by Kobe Bryant
Rovi and Pretia nodded in unison.
“Let’s do this!” Vera said.
She and Rovi moved to the edge of the ledge, and just like every other time in their mental run-throughs, she vaulted onto his shoulders and leaped for the closest vine. Rovi did his best to ignore that his pulse was suddenly racing. He reached up and felt Vera grasp his wrist. Her grip was much stronger than it had been in his mind. She swung him forward and he caught the next vine before she let him go to swing on his own. Then she went back for Pretia.
Using all his power, he swung to the next, and the next. Then he did something he hadn’t done during their mental practice. He looked down. All he saw was an unknowable blackness, a certainly deadly plunge. For a split second, it felt as if his heart had stopped. He felt his grip slip on the vine he was holding.
“Rovi!” Pretia called from where she was hanging a vine behind Vera. “Careful.”
I can’t do this. The words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.
“Yes, you can!” Pretia cried. “You got this!”
I can’t. “I can’t,” Rovi said. The doubt had taken over. He was frozen. He wasn’t going to be able to hold on much longer. His hands were aching. His palms were sweating. It would be so easy to let go.
“You have to push yourself,” Pretia called.
“I am,” Rovi said. What did she know? What did anyone know about how hard Rovi tried? Why did they assume he wasn’t doing his best?
“You can do better,” Pretia said. “I know you can.”
Rovi looked down into the blackness below. How far would it be to fall? What would happen when he couldn’t hold on anymore? How long would it take?
“Rovi, please!” This time it was Vera, not Pretia, who was speaking.
He could see Vera’s arms starting to tremble. She’d been hanging longer than him or Pretia, and she’d done all the hard work in hoisting them both up. But he couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t let him.
“Rovi, you have to try,” Vera urged. “If we do this, we clear your dad’s name.”
“I can’t—” he began.
“And we save Julius,” Pretia added. “And Leo and Iskander and all the rest.”
Rovi took a deep breath. He gripped the vine with all the strength that he had left. He pumped his legs and swung forward. He grabbed the next vine. He kept his eyes on where he was going, never allowing them to stray downward. And soon he was swinging freely between the columns on his way to the base of the tree.
When he landed on the ground in the tangle of roots, he looked back across the impossible distance he had crossed. “Wow,” he whispered.
Vera had already swung Pretia up onto a vine and the girls were now making their way across the cavern, side by side. Neither of them looked panicked or anxious. In fact, they both seemed to be enjoying the adventure.
Vera landed first, letting go of the final vine and landing right next to Rovi.
“I can’t believe we did it,” Rovi said. And then he realized how close he’d come to ruining the whole endeavor. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” Vera asked.
“I almost let you down.”
“It was a team effort,” Vera said. “We did it together.”
Pretia had now grabbed the final vine and had pumped her legs forcefully for the last push. When she was safely over the cavern she let go, landing closer to the tree than either Rovi or Vera.
But before Rovi or Vera could make their way over to her, the tree moved. The branches trembled and creaked. They reached out like tentacles and wrapped around Pretia.
“What’s going on?” Vera cried.
There was an empty space where Pretia had just been standing.
Rovi’s jaw was quivering. “The tree got Pretia,” he said. “She’s inside the tree.”
27
PRETIA
THE STAFF
Everything was a blur. In fact, everything was actually blurry. Pretia was having trouble seeing a few feet in front of her. It was hard to tell what was happening.
One moment she’d been swinging from the vines, working her way across the cavern before alighting on the ground in front of the tree. And the next—well, she wasn’t exactly sure what the next was.
She couldn’t see the tree. But no . . . that wasn’t precisely true. She could see the branches all around her—but she couldn’t see the whole thing. It was like . . . It was like . . . It was like she was inside the tree. But how? What had happened?
Pretia wriggled from side to side with no luck. She tried to take a step forward, but she was stuck. Indeed, every time she tried to move, it was as if the tree gripped her tighter. It was as if the tree was holding her. It was as if she was the tree’s prisoner.
She looked up. She could see the staff glowing overhead. In fact, everything around her seemed to be glowing. If she could only grab the staff, she could destroy it.
Pretia dipped her chin. Now she could see that the tree had wound itself around her wrists, holding her like handcuffs. But even stranger, her hands seemed to be glowing. Not just her hands—the glow seemed to be coming from within her.
“Pretia!”
She could hear Rovi’s voice but she couldn’t see him.
Once more, she looked up. There again was the Staff of Suffering, glowing overhead. She attempted to stretch out her arms. The tree tightened its grip.
“Pretia!” This time it was Vera’s voice.
Pretia squinted through the cage of vines that imprisoned her. She could barely see the cave. She could barely see anything at all. The mysterious glow surrounding her had obscured her vision.
She could hear her friends. But their voices sounded distant. Her head felt fuzzy, like she’d drank too much of Anara’s lavender tea. “She’s inside the tree,” Rovi said.
“I can see her,” Vera replied.
“What is that all around her?” Rovi said.
“Pretia, can you hear us?” Vera called.
Pretia tried to reply. But opening her mouth was so hard.
“Can you reach the staff?” Rovi called out.
Again, Pretia tried to respond. But her head felt so heavy. It just seemed simpler to close her eyes.
“It looks like she’s fallen asleep.” Vera’s voice was so distant now, like something out of a dream.
“Why would she be sleeping?” His voice, too, seemed very far away. “Pretia! Pretia! Can you hear me?”
Yes, Pretia said. Or perhaps she only thought she’d said it. Because talking seemed too difficult.
“She’s nodding off,” Vera said. “What’s happening to her?”
“Wake up,” Rovi said. “Pretia!” But his cries were interrupted by a terrible shaking. The whole room around Pretia seemed to be moving and groaning. She didn’t care. All she wanted to do was keep her eyes closed.
“The temple is rising faster!” Vera cried.
“It must be Pretia’s grana. It’s stealing her grana and it’s using it to grow more quickly,” Rovi said.
The urgency in his voice exhausted Pretia. Why couldn’t her friends be quiet? Couldn’t they tell she just wanted to rest?
Pretia felt a weird tingle, like liquid was trickling out of her hands and head. The staff glowed brighter. Then there was another loud groan. The cavern shook again.
“Pretia!” Vera screamed. “You need to get out!”
Pretia opened her eyes. For a moment, her friends were quiet. She could see Rovi through the maze of vines.
“Pretia,” he called, “you have to stay awake. There’s something you need to do.”
Didn’t he understand that doing anything was impossible? Doing was the last thing on earth that Pretia was going to do.
But Rovi was still talking like a coach at track practice. “Pretia, I know what you’re ca
pable of. I know what you can do. Now is the time. I believe in you, Pretia.”
Pretia’s eyes were so heavy. She was trying to listen. Trying.
“Pretia, you have to use your grana. You have to use everything you’ve got. It’s now or never,” Rovi continued.
The glowing light was so nice, all purple and blue. Pretia wouldn’t have minded staring at it forever, watching it flow out of her toward that staff overhead. And wasn’t that staff pretty, too?
“Pretia, listen,” Rovi’s distant voice insisted, “you’ve got this. All you need to do is reach up and grab the staff. All you need to do is reach. I know you think your grana is cursed, but it’s not. It’s strong, stronger than anyone else’s. And it doesn’t control you. You’re good, so it’s good.”
But she couldn’t. There was no moving. No reaching.
“Step outside yourself,” Rovi called. “You need to access your shadow self.”
“What does that mean?” Pretia heard Vera ask. “That’s impossible.”
Pretia closed her eyes. Yes. It was impossible. And she was so exhausted.
“Pretia! Listen!” Rovi was screaming now. “Your grana is making the temple rise. If you don’t use it now, you’ll lose it! Your grana is going to bring Hurell and his temple back to Epoca.”
And for a split second, the hazy fog cleared. The purple-and-blue glow turned angry.
“Her eyes are open,” Vera exclaimed. “Look.”
“The tree is using you to bring Hurell back,” Rovi said. “You need to use your grana. You need to do the thing that only you can do. Pretia, now!”
There was a great shuddering again.
“The columns are moving fast,” Vera screamed. “Hurry before it breaks all the way through.”
“Only you can stop this, Pretia,” Rovi said. “Only you can stop Hurell.”
And suddenly Pretia wasn’t in the tree anymore. She was standing back in the Hall of the Gods in Castle Airim. She was in front of Hurell’s shrouded bust. She was watching in horror as a flame leaped to life in his ceremonial bowl. She was watching herself try to blow it out.
“Pretia!” Both her friends were screaming her name. But why were they here in the Hall of the Gods?
Pretia watched herself try to extinguish the flame. But her breath only made it blaze brighter. Like she was the one making it bigger. And she knew that, somehow, she had to put it out. Somehow, she would need to extinguish the fire she’d started.
If only she could reach up and grab the staff. If only she weren’t held prisoner by the tree. If only she had the strength. If only she could do the impossible.
“Use your grana,” Rovi shouted. “Use it!”
It took all the effort in the world, but Pretia craned her neck upward so she could see the staff. She would need to jump—and it would have to be the most powerful jump she’d ever done, higher than the one that had misfired at Epic Elite trials when she had tried to restrain her grana.
“Pretia, please,” Vera cried.
One.
It was too much, but she would try.
Two.
Pretia closed her eyes, not to rest this time, but to find whatever shred of strength remained in herself.
Three.
She bent her knees just slightly. She coiled her body incrementally. She tensed. And she leaped.
From where the tree held her, Pretia watched her shadow self leap. This other Pretia burst through the branches like they were made out of twigs.
“Is she—is she—” she heard Vera stammer. “Is she stepping outside herself?”
Pretia watched as this other Pretia, the Pretia who was her but also wasn’t, grabbed the staff. She felt the whole tree shaking around her, pulling her this way and that. And then, with a deafening noise, like a thousand branches breaking at once, the tree opened. And Pretia fell out on the ground at Rovi’s and Vera’s feet, now holding the staff in her hands.
Pretia felt the staff radiating energy. With all her might, she focused her grana and cracked the staff in two over her knee. There followed an explosion of purple-and-blue light that rose from the two halves of the staff toward the top of the cave.
The entire cave seemed to be vibrating. But it didn’t shake. It hummed. It thrummed with an enormous blast of energy—a life force that rushed around the stone walls.
Pretia could feel some sort of electricity coursing through her as beams of light shot from the staff and disappeared overhead. The current of energy died out. The light extinguished. And she was holding nothing more than two large pieces of wood.
“You did it!” Rovi exclaimed. But before anyone had a chance to ask any questions, there was a terrific groan and the temple began to sink again. The three friends huddled near the base of the tree as the columns sank from the roof of the cave, plummeting into the cavern until all sign of Hurell’s temple was lost belowground.
Where there once had been a cavern, now there was a solid cave floor.
Pretia stepped away from the tree, and no sooner had she done so than the tree itself began to crumble, turning to dust all around them. The branches were disintegrating as if they were made of nothing. The dust rained down on Pretia and her friends—mountains of dust. And then, in a giant gust of wind, the dust blew out through the opening of the cave to the sea, where it disappeared.
Vera was staring at Pretia, her mouth hanging open. “How did you—how did you—”
“Step outside myself?” Pretia finished. “I don’t know. It’s just what happens when I use my grana.”
“What was all that—that energy?” Rovi asked.
“Grana,” Pretia said. “That was grana.”
“Yours?” Vera asked, wide-eyed.
Pretia laughed. “I might be able to step outside myself. But I’m not all-powerful or anything. I think that was the grana that was stolen from the students. I think we just expelled it from the tree.”
“Where did it go?” Vera asked.
“Let’s find out,” Pretia said. “But first, there’s one more thing we have to do.” She turned toward the mouth of the cave. “Come on.”
A pink dawn was rippling on the horizon, dyeing the distant water, as Pretia quickly climbed the narrow footpath she had descended hours ago, in the dark. It was easier to find her footing in the weak sunlight. In no time, she, Rovi, and Vera were up on top of the cliff.
Pretia toed up to the edge and held both halves of the staff over her shoulders like javelins. She pulled her arms back and concentrated as hard as she could. Her arms sprang forward like a catapult and the split staff flew. The pieces rose upward, arcing over the beach, out to sea. And then they fell, plummeting downward with the swiftness of an arrow, where they collided with a distant rock, shattering into a thousand pieces.
“Good throw,” Rovi said.
“Thanks,” Pretia replied.
“So?” Rovi asked. “What did it feel like?”
“Feel?” Pretia said.
“To really use your grana.”
Pretia could feel a broad smile break across her face. She stretched her arms wide. She felt the most relaxed she had since before she’d accidentally pushed Davos off the cliff. She felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Amazing,” she said. “But—” She broke off.
“What?” Vera asked. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Pretia replied. “It’s just that my grana was only a small part of our adventure. What really mattered was that we did this together. You know, this probably sounds unbelievable, but I’ve never really had friends before.”
“I guess there are downsides to being a princess,” Rovi said.
“I’m serious,” Pretia insisted. “This is the first time I’ve actually worked together on anything with kids my own age. And that was better than using grana.”
Rovi held up his hand.
Vera did, too. And Pretia high-fived them in turn. Then she yawned. “I’m exhausted.”
“Me too,” Vera said. “But I need to find Julius. I need to see if he’s okay. He’s never going to believe what we just did. And,” she added, “he would never have been able to do that kind of linked visualization himself, I bet.”
“Why not?” Rovi asked.
“Because he’s a Realist,” Vera said. “No imagination. But he’s still my brother, no matter what.”
“Even though he’s been so mean to you?” Rovi asked.
“I told you before, you don’t understand siblings,” Vera explained.
“Which reminds me, Rovi,” Pretia said. “What was that long story you were going to tell me about your brother?”
“Brother?”
“The one you said gave you your Grana Gleams?”
Rovi looked down at his sneakers. “I don’t have a brother,” he said. “I stole these shoes.”
“For real?” Pretia said.
“I really did.” He looked at Pretia anxiously.
“Well,” she said. “That’s a way more interesting story than getting them as a birthday present from my nurse. So you win.”
Now it was Rovi’s turn to yawn. “I don’t know about you guys, but I need to sleep.”
“Go ahead,” Pretia said. She was exhausted but exhilarated. She had used her grana—for something good. She felt her grana rooted in her in a new way, no longer held at bay but part of every piece of her. She couldn’t wait to tell her uncle that she wouldn’t be a disappointment to the royal family anymore.
They walked away from the cliff in silence and crossed through the Decision Woods. Pretia’s feet felt heavy and she could sense how exhausted her friends were beside her. At the stadium they parted ways.
Pretia pushed on and climbed the hill to the Trainers Towers, hurrying past two Junior Trainers who tried to stop her. Adrenaline was pumping in her veins and she easily evaded them. She sprinted up the stairs and pounded on her uncle’s door. She pounded again. And when he didn’t answer, she opened the door and stepped inside.