Louis hesitates, not knowing what to do. Think quickly, I command, Grab me and pretend to hold me for her. Do it now!
He lunges for me and grabs me by the upper arms. I thrash wildly, trying to break his hold. To make this look real. But he’s fighting me as hard as I am him and within seconds has me trapped, both arms pinned behind my back. Ow! I think, and hear him whisper, “Sorry!” He loosens his grip slightly.
“Louis, how could you? You swore to side with us!” I berate him loudly. He says nothing, just continues to pin me, but his grip gets increasingly tighter.
And for a second I feel a twinge of apprehension and wonder if he has been playing the double agent and that this charade had been planned by Violette. You’re still with me, right? I ask worriedly. He responds with a slight squeeze on one of my arms, relieving my doubt.
I hear a roar from the bleachers on my left, and see Vincent and our kindred pouring down the steps toward the arena floor. They don’t know about our act and think that Louis has betrayed us. It’s okay, I think, glancing at Vincent. He nods at me, looking confused, and holds up his hand to try to stay his troops.
“Stop!” yells Violette, and crosses the space between us before I can draw my weapon. Her sword tip grazes my neck: I feel its razor-sharp edge slice my skin and blood drip from the nick she’s given me. “Anyone moves, and your Champion is dead!” I feel Louis’s grip on me loosen and realize he’s about to let me go. Don’t move, I order him, and he readjusts his hold, pulling me tighter against him. I can feel his heartbeat racing against my back and know he must be scared witless. Just wait, I say.
Violette glances over to where Vincent and the others have frozen in place, then shifts her gaze back to me. “You stupid, gullible girl. Louis can join you but he can’t ever become one of you. Numa are damned! They can’t change into bardia. Everyone knows that.”
“So I’ve been told,” I respond. “But I don’t believe it. The flame-fingered guérisseurs recorded it as happening: I’ve seen it depicted in one of their paintings.”
There is a gleam in Violette’s eye—her curiosity is piqued, I can tell—but she lifts her sword tip to place it just beneath my chin. She either isn’t buying it or doesn’t care.
“There’s still time for you to change too, Violette,” I continue. “I don’t subscribe to all this fixed destiny crap. We have a guérisseur who can actually disperse revenant spirits. Who can ease the pain of withstanding death. And I think there’s a reason for that. It’s the way things were supposed to be before everything went wrong in the revenants’ history. No one is really forced to continue existing as something they don’t want to be. Geneviève wanted out. And she will have her peace.”
“I have been around for half a millennium,” Violette responds. “I think I know more than you. You are a waste of the power that is within you.”
“Tell me, Violette, what would you do with it?” I ask.
“With the Champion’s powers of persuasion, I could convince heads of state to follow me and command great forces of numa. If what you said about aura-sight is true, I could see my kind—and maybe even yours—from far away with enhanced powers of perception. What better way to build a numa army or wipe out a bardia population? And with the Champion’s strength? Well, that’s the one thing it seems I won’t get since even as the Champion, you are a pitiful compassion-crippled weakling.”
She is done talking and ready to deal the deathblow. I can tell by the look of premature victory on her face, the flex of her biceps, and slight lean backward that she is about to pivot to the side and swing with all her might.
Louis, as soon as she starts to swing, drop me and move out of the way, I think.
I meet her gaze. “You want my power, Violette? You can come and get it.”
A wicked smile curves her lips, and she takes the sword in both hands. In my peripheral vision I see both bardia and numa surging down from the bleachers, yells erupting as they charge into battle.
I feel Louis release me and I duck into a crouch as Violette’s sword flashes forward, whistling through the air where my neck had been. I have just enough time to leap aside and draw my own weapon before she recovers and her blade comes crashing down on me once again.
Violette’s sword clashes loudly against mine, and I pull up with all my might until her blade slides off and she stumbles back. She finally has a second to see where Louis went. He stands a few feet away from us, paralyzed, watching our fight and looking lost. “You traitor!” she screams. “What could you be thinking by helping them? They can’t change what you are!”
The lost look disappears from Louis’s face, replaced by one of despair. Don’t believe her, I say.