With startling speed, Jeong threw a punch at Jason’s face, but his fist simply whistled past as Jason stepped nonchalantly out the way.
“Uhn-uhn,” Jason said wagging his finger theatrically at Jeong. “You wouldn’t want to be thrown out now, would you?”
Jeong fisted his hands, as if weighing up the cost of actually killing Jason, but ultimately, he turned on his heels and stormed away. The crowd drifted away in the resulting vacuum of silence, and Allyra turned to Jason.
“Thanks,” she said simply.
Jason scowled and then proceeded to ignore her by walking away.
Some things would probably never change.
* * *
The three weeks leading up to the Second Final were some of the toughest Allyra had ever experienced. Every night, she fell into bed, asleep almost before her head hit the pillow. And every morning, she woke up with still-aching muscles and a deep weariness that just refused to dissipate.
There had been no time to go chasing after memories or to even try to do research in the massive library of books. On more than one occasion, Chi had found her passed out on a book, which always prompted him to chastise her about the potentially damaging effects of drool on books, after which he would chase her to bed.
Every day was filled with training. Mornings with Master Akerman, and afternoons sparring with Jason.
Master Akerman continued to be both sarcastic and demanding, and with only three pairs from the Elemental College left in The Five Finals, he seemed to have stepped up the difficulty on his training sessions though his focus had changed abruptly from teamwork to outdoor survival skills. He spent his time quizzing them on different ways to find north, from using the sun to star navigation and finally to using plants and animals—she’d learned more about lichen in the last three weeks than she’d ever thought possible.
She’d also learned to make fire with nothing but twigs, but she was perhaps the only person who’d concentrated on that particular lesson. Almost every one of the remaining pairs had at least one Inferno, so they were all confident in the knowledge that having an Inferno would mean Fire on demand whenever necessary. But life, and Alex, had taught her that things were rarely so predictable. And she was in the uncomfortable position of not being able to trust her partner to provide Fire even if she needed it. So, she dutifully rubbed twigs together, waiting patiently for friction to build up enough heat to start a fire. Jason took sadistic pleasure in nearly singeing her eyebrows off by dropping a particularly spectacular fireball on her pile of twigs.
Jason continued to be a mass of contradictions. He would do or say something awful, wearing his arrogant mask, making her think they would never learn to work together, much less like each other. But then, he would go and do something kind like sticking up for Chi.
For all her attempts to figure out the type of person who lay hidden behind that beautiful, arrogant mask, Allyra was no closer to figuring Jason out than the moment she’d first met him. Perhaps she never would, but right now, he was exactly what she needed him to be—an exceptional sparring partner.
Allyra and Jason spent every moment they could sparring, mostly in the sparring room, but when that wasn’t available, they’d push the furniture aside in their shared room and fit in some hand-to-hand combat. As an Elemental, Allyra understood she should have a massive advantage over Jason. But that would be true only in a fair fight, and a fight with Jason was never fair—he liked to fight dirty. For someone so young, he had wide and varied experience, and for every trick she’d ever learned from Alex, Jason seemed to have two to counter it. Because of this, they were the perfect sparring partners, so well matched that they constantly pushed each other to be just that little bit better.
He woke a competitive streak within her that she hadn’t realized she possessed. Neither of them ever wanted to end on a loss, and so, often they would keep pushing each other well into the night, unwilling to stop until both were satisfied they had nothing more to give.
Today’s weapon of choice was metal batons. The sparring room used to contain wooden ones, but between the two of them, they’d splintered so many to pieces that Master Ackerman had the batons replaced with metal ones better suited to their vigorous sparring sessions.
Allyra spun and ducked under the swing of Jason’s baton, and as she passed under his arm, she sunk her elbow into his midriff and heard a satisfying gasp of pain from him. Carrying her momentum, she used her left baton and hit Jason in the back with it, sending him stumbling forward.
“You’re getting slow,” she taunted with a smug smile, bending over to retrieve one of Jason’s dropped batons.
Jason didn’t reply. Instead, he took advantage of her momentary distraction and flung his knee directly into her face. As she spluttered in surprise, trying to spit the blood from her mouth, he followed up his advantage by swinging his one remaining baton into her shoulder with bone-shattering force.
“And you’re getting cocky,” Jason mocked, ironically appearing like the quintessential image of cockiness.
Allyra wiped the back of her hand across her face, wiping away the blood from her lips. She gave Jason her smirk, bloody teeth and all. “Again?” she quipped.
He raised his eyebrows at her and then nodded before spinning into action and charging at her.
* * *
The Tunnels were dark around her, and in the distance, she could hear rock scraping against rock, the sound of the Tunnel’s constantly changing nature.
It hadn’t really come as a surprise that they’d been challenged again. Winning their last challenge and eliminating
