Page 66 of Kingmakers, Year Four

“You even beathim,”Lucy whispers to Nix, looking at me like I’m an ogre in a fairytale.

“I can hear you,” I tell her.

Lucy blushes almost as pink as Tristan.

“I didn’t think you were gonna come back from those stones,” I tell Nix.

She shakes her head, surprised at herself.

“It took me six tries,” she admits. “I almost gave up.”

“Why didn’t you?” I ask her.

“Because,” she says as if it’s obvious. “I never give up.”

“Right,” I say. “I should have known.”

And I really should have.

My whole life I’ve been intimately acquainted with that kind of woman: my mother is exactly the same.

Several professors have joined the crowd of spectating students. While Professor Howell has jurisdiction over theQuartum Bellum,the other teachers enjoy watching the challenges, especially the strangest and most interesting ones.

I see the Chancellor congratulating Sabrina Gallo on a rare Freshman win.

The Chancellor has come to theQuartum Bellumbefore—usually only when it takes place right outside the school grounds, where he has appropriately luxurious seating available to him. I’ve never seen him walk as far as the river bottoms.

He’s standing close to Sabrina Gallo, his black, heavy-browed eyes roaming over her face. The deep, craggy lines on his face are arranged in an uneasy mixture of curiosity and something else . . . something very like hunger.

Sabrina doesn’t seem discomfited. She speaks to the Chancellor with the same careless, confident air she applies to everyone, young and old, weak and powerful.

I’m the one with the anxious impulse to drag Sabrina away from him.

Nix follows my gaze, watching the Chancellor’s avid conversation with the much younger girl.

“He’s taken a liking to Sabrina, hasn’t he?” she says quietly. “I thought so on the first day of school, when he let us off so easy.”

I force myself to look away, saying, “He’s not always a despot. I’ve seen him be nice to students before.”

“What kind of students, I wonder?” Nix says, her red-gold eyebrows drawn together in a line.

“Come on,” I say, trying to distract her. “Everybody’s going to want to throw you a party.”

16

Nix

The elation I feel winning that first challenge is like nothing I’ve ever known.

I’ve never been on a team before.

I’ve never been anyone’s champion.

The high-fives and back-slaps and compliments and congratulations are like a mainline drug straight to my brain. I’m floating on a cloud of euphoria, which is all the warmer because Ares doesn’t seem to mind that I won.

The fact that we worked together to make it happen is the best part of all.

I admire Ares.

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