The Great

Evay Maver: I put my golden shield onto Lila as she bolted into the enemy lines—electricity and sparks buzzing off her in a trial of lightning. Geon blasted away and flew right alongside her and Lila sprinted to follow in pursuit. I flew after them and we all coordinated our attacks. Aurora flipped forward and threw her entire body weight into one big hurl, as she chucked a bolt of lightning in front of her. Geon accelerated his flight speed by detonating an explosion behind him and he coated his arm in metal. I heard a loud explosion as his fist connected and Lila put her hand on my shoulder. I felt an immediate rush in my body. It was like all the exhaustion, soreness, and weakness left me as my eyes felt sharper and my muscles felt stronger. I began to fly up and concentrate. Pure white and golden robes flowed over my body as I felt waves of power come over me. I held up my hands and smiled. I love this part.

A blinding flash of immense golden light detonated from my hands and Geon erected a wall of metal around our team. I felt the blast of energy leave my hands as it flew toward and detonated in an impossibly loud bang. Even through the wall Aurora, Lila, and Geon covered their eyes as I flew down. The shockwave tore at the ground and the tiles of the floor began to peel away. The rushing wind roared in my ears and debris flew past us.Then it stopped. Geon put down the wall and smiled, “I feel really bad for that wall,” Lila let out a short laugh. We were just wrapping up our training session, and we ran through our team-coordinated assault drill for the last time today just before we finished. It was exhausting training so much everyday, but I felt good about it. We were making progress and we were working towards a goal—which I always liked. Geon helped Lila up and I held out my hand to Aurora. She took it and I helped her up. Truthfully, hand to hand combat and even just running had been hard for me recently. I heard it’s because I grew so much over the break, and I really hoped that was it. My own body felt really awkward to me, and I didn’t like it. I had spent a lot of time with Aurora and she helped me become more coordinated and comfortable with hand to hand combat—especially in my new body. She always laughed at me and said I was like a, “baby giraffe on stilts.” Honestly, she had a point.

Geon and Lila went to get us all water and me and Aurora sat down. “You looked better today. Are you getting used to um….you?” I laughed and layed down on my back.

“Kind of. I still look like a baby giraffe on stilts though.” I winked at her and she grinned.

“Hey, I never meant that as an insult, you know. It’s just that it was kind of true. And also, baby giraffes are cute.” My ears turned red and Aurora refused to meet my eyes.

Geon and Lila came back just in time as he dumped water onto my face. I sputtered and sat up.

Geon laughed and he gave me another cup. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.” I rolled my eyes and drank.

“Alright, get some rest. One week to go. Wow, I guess we’re really going..” Aurora sounded as confident as ever but also sounded amazed. “Make sure to not overwork yourselves, and also don’t go to the bars tonight either. Ok Geon?” Geon rolled his eyes and Lila giggled.

He grumbled, “Fine.” Aurora smiled.

“Good. Now let’s get to bed. I’m tired.” We all walked back to the dorm and Lila and Geon walked in front of us while Aurora and I stayed back. I fidgeted with my fingers and I looked at Aurora. Her auburn hair and olive skin shined in the evening light. I was now taller than she was–just by a little–and that gave me an even better view of her face. She still gave me butterflies in my stomach, even if we had gotten a lot closer in the past few months. I really liked her and I think she liked me, but it was hard to say. I didn’t want to screw anything up, and it didn’t really make sense. Why should she like me? What did I have to offer? We reached the house and we all started to get ready for bed. She nudged me with her arms and smiled, “Please don’t sneak out to practice, I can hear you. You’ll get hurt.” I pretended not to look surprised. I had sneaked out a lot to practice Gold’s Veil, but I always went really far away. It’s the only thing I wasn’t too sure I could fully control yet, and I wanted to find out even more secrets. I knew it was risky, because of injury possibilities, but I never knew Aurora had caught on. How did she know?

I smiled in defeat. “Fine, Ms.Maple. Please don’t give me detention.” Aurora slapped me in the arm and I smiled. She started to go to her room. “Good night Goldilocks, sleep tight.” Goldilocks. It was recently her favorite nickname for me, and only because it was her, I liked it.

I smiled and walked into my room. “Good night.”

I woke up and immediately threw myself into a giant, beautiful carriage.

The carriage ride to the capital was great. I mean, it was probably the best ride I had ever had in my entire life.The golden carriage was pulled by two majestic white stallions, draped with velvet red cloth over the top. We looked out the windows and saw crowds of people gathering around the carriage pathway to get a look at us before we went off. There were a lot of people, more than I had ever seen at once. It was like swimming through an ocean–except the ocean was made of human beings. Cheers and sounds of joy echoed through the air as the people seemed to encourage us towards a victory at the championship. It was a big deal as we wouldn’t just be fighting for us–we would be fighting for our empire and region. I closed the blinds and looked at my friends. They didn’t look nervous before, but they started to look a little flustered now. Hundreds of thousands of people cheering us on seemed to wake us all up.

All of us, including an addition to the usual.

Savain Yelenta sat right beside Geon as he looked out the window with an impassive face. He was the most experienced in terms of tournament participation, but I could tell even he was getting excited. By skill standards, Savian was pretty much the obvious choice of who was to be our fifth. It wasn’t really the best news for us though ... .Geon and Savian didn’t get along, we beat Savian in the qualifiers final, and Geon and Lila had to beat him up again a couple weeks ago. So we didn’t really have a great history, or mesh very well. Aurora worked hard to try and make it happen, but even her leadership skills and adaptability were falling short. It was mainly due to personality conflicts though. Our chemistry was surprisingly good. We did some run throughs of attacking patterns and drills, and everything seemed to work well. Savian’s speed worked well to create openings for Aurora and then all of us would follow up like normal. But Geon and Savian would fight…..a lot.

I’m surprised they even sat next to each other..

I fiddled with the lover’s coin Geon had given me for a present. It hadn’t changed color and apparently it wouldn’t until I gave it to somebody. Geon gave it to me, and apparently the coin’s color as of the moment symbolized the feeling of friendship. I wanted to toss it at Aurora and see if it would change color. I was hoping it would…hopefully to a romantic color… I shook my head a little. Tournament first…Geon and Savian were periodically shoving each other’s legs out of the way to make more room, and I could see constant annoyance on their faces. Geon spoke up. “Move over pretty boy, stop hogging the seat.”

“Shut up princess, you’ll be fine. Deal with it.”

Geon kept shoving. “Yeah, well maybe me and Lila will have to knock you out again to make you move. It’ll probably make you shut up too.”

Savian scoffed. “Yeah, like that’ll ever happen again. No royal guard or professors to help you, I’d like to see you try.” Geon glared.

“Yeah, well, we’re getting off in a bit to take a rest, right? How about then.”

Savian grabbed Geon’s shirt color and they both glared at each other, “fine, if you really want to.”

“Enough!” Sparks flew off of Aurora and her eyes flashed blue. Savian let go and Geon backed off. Aurora sighed, “Both of you are insufferable…If we want to win, then we need to get along. That doesn’t mean you guys need to love each other, but don’t try and kill each other every second off the day. Also, Savian.” She glared into his eyes. Savian could probably beat Aurora in a one on one battle, but he never seemed to try and stand up to her—probably for his own safety. Aurora is pretty scary when she’s mad… She stared directly into Savian’s eyes, “You’re on this team now. Whether you like it or not, you are. I don’t know how you did things with your team, but here we’re all working towards the same goal. So push all the other stuff aside and work with us. Deal?” Savian stared at her with cold eyes. Aurora didn’t back down.

Savain relaxed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Get this freak off of me though.”

He shoved Geon away and he scoffed. Aurora looked at him too. “Geon, you too. Don’t fight, for once listen to what I say.” She sighed and Geon nodded reluctantly.

“Ok, all good”. Lila smiled and looked out the window. “Still got a ways to go I see. Still a lot of people. Good news though, we’re in Delan. We should be getting closer to the ships. Then we’re going international”. I also looked out and we were in the main city now. Huge crowds gathered along the streets to see us go. Children looked on with excited smiles and adults clapped and cheered as we passed by.

It was an encouraging sight to see–all of them rooting for us…Savian looked out the window too. But for once, he didn’t look bored, or cocky, or excited. He looked….sad. It was the first time he ever looked that way. I wondered what he was like, what he stood for, what he was like behind the fame, confidence, and style. I finally got to see a bit of it. Delan? I remembered that name…”Delan? We annexed Delan from the…what empire?” Savian suddenly spoke.

“From Denia, not an empire, just a nation. It was recent, eight years ago. It was a country that was boarded by the sea and us. It had no real allies. It was a young country, established by people who had migrated over on a boat about two hundred years ago. Taegan took it easily, with their backs to the ocean they had nowhere to run.” Savian talked with a blank face.

We all looked surprised. One, because Savian was finally talking to us normally, and two, because we had no clue how he knew so much about Delan and Denia.

Geon spoke softly. “Do you like history?” Savain shook his head.

“No, I used to though.”

He didn’t sound like himself at all. He sounded sad, an emotion he usually didn’t show. He sounded like he was telling the truth, which was the weirdest part. In my short time with Savian he always felt like he was hiding something. This time though, his emotions were true—but why? What did he do? Why all this when we talked about Denia? We continued to travel and as we did I kept thinking. I looked at Savian and saw him touch a necklace tucked under his shirt. It had a clear white topaz crystal on the end of a gold chain. He looked on sadly out the window as crowds of supporters gathered around us. I wondered what he had gone through.I wondered what he had done…..

The carriage suddenly stopped and we all hopped out.

“Wow! Feels good to stretch!” Geon yelled in triumph and we all got out of the cart and also stretched our legs. It felt good to finally move and I looked at the sky above us. It was a light shade of pink and orange, and the cool evening temperature kissed against my skin. We had stopped in the inner city and we were led to our temporary living quarters by our driver.I got my first good look at our temporary stay and my jaws dropped. The entire building was made of marble, it was actually more like a palace than a temporary living quarter. Its base was supported with white marble pillars with gold filigree and engravings at their bases and tops. The interior was lined with a delicate velvet red carpet. Endless stairs led up to several rooms and a huge dining section with what seemed like an endless option of dishes presented itself behind huge mahogany doors. The entire place was lit by golden flaming torches with silver handles—which really confused me. Silver didn’t burn to make golden fire? It was probably liquor magic, which confused me even more. Aurora laughed gently as she came to my side. Savian nonchalantly walked up the stairs and Geon and Lila both looked on in awe as they also went up the stairs, while giving everything else a good look.

“Is this your first time in a warrior home?” I looked at her and smiled stupidly.

“Yeah. It’s….incredible.” She smiled and beckoned me to follow her.

“I haven’t been to them a lot. They always impress me though. Here, we should go up to the rooms.” We walked up the stairs and I began to turn a little red. Wait rooms? Like sleeping? Are we going to share? Wait….what about beds? Hold on…My heart began to beat faster. It didn’t help that me and Aurora were leaning against each other. I felt the heat rise to my face. This is good, or is it? We caught up to Geon and Lila. There were four five rooms before us and many more along a long hallway. Each door was engraved with gold filigree and every single door was different. The door to the farthest left had beautiful golden flowers engraved on its door. They were all in a bouquet, wrapped in an ivory white cloth that was tied with a ruby red ribbon. I wasn’t too sure but if I had to guess the doors were engraved with the symbols of the family houses of the warriors which stayed in them. This meant that we all got our own rooms, which gave me…mixed feelings. But if I had to guess, the door that had the flowers on them was House Fairheart’s symbol—which meant that this was Lila’s room. The door of the room right of Lila’s had three bolts of electric lapis-blue lighting that crossed each other to form an x-shape, with a line down its middle.It was surrounded by a circular multi-colored ring, and this was most likely the symbol of house Maple—Aurora’s family. The door next to Aurora’s had three red, diagonal slashes on it and nothing else. It was like a huge bear took a swipe at the door after a bad day. The markings cut deeply into the polished wooden doors and glistened like blood in the light. Geon looked at it with reprise, and I knew it was the Leventen family symbol—this would be his room.

I looked at the door next to Geon’s room and it had a silver and navy blue clock with two marble hands etched on it. If I had to guess this was the symbol of house Yelenta, which was weird. A clock? Kind of an odd symbol for Savian… Then I came to my door. It was the only door without a symbol. It was just a regular mahogany polished door. Compared to the others, my room looked like an entrance to a closet. I guess my people don’t get symbols… Even the other doors around us all had symbols on them. All these rooms were occupied by warriors, and most likely housed a lot of people we would be facing at the tournament. Savian yawned and waved absently to us and walked into his room. “Good night.” He shut the door and we all looked at each other. It wasn’t late at all, in fact we hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. I guess he just really hates us that much, huh. Aurora laughed and shook her head. She sighed. “Whatever, he’ll come around. I’m going to get some stuff sorted out. Come out for dinner in thirty minutes?” We all nodded and we each went inside our rooms. I entered mine and almost had a heart attack. It was the most luxurious room I had ever seen. Firstly, there was one giant bed with a dark spruce frame. It was even bigger than the ones we had at the dorms, and it would’ve covered 90 percent of my old childhood home. Who needs a bed that big? I looked around to see giant windows with golden curtains over them, and a giant table with many cabinets. I opened them up and they all contained useful stuff like soap, extra towels, perfume, and even food. I pulled out a couple chocolates and crackers for later and walked into the bathroom. The floor was made of marble, and there was a huge glass shower that could have fit my old bed inside it. The huge mirror on the wall gave me a solid look of myself at all times, which was something I still wasn’t used to.

I hadn’t ever used a mirror until Eden, and it was still strange to me how I could see myself that clearly. A huge mirror didn’t help ease that feeling, but the overall luxury of the bathroom was a little too nice for any complaints.

The entire room was lit up by beautiful glowstone crystals on the walls that radiated soft, warm light. The soft black carpet and the feeling of peace and quiet made me sleepy. I went to the bed and threw myself under the covers. The soft embrace of the mattress made me feel like I was being given a nice, big hug. The blankets surrounded me with warmth and I got comfortable. I felt my eyes get heavier, and heavier, and I let them fall. A little nap wouldn’t hurt. At least I hope it won’t.