by Kobe Bryant
“Good news,” Rovi whispered in Pretia’s ear. “No parents, no protesters.”
Pretia’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really!”
He could feel the tension escape from her as she let out a relieved sigh.
“And look at all those Phoenician guards,” he said, indicating the first row of seats. “They aren’t chasing me, for once. They have no idea I was a Star Stealer!” He was full to bursting with pride. He’d officially left his past behind. “No one does.”
The sky above them lit up with blue and purple fireworks. Drumbeats echoed through the stadium, and the champions began to process. As each one entered, his or her name and number of medals won was announced with a sonic boom that nearly shook the stadium.
When Janos’s name was announced, all the Ecrof students, Dreamers and Realists alike, hooted and hollered for their Head Trainer. Julius got the same reception from his former academy.
Some of the champions were so old they needed to be wheeled in. Others were in their athletic prime and bounded into the stadium. When they were all arrayed on the podium between the flames, the spectators rose to their feet and applauded—a standing ovation that lasted five full minutes.
Then the chief consul of Phoenis and the minister of sport stepped onto the podium. In unison they proclaimed, “The four hundred ninetieth Junior Epic Games are officially begun!”
Pretia and Rovi hugged each other.
“You were fantastic!” Pretia said. “You carried that flag like a pro. Didn’t he, Vera?”
Vera didn’t answer. She was staring at the champions on the podium. “Farnaka Stellus isn’t there.”
“Julius is, though,” Pretia said. “That should make you proud, even if he is a Realist.”
“I want to see Farnaka Stellus,” Vera said.
“We should get back to the village, Vera. Don’t you want to see what events you were selected for?” Pretia asked.
Vera didn’t respond.
“If you’re competing tomorrow, you’ll need to get some sleep so you can beat what’s his face’s record,” Rovi urged.
“Fine,” Vera said. Her voice was heavy with disappointment.
They linked arms as they walked out of the stadium. Rovi glanced up at the sky. It was velvet black and scattershot with twinkling stars. A crescent moon hung overhead, giving off a luminescent silver glow. He took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar sun, sand, and jasmine smell of Phoenis. He couldn’t wait for the games to begin.
As they approached the gate that would lead them back to the awaiting vans, Rovi saw a delegation of five officials approaching, heading straight for their little trio. Unlike the last time officials had approached, he felt relaxed. Everything had gone off perfectly. He was a hero of the Sandlands, and now all he had to do was represent his house as best he could on the field.
As they passed through the arch that led out of the stadium, the officials stepped directly in front of them, making Vera stumble. “Watch it,” she said. “You want to injure me before the games?”
The officials ignored her. One of them, a woman with a square jaw and short black hair, spoke first. “Pretia Praxis-Onera?”
“Yes,” Pretia said.
Rovi felt her tense. He, too, had grown uneasy when he heard the woman’s tone.
“You’ll have to come with us,” the woman said.
“Why?” Pretia asked.
“Yeah, why?” Vera echoed, jumping between Pretia and the officials.
“Those are my orders,” the woman insisted.
“Don’t you know who her parents are?” Rovi said.
“We know exactly who her parents are,” a different delegate, a towering man with dark eyes, said.
“You can’t just tell her what to do,” Vera said.
“Pretia, follow us, please,” the first woman said. She looped an arm through Pretia’s and began leading her away. Pretia shot Rovi a panicked glance. But she didn’t resist.
“Her parents—” Rovi pleaded.
“This has nothing to do with her parents,” the man said as Pretia was hustled away.
Pretia looked back over her shoulder helplessly. Her eyes met Rovi’s.
“Let’s follow,” Rovi said.
Vera was already in pursuit.
They tailed the delegates as they led Pretia to a small black van and watched helplessly as she was escorted inside. Then the door closed, but not before Rovi once more saw the terrified look in Pretia’s eyes. She was driven away in the opposite direction from the village.
Rovi stood frozen in place as he helplessly watched the van carrying Pretia disappearing.
“Where are they taking her?” Vera asked.
“I don’t know,” Rovi said. “Maybe to her parents?”
“No,” Vera said. “Those were games officials, not royal officials.”
“Maybe we should follow,” Rovi offered lamely. It was too late. The van could have gone anywhere.
“Pretia is strong,” Vera said. “She’ll be able to look after herself. Plus, no one will hurt the Princess of Epoca, right?”
Rovi didn’t doubt this, but he felt a sinking feeling in his stomach nevertheless. Where was Pretia being taken? And, more important—why?
11
PRETIA
A TEST
Pretia sat between two delegates in the small van. The windows were tinted, so she only had a dim notion of the direction in which they were headed. There were five delegates plus the driver, all of whom were staring ahead in stony silence.
She could sense Phoenis passing by outside, a nighttime blur made even darker by the shaded windows. The city felt remote and unreachable.
After ten minutes, Pretia ventured, “Are we going to see my parents?”
“No,” the sole woman in the van replied shortly.
Pretia shrank back against her seat. No one else spoke for the remainder of the ride. Finally, the van stopped. The side door slid open and Pretia was led out. She tried to get a sense of where she was, but she was hustled inside a building before she got a chance to look around. From what she could tell, she was in an official Phoenician consulate or high office.
The building was imposing and cold. It was clearly closed for the day’s business and felt abandoned. The delegates marched her down a dim marble hall lined with plaques and crests Pretia didn’t have time to examine. Their footsteps echoed somberly—she felt as if each step was leading her toward an ominous fate. At the end of the hall, the woman with the short black hair held open a door.
They stepped into a brightly lit room. Pretia had to blink to adjust her eyes after the dark van ride and dim hall.
In front of her on an elevated platform were ten delegates dressed in the official uniforms of the Junior Epic Games with their house colors pinned over their breasts. There were five Realists and five Dreamers, ranging from extremely elderly to quite young. Along either side of the room ran long rows of elevated seats like small bleachers. These were filled, from what Pretia could tell, with all the Trainers from both House Somni and House Relia from the eight academies. She took in familiar faces from Ecrof—Satis and Janos, as well as Cleopatra Volis, Lavinia Lux, and Sonya Pin. Seeing them made her relax a little. Satis nodded as their eyes met, and he snuck her a small smile.
“Pretia Praxis-Onera, you have been summoned to the official tribunal of the Junior Epic Games to stand in judgment for your grana. Please stand before us.” Pretia glanced up and saw the speaker was an imposing elderly man dressed in Realist colors seated in the middle of the tribunal. His face drooped and shook as he talked.
Pretia stepped forward. She felt tiny and insignificant. She put her hands on her knees to stop them from trembling.
“Surely she can be seated.”
Pretia turned at the sound of her uncle’s voice.
&n
bsp; “This officious pageantry is unnecessary, especially given that our guest is the Princess of Epoca.”
“Janos Praxis,” the tribunal leader cautioned, “you know the rules of the tribunal. All athletes thought to have transgressed the rules of Epic Competition are treated the same, royal blood or not.”
“Transgressed?” Pretia said.
“Quiet,” the leader of the tribunal ordered. “You may only speak when addressed.”
Pretia sensed movement to her left. “May I address the tribunal?” She recognized Satis’s voice.
“Go ahead,” the leader said seriously.
“I would like permission to stand with the subject,” Satis said. Pretia threw him a grateful look.
“Denied,” another member of the tribunal said. “Athletes must stand alone on their own two feet.”
“Let us begin,” the leader of the tribunal proclaimed.
Pretia felt the tribunal members staring at her. What had she done? She bit her lip, doing everything in her power not to show her fear. I am the Princess of Epoca, she chanted inwardly. I will behave nobly. I am the Princess of Epoca . . .
“Pretia Praxis-Onera,” the leader said. He stared at her with watery eyes. “This tribunal is composed of the official delegates from both houses of Epoca who have been chosen to ensure that these Junior Epic Games are conducted in fairness and with grace. We oversee all aspects of the competition. Our rulings are final. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Pretia said, although she wasn’t sure what exactly was happening.
The elderly man continued, “You are standing in the Phoenician High Court of Sports Fidelity. This institution was established to examine and test those who are suspected of misusing their grana or whose grana might be dangerous. And those who might be suspected of cheating by other means—through the use of illegal substances or devices.”
“Test?” Pretia asked. “What do you mean?”
“I must remind you to be quiet,” the tribunal leader warned her. “It has come to our attention that you possess unusually strong grana. But the strength of one’s grana does not mean it is always used well or fairly. There have been complaints that your specific talents give you an unfair and unholy edge over the competition. How do you respond to these accusations?”
Pretia opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
“You must have something to say?” the leader demanded.
“No,” Pretia said softly. “I can’t think of anything.”
Now a woman on the tribunal, another Realist, with her white hair pulled into a severe bun, spoke. “Is it true that you can step outside yourself?”
“Yes,” Pretia said.
“And how did you come to be able to do this?”
“It just happened when I got my grana,” Pretia explained.
The woman leaned over the edge of the tribunal desk and narrowed her eyes. “Can you please tell us about that day?”
Pretia felt her knees wobble. She couldn’t tell them the truth. The day her grana had come, the first day she’d split herself, her shadow self had nearly killed one of the kids at Castle Airim by accident. “Um,” she said. “I—I was running in the woods and I—I—I just watched a version of myself take off and sprint ahead.”
“That’s all?” the woman asked.
“Yes.” Pretia hoped the lie wasn’t visible on her face.
Now another member of the tribunal spoke—a tiny, weasel-faced man sitting in the last chair on the right. “Have you ever considered that what you do isn’t fair, given the conventional parameters of sport?”
“I thought the point of sports was to use the grana that the gods granted us to be our best selves,” Pretia said.
“Not if that grana gives you an unfair advantage,” the man hissed.
An outcry rose from the Dreamers’ seats.
“Silence,” the tribunal leader shouted. He banged a fist on the large desk. “Tell us, Pretia, can you control this talent of yours?”
“I can. Now I can,” Pretia insisted, although she wasn’t sure this was entirely true.
The leader blinked his watery eyes repeatedly. “And before?”
“It’s like anything,” Cleopatra called from the Dreamers’ side. “You have to practice it to master it.”
“Cleopatra Volis, consider yourself warned by this court,” the leader shouted.
“I can control it,” Pretia said. “Mostly,” she added. It was so unfair. Wasn’t the whole point of going to a place like Ecrof to learn to control your grana? Wasn’t that what her friends were all training to do?
“But does it, in turn, control you?” the white-haired woman asked.
Pretia had to force herself to meet the woman’s eye. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Can you compete without splitting yourself?” the woman clarified.
“Yes. Of course,” Pretia said. “I don’t always split myself. Sometimes I don’t have to. Sometimes I can’t.”
This answer made all the members of the tribunal start discussing among themselves in low voices.
Pretia looked nervously up and down the row of adults over her head. Never had she encountered so many unfriendly faces. Never had she felt so small and lost. Maybe her parents had been right. Maybe she shouldn’t have come to Phoenis. She hadn’t seen anything to be afraid of from the Star Stealers, but these officials seemed scary enough.
The leader banged on the desk again. “It is the instinct of this tribunal to forbid you from using your so-called talent in these games.”
Pretia felt her mind go blank. Even the Dreamers seemed against her. She thought her knees were going to give way.
“But it is also our duty to hear objections from the opposition.” The elderly leader looked toward the Dreamers’ seats. To everyone’s surprise, the objection came from the opposite end of the room.
“Let her submit to testing,” Janos requested.
“Traitor,” a Realist Trainer whispered.
“You need to see her talent to understand it,” Janos insisted.
The Dreamer Trainers picked up the cry. “Test her! Test her,” they chanted.
A young Dreamer on the tribunal stood to get everyone’s attention. “I want to see her split herself with my own eyes.”
The leader banged on the desk again. “How many members of the tribunal are in favor of testing?”
“I don’t understand. What are you testing?” Pretia asked.
No one responded.
The five Dreamers on the tribunal raised their hands.
Janos rose to his feet. “Let her show you herself what she can do,” he insisted.
“Janos Praxis,” the tribunal leader said, “if you weren’t the most decorated Realist athlete of all time, I would think you were betraying your house by showing favoritism to a relative.”
“Pretia’s grana is a gift from the gods—it’s not to be slighted,” Janos said. “And I want you all to remember that Pretia isn’t exclusively a Dreamer. She has chosen to be one for her time at Ecrof, but perhaps one day she will decide to come to House Relia, and if we have forbidden her talent, that will be our loss. I wonder if there would be such an outcry from the Realists if Rex Taxus had this talent.”
“Rex Taxus doesn’t need this so-called talent,” the tribunal leader said.
“Neither does Pretia,” Satis cried.
Now the Realists erupted in chatter.
“Test her, test her!” the Dreamers chanted again over the ruckus.
“Can someone please tell me what is happening?” Pretia asked. But no one heard her.
The way these adults were talking about her as if she weren’t there made her feel inhuman, not worthy of addressing. Maybe she didn’t even want to be tested—had they considered that? Maybe she’d rather not compete at all.
The woman with white hair raised her hand. “Test her,” she said. “I’m curious.”
“I’m curious, too,” another Realist tribunal member, a woman about Pretia’s mother’s age, said. “Let’s see this talent.”
The Dreamers cheered.
But Pretia felt less certain than when she’d been told she couldn’t use her grana a few moments ago.
“All right,” the tribunal leader bellowed. “All right, all right. The decision is made. Testing will take place immediately. The Academy Trainers may now leave.”
The Trainers began to depart. Satis Dario and Cleopatra Volis paused in front of Pretia. Cleopatra squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll have this sorted out in no time,” she said.
Then Satis leaned close so no one else could hear him. “Be yourself,” he said. “Be yourself and all will be well.”
Before Pretia could ask him what he meant, he’d left. And like that, Pretia was left alone in the room with only the tribunal members.
“Follow us,” the white-haired lady said as the adults descended from the dais. Pretia waited until they’d all reached her level before following them out.
The tribunal members led Pretia to a room lit by lamps so bright they stung her eyes. The room was designed like a small amphitheater, with elevated benches looking down onto what seemed like a stage. On the stage were two enclosed glass chambers. One was half filled with water. The other had a moving track like a treadmill running down its center.
The adults left Pretia on the small stage and climbed into the raised seats, spreading themselves around so they encircled her.
Pretia shivered in the chilly room.
“These are grana testers. This is where our court examines any Phoenician or visiting athlete who is thought to be abusing or misusing his or her godly talent. Here we will examine your grana,” the tribunal leader said. “Please step inside the running box.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Pretia asked.
“Put on the Mensa Crown so we can watch your thoughts.”