Page 100 of The Warrior
I smiled. “I’m not giving away any spoilers. This is my story.
“My sister had her eyes on a young man called John from our area. She would get all flustered and nervous when she spoke about him. We used to come up with all these scenarios of how she would marry him and they would have ten children together.” I sighed. “We should’ve known he could never win against that many strong warriors. He was more like a young version of Finn: funny and charming, but not meant to fight.”
“Finn isn’t a bad fighter. He can stand his own,” Magni pointed out before I continued my story.
“That morning when the tournament began, April and I had only slept for a few hours. Knowing that it was our last night together, we held hands and talked all night. We were excited about men fighting over us. At the same time we were devastated that we would be separated, and scared that we wouldn’t like the men presented to us. I was crying all morning, because the one man I wanted to fight for me wasn’t on the list.”
“Was it Magni?” Mila’s eyes were wide open.
I nodded and gave her a small smile. “Yes, it was. For as long as I can remember, I was impossible to be around when a new tournament was announced. I would look daily to see if Magni’s name would appear on the list of participants. The one time it did, I cried myself to sleep for a week.”
“That was for Laila Michelle’s tournament,” Magni said, low.
“Yes, it was.” I looked him in the eye before I returned my focus to Mila. “Laila Michelle is my best friend, and her tournament turned into a tragedy when the boy she was in love with died in a brutal fight. I was a year younger than her, and held her in my arms when she sobbed with grief. The next night, Laila Michelle was presented with five champions and she had to pick one of them.”
Magni groaned. “That whole tournament was a farce. We would’ve done things differently if it were today. To make her pick like that was inhumane.”
“True.”
“But what happened to Magni? You said he was part of the tournament.” Mila turned to look at him. “I bet you were one of the five champions.”
I answered before he could. “Magni pulled out before his first fight. Everyone speculated on why he would do that, but all I cared about was the chance that he would fight for me.”
“Were you in love with him?” Mila asked.
“I thought he was the strongest and most handsome of them all.”
Mila wrinkled her nose at Magni. “That must’ve been before you got that tattoo up your neck.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “You don’t like my tattoo?”
“Not that one.”
“He had the tattoo,” I said. “But I thought it made him look fierce. Anyway, you can imagine my horror when my tournament was postponed three years. Magni was nine years older than me and with the new rule, a girl called Evangeline on the West Coast was the last to have her tournament at the age of fifteen, and only because it had already been planned.
“I didn’t for one minute think Magni would wait three more years to marry when he could win Evangeline.”
“Was she pretty?” Mila whispered.
“Very pretty.”
“Prettier than you?”
I gave a nod. “Yes, at least I thought so.”
“But he didn’t fight for her, did he?”
“No. And I gave the craziest happy-dance scream when I found out.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Magni shaking his head.
“But I don’t understand,” Mila rubbed her eyes. “You said Magni’s name wasn’t on the list of participants for your tournament. Then how did he win you?”
“There had been a mistake. During one of the fights, Laila Michelle came running to me, telling me that she had seen Magni in one of the other arenas. With thousands of participants, there were fights happening simultaneously in five different places. April, Laila Michelle, and I were all euphoric, and I kept telling my sister that I would never forgive her if she picked Magni. I felt he belonged to me because I had seen him first.”
Mila interrupted. “Are you talking about the time you were little and walked in on him and Khan fighting? Magni told me about that.”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure if he remembered that night, butIdid.”
“But Magnididremember.” Mila looked up at the large man sitting next to her, who gave her a soft smile.
