She’d felt so certain when she’d woken at first light that entering the Gauntlet Games was the right choice. Outside the Temple of Desiree, when she finally met back up with Arden, he’d been adamantly against it, but as they rode back to Olney, he slowly came to see her side. The tournament usually lasted about two weeks and that would be a blip compared to a lifetime together.
Every step so far had been fueled entirely by the determination in Stella’s heart. But, standing in the shadow of much bigger competitors as she marched to face the crowd, her certainty wavered.
It wasn’t just Teddy’s jabs about how this would be different than training. The more present terror was how her parents would react when they realized she’d entered. She was more afraid of their disappointment than whatever challenge the godly gamemaker would throw at her.
She leaned to look around the man in front of her, squinting to try to spot her parents in their place of honor as guests in the royalbooth, but the tunnel didn’t have the right angle to see anything but the wall on the far side of the arena and the long stretch of dry dirt to get there.
Stella pressed her hand to the beaded bodice of her dress and took a deep breath.
The man in front of her glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and smirked. “Nice dress.”
Stella stared at him for a moment, trying to assess if he was taunting her, but his eyes looked more playful than anything else. He wore fine leather armor that looked from the intricate stitching like it was Novumi, but the coin marking on his left wristguard indicated he was a mercenary. What would a warrior for hire want from a tournament like this?
The man arched a brow and looked at her expectantly.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry. “It’s from Novum.”
He winked. “I can tell.”
Cecilia had the dress made for Stella for this very event, which she was supposed to be watching from the safety of the royal booth. Her mother had helped lace her into the corset top and sat beside her while Rosie did her hair. Stella hadn’t been able to meet her mother’s eye the whole time, and she had done her best not to look at Rosie at all because her baby sister was a truly terrible liar.
She prayed Leo and Rosie had done as she asked and kept her parents distracted. Hopefully, they were so busy with the Saveros that they hadn’t even noticed her absence yet.
Anxiety pulsed behind her breastbone. She wanted to claw the bond right out of her chest. Behind that steely exterior, Teddy was an anxious mess, and it made it impossible to tell how much of what she was feeling was actually hers and how much was him.
Stella was vaguely aware of a priestess in gold robes giving instructions to the man at the front of the line, but horns sounded inside the arena, drowning out the sound of her voice.
The line of people started moving and Stella tried breathing inand out for even counts, the way her mother had taught her to do when she was young and still learning to control her magic.
She could hear her mother’s soft, chiding voice in her head as she stepped into the glaring sunlight.“Breathe, Stella. If you don’t control your emotions, they will control you and your magic.”
She’d grown out of most of the fits and starts of fire magic, but there was something in her that never really stopped burning. Now the magic sprang to life, rushing through her veins at the first hint of nervousness. She opened and closed her hands several times, trying to soothe the subtle tingling of her power.
She repeated the words her mother had taught her when she was too young to fully understand them.Brave with my hand. Brave with my heart.
Her mind filled in with perfect color, sound, and scent as the vision took shape. It was one of her earliest memories.
Stella’s mothersat next to her on the beach, her cheeks flushed from the cool breeze that blew in off the sea. Her father stood knee-deep in the waves, beckoning her toward him.
Cecilia had baby Rosie asleep on her shoulder, her other hand rubbing Leo’s back as he slept soundly on the blanket beside her.
“I want you to come in with me, Mama,” Stella whispered. “What if I go under and can’t come back up?”
Cecilia smiled. “Your father won’t let that happen and he is the best swimmer I know. He’s out here every morning. No one knows the sea better.”
Stella dragged her toe along the sand and glanced at her father again.
“I know you’re nervous, but let me teach you a spell for courage,” her mother said. “You just say, ‘Brave with my hand. Brave with my heart.’”
“But what’s the exchange for the magic, Mama?” she had asked.
Her mother had told her from the time she was young that all magic required an exchange. Her fire magic had been bound until she could control it, but once she learned to wield, it would burn through her personalenergy reserves the same way running or dancing did, and if she used too much too fast, she would fall asleep. But spells, like the one her mother was describing, required herbs or blood or something else in exchange.
“In this case, you only need your will, and fortunately you have plenty to spare, Little Star.”
Stella frowned at her mother. “So I just say it and it will work.”
Her mother nodded. “It doesn’t hurt to repeat it.”
