Chapter 5
ISABELLA
“Are you planning to get up at some point, or should I call someone from facilities to scrape you off the ice?”
The voice carries across the rink before I see him.
I don’t move.
The ice has already worked its way past my clothes and into my spine, the cold spreading slowly through my shoulders and the back of my head where it presses against the surface. My breath leaves small clouds above me that dissolve into the dark rafters.
At five in the morning, the rink lights are still off.
Only the low security strips glow along the walls, faint and bluish, enough to outline the boards and the long shadows of the banners hanging overhead. My eyes have adjusted to the dark now. I can make out the shapes clearly—their long fabric edges barely stirring in the building’s quiet airflow.
Pierce.
Pierce.
Pierce.
My last name appears countless times above the ice in different decades of championship banners. My parents a handful of times. Me, double that amount.
It’s strange. When I was younger, I used to think the banners felt enormous. Heavy with meaning and the absolute proof that something about me mattered. That I had made an impact somehow.
Now they just look like fabric.
“Princess.”
Armand’s voice again, closer this time.
I turn my head slightly, enough to see his silhouette right at the top of the steps. He’s wearing his uniform of power—dark coat, pressed slacks, polished shoes.
He looks transparently annoyed, which almost makes me laugh.
“I’m thinking,” I tell him.
He sighs softly, how people sigh when they think they are being patient. It reminds me of my coach growing up, when my body couldn’t bend how he wanted, even after thousands of repetitions and failed attempts.
“On the ice?”
“It helps.”
He considers that for a moment, then steps through the outer gate and onto the rubber flooring that lines the boards. His footsteps echo loudly in the empty rink.
“I was told you come here early,” he says. “I didn’t realize that meant before sunrise.”
I finally push myself upright and sit on the ice, palms flat behind me.
The cold is sharper now that I’m moving.
“Force of habit, I guess.”
He glances up at the rafter where my eyes had been moments ago, and his gaze lingers.
“Yes,” he says mildly. “I imagine the building feels different when you’re not performing in it.”
“I guess so.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
The rink hums softly around us—refrigeration systems cycling underfoot, air vents shifting warm and cold currents through the cavernous space. Somewhere down the corridor a door slams faintly in preparation for the day. Probably Gertrude walking in ready to fire up her beloved Zamboni.
Armand clears his throat.
“I’m heading to Denver this morning,” he says. “Meeting with the Olympic Committee and the president of the United States federation.”
“Busy week.”
“Very.”
He folds his hands in front of him and studies me like I’m one of the development athletes he’s evaluating.
“I wanted to speak with you before I left.”
I slide my skates a few inches across the ice and turn my lower body so I’m facing him more directly.
“About?”
“Ascend.”
Ah. The global head of the governing body for my sport folds his forearms on the boards.
“It’s ambitious.”
The word is careful. Polite enough to pass as approval if someone overheard it. But here, we’re alone.
“It’s necessary, don’t you think?”
He watches me for a moment.
“It’s been a while since you’ve been on the ice, Princess,” he says. “The sport has evolved considerably.”
I huff a quiet laugh before I can stop myself, and he tilts his head in a move that is most likely intended to make him look professionally curious, but instead makes him look less authoritative than he wants to.
“You disagree?”
“I think the marketing has evolved,” I say. “Everything is nicer and shinier. The costumes are more colorful and the music is much more fun, that’s for sure.”
Armand’s mouth tightens slightly.
“Access has expanded globally. Just look at the amount of skaters we had at Worlds this year.”
My eyes drift towards the empty stands.
“The same handful of countries still dominate the podium, Armand. It’s been that way since before my parents, too.”
I brace my palms on the ice and stand, the cold rushing up my legs as my blades scrape lightly against the smooth surface. From here, eye level with him across the boards, the banners disappear from view.
“Look around this room,” I say quietly. “The real stories in this sport aren’t hanging up there.”
He doesn’t turn to look.
“They’re in the corners,” I continue. “The teams without matching jackets. The skaters who split ice time between three different rinks because it’s cheaper.
The coaches standing at the boards for hours, patching together training with whatever they can get so that their athletes can stay on the ice. ”
Armand listens without interrupting.
When I finish, he exhales through his nose.
“The federations invest in stability,” he says. “Not experiments, Princess.”
I push my sleeves up my forearms.
“I can understand that,” I reply. “But talent doesn’t always come from stable places.”
“That may well be true,” he replies calmly. “But the association answers to donors, broadcasters, national committees. Stability is what keeps the sport functioning.”
Functioning.
My gaze drifts back up to the rafters for a second.
Pierce. Pierce. Pierce.
“Functioning for who?” I ask.
Armand doesn’t answer right away. Instead he glances towards the rink entrance as if checking the time.
“Isabella,” he adds gently. “You should take a moment and understand the optics.”
The optics of what? Supporting athletes who deserve it?
Giving someone a chance who might actually change the sport if they had the resources?
The argument builds behind my teeth, loud and useless.
I swallow it down. Armand doesn’t get to decide whether Ascend exists.
Maybe it will fail. At least I’ll know I tried.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He studies my face for a moment longer, deciding whether to push further. Then he steps back from the boards.
“I hope your summer is productive,” he says.
I watch him walk towards the exit doors, his footsteps echoing softly through the empty building. The door closes behind him with a dull metallic thud that reverberates through the rink and disappears into the ceiling.
For a few seconds, I don’t move.
The cold has worked its way fully into my legs now, settling in the muscles the way it used to before early morning practices when I was sixteen and convinced that if I just stayed on the ice long enough, the jumps would eventually listen to me.
I push off the boards and glide slowly around the perimeter. Nothing fancy. Just long, easy strokes that carry me from one end of the rink to the other. My edges cut shallow arcs across the untouched ice, the sound steady and familiar under my blades.
The cold settles into my lungs. This used to be the only place where my brain could go totally quiet. Right here in the dark, before anyone could interrupt me.
Now, it mostly gives me space to think things through.
“Izzy.” Nina’s voice carries easily across the ice.
I slow to a stop. She’s standing just inside the boards with a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. She has an oversized Lake Jasper crewneck on, something I’m sure she shoplifted from the gift shop at the rink almost a decade ago.
“You’re late.”
“The rink doesn’t open until six.”
She rolls her eyes and steps through the gate. Unlike me, she’s in her canvas sneakers, which means the second she takes two careful steps onto the ice, she immediately loses whatever fragile sense of balance she thought she had.
“Jesus—”
She flails once, regains herself, and then glares at me like this is somehow my fault.
“Why is it so slippery today?”
I glide closer while she shuffles her way towards the middle of the sheet with the slow determination of someone who refuses to fall, even if it kills her.
When she reaches the middle, she rests her coffee cup on the ice and exhales dramatically. She lies down, flat on her back, exactly as I was earlier.
“What are you doing?”
I blink down at my sister, waiting for her response.
“Testing your theory,” she says, and closes her eyes to take a deep breath.
“Which one of my theories?”
She smiles, the corner of her lip rising slowly. “That this helps you think.”
I circle around her, my blades tracing a wide, lazy arc.
“Well?” I ask.
“What did Armand want? I just saw him getting in the car as I was walking in.”
I clear my throat and stop at her feet. Her eyes are still closed and she has her hands resting on her stomach. “He said something about optics. It felt almost like he was threatening to tell our parents? It was weird.”
“Jesus,” she mutters.
“I think he thinks Ascend is an experiment. A little game to distract me for the summer,” I say.
Finally, Nina opens her eyes and looks at me.
“It is an experiment.”
“Not the kind he meant, though.”
“No,” she agrees.
The quiet settles again. I lie next to my sister and look up at the rafters.
Pierce. Pierce. Pierce.
“You know what he actually means,” she says after a moment.
“That we shouldn’t do it.”
“No, that we shouldn't do it without them.” Her gaze turns to the banners above us and she takes a deep breath. “That’s unfortunate.”
“I don’t know, Nin—”
“You know what the funniest part is?” she interrupts me, and I see that sneaky smile on her face. “You spent twenty years building a dynasty for this sport.”
She gestures vaguely upward towards the banners.
“You are a much better athlete than both of our parents combined.” She’s using her fingers to count. “And now you’re about to burn the system down.”
I shake my head and laugh, the deep sound vibrating through the rink. The lights over the bleachers are slowly blinking on, and it’s a matter of minutes before the first skaters take the ice and start running through their training programs. “That’s dramatic.”
“Is it?”
I don’t answer. Because somewhere in the back of my mind, the image of Rodrigo’s skate flashes again. The power in the takeoff. The joy in the landing. And the quiet certainty in Cecilia’s voice guiding him from the boards.
Nina watches my face carefully.
Then she groans and presses her palms against the ice. “How did you do this for twenty years?” she asks. “My spine feels like it’s trying to leave my body.”
“I did it for more than twenty years, sissy.” I laugh as I stand and do another lazy lap while she wobbles to the boards, coffee in hand again.
“I’ll see you later?” I yell, and she mumbles something under her breath in response.
And for the first time all morning, the rink feels less like a battleground and more like ours again.