Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper, and her entire body trembled. I looked—really looked at her—peering past the glaze of magic that coated her eyes.
Her aching regret slammed into me, making my heart hurt, my stomach twist, and knives slice through every single part of my body. The emotion was so strong that I staggered back, clutched my chest, and gasped for air, trying to get away from it for just one second. But Seleste . . . she couldn’t get away from it. She felt this all day, every day. How did she live with it?
Seleste dropped her gaze from mine. “I really did try to save Serena.”
“I . . . I believe you,” I croaked out, the awful emotions vanishing and my breathing slowly returning to normal.
“And you have to believe me about this too. You have to let Deah win the tournament. It’s the only way to save you both . . . bones and blades . . . bones and blades . . . bones and blades. . . .”
She grabbed my hands and stared into my eyes, but her gaze was foggy and distant, and I could tell that she wasn’t really seeing me. Instead, she kept mumbling those same words over and over again. I wondered what sort of prophecy or vision of the future it was. Whatever it was, she thought it was going to kill either Deah or me or both of us.
And I was starting to believe her.
People were beginning to stare at us and whisper, so I pried my hands out of Seleste’s and took a step back. She reached for me again, still mumbling about bones and blades, but I took another step back, staying out of her reach, and kept my gaze averted from hers. I didn’t want to know what she was feeling. Not right now.
Finally, she seemed to snap back to her senses, and she gave me another sorrowful look.
“I hope you believe me,” Seleste whispered. “I hope you do the right thing—for all our sakes. Or Victor has already won.”
Then she turned and walked away without another word.
I slipped into a pool of shadows next to the Sinclair tent and drew in deep breaths, trying to push all the questions and worries out of my mind and compose myself. Easier said than done.
When I felt calm enough, I went back over to the fence where my friends were still standing. Felix, Poppy, and Oscar all wished me good luck, then turned to talk to some other folks who had come up to them, but Devon stayed with me. He touched my shoulder and steered me a few feet away from the others.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I ran into Seleste in the fairgounds. She said some . . . strange things.”
“Like what?”
I told him everything she’d said, except for Seleste claiming to be my aunt and wanting me to throw the tournament so Victor wouldn’t punish Deah for losing.
The longer I talked, the more Devon’s frown deepened. “Bones and blades—that’s the same warning she gave you at the Draconi cemetery. What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea. And really, I don’t think I want to know. I need to focus on the match. Not get distracted by Seleste and her prophecies.”
Devon touched my shoulder again. “Then don’t—don’t think about it at all. For the next five minutes or ten minutes or however long the match lasts, just think about how you can win. I would wish you luck, but you don’t need it. And no matter what happens out there, I want you to know how glad I am that you’re a member of the Sinclair Family. That you are a part of my life.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. Devon smiled, but he took care to not look at me, as if he didn’t want me to be distracted by his feelings. Yeah. Fat chance of that happening. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Felix asked him a question, and Devon turned away from me to answer him.
My fingers curled around the hilt of my mom’s sword, and I drew it out of its scabbard and held it up before me, staring at the stars carved into the hilt and streaming down the blade. I wondered what my mom had thought at this moment, the minutes before she would either win or lose the tournament. What she’d been feeling. And what it had felt like when she had finally won. When she’d finally proven herself to be the best fighter around.
So I twirled my mom’s sword around and around the way I had so many times before, and the way she had so many times before me. I moved the weapon from one hand to the other and back again, clearing my mind for the fight to come.
And when I was ready, I dropped my mom’s sword to my side and let out a breath, finally ready to fight for everything that I wanted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR