a roar of applause, whistles, and shouts.
I heard my name. I heard Elio’s. The rest of the shouted words bounced off the curved stone walls and became just noise, overwhelming and directionless.
My body shook. My knees wobbled beneath me, and I would have fallen if Elio hadn’t reached me at a sprint and caught my elbow, his free hand still gripping our banner’s pole. His amber eyes were wide, his chest rising and falling in quick, shallow breaths.
“Talisa,” he said. “Vesta’s flames… you did it! You fucking did it!”
He wrapped me in his arms, and I collapsed against him. The crimson banner had gone silent, but something was still humming through my bones, a residual vibration that made my teeth chatter and my body shake against him.
I felt like I’d just held a thunderstorm in my hands and asked it politely to please stop raining.
Movement caught my attention. I turned my head to see Lukhan’s hands clawing at the sand. He raised his head with visible effort. His eyes flew open, unfocused at first, then sharpening with awful, instant clarity as he spotted me.
He pushed himself up onto his knees. The side of his face and his hair were covered with pale sand, and the front of his embroidered academic gown was caked with it.
He looked incredulous.
“You.” His voice sounded raw. “You did that? You stabilized it?”
“I did.”
“And the match is over?” The words sounded as if he were chewing on glass.
I nodded.
He swore viciously and tried to stand. His legs buckled, and he went back down on his knees. Mage-Healer Arsinoe was already hurrying across the sand toward us, lugging a large case of first-aid supplies. Her infirmary apprentices trotted in her wake, carrying a pair of stretchers.
Damien was sitting up now, too, one hand pressed to his temple. The blood from his nose had dried in a rusty streak across his upper lip.
His gray gaze found mine across the distance, held them for one long, measuring moment. Then he inclined his head with solemn courtesy.
“Thank you, Miss Bernswick. And Mr. Ferraro.” It was the first time he’d ever spoken my name. Until now, he had only ever addressed me as “Miss Fishwife.”
Lukhan wasn’t having it.
He made it to his feet, swaying but upright, and rounded on Mage-Healer Arsinoe with the fury of someone who had just been cheated of something he believed was his by right.
“We only lost because our banner was defective,” he spat. His voice carried, magically amplified by his own outrage. “It was sabotaged. Someone must’ve tampered with the spell-threads before the match. I demand an investigation. This wasn’t a fair match!”
Arsinoe’s mouth tightened. “Lord Lukhan, you need medical attention. We can discuss the banner’s condition after—”
“There’s no discussion needed. It’s a fact.
” Lukhan’s emerald eyes swept the dignitaries’ box, seeking validation, finding only the blank, careful neutrality of officials who had just watched something go terribly wrong and were now calculating the political fallout. “Someone wanted me to lose. Or worse.”
A pair of infirmary apprentices tried to steer Lukhan toward the stretcher they carried between them.
He shook them off with a snarl and staggered toward the area exit under his own power. Damien followed, moving with the stiff, measured gait of someone whose body hurt but whose pride wouldn’t allow him to show it.
I watched them leave. Lukhan’s accusation rang in my ears.
Someone wanted me to lose. Or worse.
I knew nothing about how spell-threads were supposed to work, but I thought he might be right. Our banner hadn’t behaved the way it was supposed to, either.
And when my healing spell had touched the crimson banner, I’d felt something that had made the stored magic back up like spring meltwater trapped behind an ice-dam.
What if Lukhan is right?
But who would want to harm the most popular aristocratic student at the Imperial Academy badly enough to risk bringing down an amphitheater full of imperial officials to do it?