Page 99 of The Knights of Gaia

“Sure, if all you want is to run away and hide,” Dutch commented.

“Sometimes, people need to get away to find some peace.”

“If you’re looking for peaceful, you’ve come to the wrong place,” Dutch replied as Orion landed his third blow and claimed victory. “This is a Knight Tournament, not a ballet concert, princess.”

The loud trumpets sang again, and then the next match began. Ainsley the Elf and Altair the Alchemist were on. After that, Jareth the Metamorph thrilled his fans by defeating Orion the Dreamweaver. Despite his early defeat, the Metamorph went on to win many more matches.

Eventually, we finished the Tribe quiz, and the results were in. Bronte would be an Elf. Surprisingly, Kylie wasn’t a Nymph but rather a Dreamweaver. And I…well, I seemed to have broken the quiz. There apparently wasn’t a place in the Knights’ ranks for whatever I was. Dutch found that totally hilarious.

“I think I did something wrong. I’ll add up your answers again, Savannah,” Kylie said, nibbling on the end of her tiny pencil.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “It’s just for fun. It’s not like the quiz means anything.”

“Except that you’re weird.” From Dutch’s expression, he genuinely believed he was being helpful. “But we already knew?—”

The Metamorph Jareth, in bull form, smashed into the fence in front of Dutch. The fence held—barely—but the impact knocked Dutch down. Jareth the bull stomped his hooves and charged toward red-armored Nala.

Maybe red wasn’t the best color to be wearing when fighting a bull.

Jareth rushed toward Nala like a storm. His hooves shredded the grass, and dust rose up from the ground. His sharp, pointed horns were just centimeters from Nala when she hastily sketched a swirly symbol into the ground with her staff. Jareth ran over the symbol. It looked like his hooves would shred it too.

And then he just stopped. Nala reached out with the tip of her staff and nudged him in the ribs, but he didn’t move, didn’t react, didn’t do anything. It was like he was frozen in time.

When Nala whacked him with her staff, he grunted and dropped to his knees.

Then he was up, and his legs were moving again.

Nala quickly retreated to the other end of the Oval. She was right in front of us now, so close that I could barely see past her bright red armor. She was moving, hastily drawing more symbols on the ground before her. She looked like an artist, the ground was her canvas, and the staff was her very large paintbrush.

Nala must have used her magic to slow down time because the next thing I knew, she was gone, and Jareth was smashing full-force through the fence, crashing toward me.

CHAPTER5

THE BLACK KNIGHT

An explosion knocked Jareth away at the last moment, before he collided with me. My eyes scanned the Oval for Nala—I figured she must have blasted him with magic to save me—but I found her lying on the ground. Whatever had knocked back Jareth, it had hit Nala too.

Smoke rolled across the field, thick and impenetrable. I couldn’t see the Knights anymore.

“Jareth Mars!”

The voice boomed through every speaker across the Oval.

“Nala, the Crimson Knight!”

The smoke cleared, revealing a Knight in black armor. He was even bigger than the behemoth Jareth.

“Your time is done!”

Chatter rippled across the crowd.

“Another Knight?”

“A new Knight?”

“With black armor? What Tribe is that?”

“The Knights are giving us something new this year!”

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