Chapter 23: Flora
Flora stared at Edward and shuddered. “Whatever he’s thinking, it’s…” she muttered to Elaine. Elaine just turned her head back towards Edward and shook it knowingly.
Apart from the faintly ridiculous expression on Edward’s face, the situation was already looking bleak. From their vantage point up above the Tournament, they could see the city being overrun. The other competitors just couldn’t hold out against the Hahr Kerr.
“Come on,” Edward said grimly.
“Wait!” called Elaine. “Don’t we need…some sort of plan?”
Flora thought for a minute, then came to a decision. “OK, Jin and I will go for Tim and Tina. Edward and Elaine,”—the two of them looked at her—“you two should go to bolster the front defenses.” The novi were clustered around now, scared but ready. “Are there any of you who feel ready for Parli?”
A couple of looks, then shaken heads. Flora sighed. “All right, then I want each of you to go out with your backup events. Er…Jin wants. We’ve got a pretty good spread…though we could use more people in the platform events…” She trailed off and looked over at Jin, but he was nodding in agreement.
“Stay together,” Elaine called, “Gotta keep that morale up…it affects your speech too.” Flora looked at her, a little surprised, then nodded as well. It was good that Elaine remembered that.
“And…” Christine asked.
Flora winced. The story was really getting quite harsh on marginalizing Christine. It wasn’t fair.
“Christine, I need you to come with us.” Words came to her mouth. “I sense you’ll have an important part to play.”
Everyone stared, and Flora would have given…well, most of her part in the story…to not have said that. It sounded so cheesy.
And with that, her forehead fairly danced with pain. Aargh, too much meta-knowledge.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” cried Edward, “Let’s go!”
Flora pushed the pain aside (mentally) and moved down the hill with the others.
They soon reached the edge of the city, and paused, aghast, for dramatic effect. “We should split here,” Jin declared, his leadership voice back once more. Edward nodded once and he and Elaine headed for the nearest disturbance. The novi looked at each other, then split into twos and threes.
Flora and Christine looked at Jin. He looked back at them.
It was Christine who broke it first. “So. Neither of you guys has a plan for rescuing Tim and Tina, do you.” It was not a question, not really.
“Why is it always ‘Tim and Tina’?” Jin mused, “Why not ‘Tina and Tim’?” Flora stared, nonplussed.
“Fine, then.” Christine tossed her hair back and Flora was suddenly reminded of Chapter 2, when they were all so hopeful and the jokes were still funny. “I guess it’s up to me.”
“Wha-wait, where are you going?” cried Jin as Christine started down the hill into the city.
“The one most likely place they’d take them,” Christine said, then paused. Flora, too, had trouble deciding if that was grammatical. Christine pointed.
The tower.
The grimness had settled back into Jin’s eyes. “You know it’s a trap,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” Christine replied, “But that doesn’t matter. We have to get them back.”
Flora looked down. For all their practice, she wasn’t really eager to rush into a tournament with Parli, especially not one like this.
“You’re right,” said Jin, quiet still, but decisive. And that did it. Flora knew that she could depend on him here. She looked up again, out at the tower rising up from the city, and her gaze hardened.
“Are you going to be all right without Parli?” she asked Christine, without turning her head.
Christine gave a little laugh. The bitterness in it did not suit her. “I was never good at Parli anyway. Perhaps I should have gone with them. But I’ll be ready with Impromptu…and I’ve got something else up my sleeve.”
Flora wondered at that. But the tower flamed with sudden evil, and she was sure that this time, everyone could see it, not just her with her outside knowledge. The last battle was imminent. The climax of the story was only a chapter or two away.
Christine started determinedly into the city, and together Flora and Jin followed her.