Page 22 of Fire Dancing For Icey Dragons

"You know it's going to be fine, right?" Yuri asks me.

"Mmhmm."

"Okay, time to distract you," she says. "Tell me how things are going with Blaze."

"Good, I think. He asked me to be his girlfriend."

She snorts. "And you onlythinkthat's good?"

"I don't know, it's been a while since I dated," I remind her. "But he's coming to watch today."

"Wow, he must really like you."

"What gave it away," I deadpan.

"All right, fair. Now I need to know if he's got any hot friends."

"Didn't you meet them at the fire?" I ask. "I didn't really pay much attention."

"Mmhmm, you just went into the woods with your new boyfriend. They were nice. Not sure I want to date any of them, but then, is starting a new relationship really sensible when we're about to graduate."

I grimace. "You might be right there."

"Oh, Zara, I didn't mean anything by it."

I shake my head. "It's fine. Have you had any luck with your job search?"

"Actually, yes. I have an interview next week. I'm sure the job offer is going to come with stipulations about my grades."

"You'll be fine," I assure her. "You studied hard for your exams, and your dissertation was great when I read it. At least, I think so, I didn't understand half of the words."

She laughs. "That's reassuring, you weren't meant to," she responds. "Did you hear back from the school you applied to?"

I nod. "They won't take me unless I do the conversion teaching course, even if I don't want to teach. I think I'm going to see if I can do one. It might be worth it if it opens up more jobs for me." Even if I specifically want to be a coach and not a teacher.

"Good idea. But we shouldn't be worrying about these things today. They're all problems for when we get back and have a trophy in our flat."

I laugh. "You know it's supposed to go to the academy's trophy display case, right?"

"Well, yes. But we don't have to give it to them tonight, do we?"

"No, I guess not."

"Good. Because I imagine everyone will want to go down to the Phoenix to blow off steam. You know it's going to be a tense day."

I take a deep breath. "That's saying something." Yuri and I aren't the only final years. This is the last chance to lift the trophy for a few of the others too. And the first for others. But they're all hungry for it. It's been easy for me to see as much in the past couple of weeks. I just have to hope that it pays off.

Yuri leans back in her seat and I know from years of sitting beside her on bus trips that she's about to fall asleep. I pull out my headphones and stick them in so I can listen to my cheer playlist. It's what I listen to whenever I'm trying to work on a routine or I'm getting psyched up for a competition.

I just have to hope it's going to be enough today.

Chapter 13

ZARA

The room is full of cheerleaders. Potentially too many of them, and I'm saying that as someone who is used to being at events like this. I search the room to try and assess who is going to be our biggest competition, but it's hard to tell. The twelve teams here today are the top teams from the last rounds, and that means that any one of them has the potential to win the competition today. The good news is that it includes the Sapphire Sparks, the bad news is that everyone else is going to want it just as much.

Without meaning to, I search backstage for Blaze, even though I know it's unlikely that he'll know how to get in here. He's sweet but he probably hasn't even thought of it.

---