Chapter 105

Olaf stayed with me. Read into that what you will. Either the rumors of his hatred for me were vastly exaggerated, or his sense of honor and decency was titanically overpowering. Whatever the case, he made no move to exit the arena more swiftly than I could. It was the nature of the event that we had to wait anyway. The thousands in the audience would filter out first. It was a security measure if nothing else. The stands had been filled with drunken common folk, people who were elated beyond measure by what would probably be the greatest event in any of their lives. And many of the people in that crowd had won or lost tidy sums in wagers; some might be burning with rage and hatred for the contestants that had spoiled their bets.

So it was that we waited in chambers off the main floor for the crowd to exit and disperse. And while we waited, Olaf stayed near me, a strong arm ready to prop me up each time my body decided that its overriding goal in life was to hit the floor. I looked at him. My head was clearing somewhat, even if it was a hardly composed mess. His face was stoic; he held an expression of detached professionalism. But beneath it, I could tell he was bubbling with excitement. I found that my mouth was working without the consent of my brain. I said, "That Flow means a lot to you, Olaf? You earned it, Oracle knows you earned it. I'd be finished without what you did."

Olaf maintained his distant stare, but his eyes twinkled. He said, "A whole Flow will transform my house's finances."

I said, "And you were the one to bring it to them."

His face snapped towards me then, the insight triggering something in him. He said, "It's... well, it's good to do something useful..."

I said, "To redeem yourself."

His eyes were so confused, so full of conflicting emotions. He said, "It was hard to be the first one ejected from the contest, the least worthy."

I said, "You weren't the least worthy. Just being in the contest meant you were one of the best 12 prospects in the entire territory... and the way you went out... I..."

He looked at the ground. I wobbled slightly, and he reached an arm out to steady me without needing to look up. He spoke, his eyes fixed on the ground, pointedly aimed away from me, "It's not your fault. It was wrong of me to paint you like that. When it happened, I was outraged. You were so useless, Tiberius. Forgive me for saying so, but you were beyond incapable. Everyone could see it. That was in the early days when there was no crowd, but when some nobles were allowed to attend. My father was there that day. My father had watched you waddle around helplessly in the suit. Then he had to watch me blown out of the ring."

I said, "You couldn't have expected me to use BEAM. Nobody could have expected that."

He nodded softly and slowly, still staring away. He said, "No, but that meant little for me at the time. At the time, the simple facts were that I was the first to be ejected from The Choosing, the least relevant of anyone who took part, and I was ejected by you, hands down the least capable of all of us."

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I smirked slightly and said, "Aw... shucks..."

Olaf allowed his eyes to flick back up to mine for a moment. When I met his stare, I could see the wetness there. I could feel my own eyes were the same, glistening with emotions. I knew what it was like; my whole life had been one long fruitless adventure to win my father's approval.

Olaf said, "At the time, it felt like a dirty trick, as though you'd robbed me of the chance to compete for the prize because surely, BEAM or no, you couldn't possibly survive another round. But you did, you stayed in there, just managed to avoid ejection during the hunt. Of course, at the time, I put that all down to the fact you were paired with Lauren. I... A man shouldn't blame others for his failures, but you made it easy. You kept scraping past by the skin of your teeth, seeming hapless over and over, and it made me grow more and more bitter."

I said, "Are you still bitter?" Even as I said it, my knees gave way and I buckled forward. Olaf moved to catch me.

He was badly shaken from the blow Lance had delivered to him—the blow intended for Zara. But he kept me from falling just the same. Maybe it was his nature, maybe this affinity for types went deep into a person's soul. Maybe he had made such a good Shield because he was a natural protector, a nurturer. But if that was true, did that mean I was a natural leader? It certainly didn't feel so.

As he straightened me up, I asked him, "Are you still bitter?"

He paused. He wasn't staring at the ground anymore, but he wasn't meeting my gaze either. He said, "It got harder to be bitter at the end of the... was it the fourth day? In the arena, when Lance and Gideon teamed up on you and you just... you just revealed yourself."

I could still remember the feeling of that moment—when I turned on the attributes I had carefully hidden, the skills I had developed while I had been alone in the woods, pretending to be lost. The moment I showed Lance I had CUT, the shock on his face, the feeling of victory.

Olaf said, "I couldn't admit then that you were more than I'd given you credit for, but it started to shift for me then. You handled both of them, you shocked the city with what you could suddenly do. But, I'm man enough to admit it, I still hated you, still saw you as the one touched by luck and not skill or destiny. But after that, it got harder to hate you for knocking me out. You used the Footfield during the race, you nearly killed Lance and Gideon together on top of the tower. I guess what I'm saying is, it became obvious after a while that you were special. But even when that was staring at me, I couldn't shake that first impression—that sense that you'd cheated me, that you were unworthy and I was."

I shifted a little, put my elbow on his shoulder to steady myself. I said, "There's a lot of past tense there."

He cocked an eyebrow.

I said, "You keep talking about resenting and hating me in a way that suggests that maybe you don't so much any more."

That made him uncomfortable. Olaf was certainly the stoic type. He might manage a soliloquy about his feelings—something that was already half-formed and half-prepared—but having to actually express emotions as he experienced them, that was hard for a man like him.

I can't say why I wanted him to tell me that it was okay. We had been in competition; it had been my job to beat him that day, his job to beat me. At the end of the contest, it had been me who had won the right to continue, no matter how unlikely that had been, no matter how unconventionally I had achieved it. But I burned to hear him say it, that he forgave me, or didn’t hate me, or respected me. Why I cared, I couldn't possibly imagine, but it was something I needed to hear.

Olaf opened his mouth to speak, and my heart decided to stop beating for a minute, as though it wouldn't dare add a sound to the moment.

And then, unbidden, Lauren and Katya appeared.