He grinned back at me and tightened his grip. Together, we raised our clasped hands high to the massive roar of the crowd. Devon looked at me, all the warmth in his eyes and heart reflected back in my own.
Felix was right. Nobody had lost here today. As far as I was concerned, Devon and I had both won.
Still hand in hand, Devon and I left the stadium floor and stepped behind the chain-link fence. We were swarmed and spent the next five minutes accepting backslaps, handshakes, and congratulations from the other competitors. Poppy and Felix finally muscled their way over to us, congratulating us as well, while Oscar buzzed around and around our shoulders.
Finally, the stadium quieted again, and we turned to watch the match between Katia and Deah that would decide which of them I had to fight in the final round.
Deah nodded at Katia as they faced each other in the stone ring, but Katia didn’t return the gesture. Instead, she kept twirling and twirling her sword around and around in her hand, loosening up. Every once in a while, she would turn toward me enough that I could see the determined glint in her bright green eyes. The official called out the instructions again; then the fight began.
Katia immediately went on the offensive, moving quicker than I’d ever seen her move before, even during the obstacle course. Her movements were almost too fast to follow, and the only reason Deah was able to block her blows was because she’d long ago memorized the moves and countermoves, just as we all had.
And it wasn’t just that Katia was fast, but she also seemed stronger today, hitting Deah’s sword as hard as she could over and over again and showing no signs of stopping. I’d known that Katia was upset about losing to Deah in the tournament twice before, but she was fighting like it was a real battle and giving it everything she had. Katia had told me how much she wanted to win, and I’d felt her desire for myself, but she was really putting it all out there.
But despite all her speed, sharp blows, and determination, Katia still wasn’t able to get the best of the other girl.
Deah realized that Katia was trying to overwhelm her, and she did just enough to keep herself in the match, waiting for Katia’s initial fury to burn itself out. And it slowly did. The longer the fight continued, the slower and weaker Katia became, almost as if she’d used up all of her speed and strength with that opening round of attacks.
I didn’t know exactly how Deah’s mimic Talent worked, but I’d thought it must be similar to my own soulsight. It seemed I was right. Deah stared into Katia’s eyes the whole time, as if she was peering into the other girl the way I could look into other people. The longer Deah stared at Katia, the more she started to move exactly like the other girl, flowing from one attack position to the next, until it seemed as though Katia were fighting herself. And not only that, but it almost seemed as if Deah grew stronger and stronger as the match went on, while Katia kept slowly weakening.
Katia knew the tide was turning, and she snarled and lashed out with a series of quick attacks, designed to end the fight. But Deah was too smart, too experienced, too good, for that, and it didn’t work. Every time Deah blocked her latest blow, it only made Katia that much angrier. My eyes locked with Katia’s for a second as she whirled around, her hazel-green gaze burning brighter than ever before.
Her red-hot anger, rock-hard determination, and aching desperation punched me in the gut one right after another. Bam-bam-bam. Katia wanted to win the tournament, but even more than that, she had this hot, desperate need to beat Deah, as though it was more important to her than anything else.
But she wasn’t going to be able to do it.
Deah was clearly the better fighter. Oh, she wasn’t quicker or stronger than Katia—I doubted that anyone was right now—but Deah could think ahead and plan out her moves in a way that Katia couldn’t, just as I’d been able to think ahead in my fight with Devon. Katia didn’t realize it, but Deah was slowly driving her toward the cold spring in the center of the ring. In seven more moves, Katia would go into the water and Deah would win the match.
The fight dragged on, the cheers getting louder and louder with every sharp, ringing blow the two girls exchanged. Katia raised her sword high, putting everything she had into a strike aimed squarely at Deah’s head, as though she really wanted to cleave Deah’s skull in two with her sword. Everyone in the stadium gasped, including me—because if that blow connected, then Deah was dead.
But Deah managed to bring her own weapon up in time to block Katia’s sword, the muscles in her arms standing out and showing what an enormous effort it was. Deah stared into Katia’s eyes, dug her feet into the ground, and threw off the other girl, who shrieked in anger. Deah snarled back at her, and the two of them started circling each other again, with Deah still driving Katia closer and closer to the cold spring the whole time.