Seven Crowns (Bellaton Book 1)

by E. V. Everest

  Somehow Ana didn’t feel much better. Stitches and broken arms sounded pretty bad to her. Even with some uber techy advanced medicine, it would hurt an awful lot.

  Was this her fault? Since she had gotten here, Samuel had been imprisoned and now two of her best friends were trying to tear each other apart in some terrible competition.

  No, she tried to comfort herself. Adam asked for this, and Holden had agreed. He could have said no.

  She was lying to herself. She knew it wasn’t true. How could Holden say no? What sort of black mark went on your records for being a pacifist in the military family?

  “Don’t look so guilty,” Holden said.

  “What?” Did she look guilty? Was it that obvious? No, Holden was just good at reading people.

  “It’s not your fault. This thing between Adam and me has been brewing for a long time. We’re best friends, cousins. We fight. And there’s more going on here than you realize.”

  Ana remembered what Adam had been shouting at Theo. The gift never skips a generation. That’s what was going on here. Holden had the gift. She remembered the weird way he had frozen during speech class and how he had followed Ana like a shadow in botany class the day Ophelia had been poisoned with firetongue. She remembered how guilty he had looked in the med center. There was only one way to know for sure.

  “You have the gift,” she said.

  Holden’s eyes widened, and she knew it was true.

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “How long have you known?”

  “I’ve suspected since our first speech class.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  “You haven’t been super subtle. Honestly, if Adam weren’t so stubborn, he’d see it too.”

  “Maybe he does. It could explain why he went after Theo so hard. To get me to admit it.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Holden took a deep breath. “Kids with the gift are…marked. It would make me an easy choice as successor to Adam’s father, but I don’t want to be on the council. I want to work with my hands—building engines and flying spaceships.”

  Ana smiled. This was what she liked about Holden so much. He was just such a good person. He didn’t want to be famous or powerful. He just wanted to be himself.

  “Adam, on the other hand, wants to be on the council. He wants to lead people. He’d be good at it.”

  Ana nodded. Even though she loathed Adam right now, she knew it was true. Adam was confident and charming. People listened to him. For the same reasons she had wanted to go out with him, he would make a popular councilman.

  “I understand,” she said. “I don’t want to be on the council either. The difference is—I don’t have a choice.”

  Like Holden, Ana didn’t care about fame or prestige or even money. Power, however, sounded pretty good. Just enough to free herself and the people she loved. If she didn’t play the council’s political games, she could be killed.

  She had responsibilities. She thought of her brothers and Samuel. There were people counting on her. What if she couldn’t manifest the gift? Were they all doomed?

  She thought of the challenge, and her mind began to turn. What if there was another way to prove she wasn’t powerless? Another way to show she belonged here. She’d already told Adam she was going to participate.

  “Other families can participate in the challenge, right?” she asked.

  Holden looked confused. “Yeah.”

  “And the marks go on your record?”

  “Yeah…”

  “You said there were spectators. Does the council watch?”

  Holden furrowed his brow. “Recaps, probably.”

  “I want to join your team.”

  31

  The Plan

  Holden said no. Over and over again. She stopped by his table at breakfast. Holden said it was too dangerous. She popped by while he was studying. He told her it wasn’t her fight. She ducked into the common room. He said the challenge was for Rockwells.

  But in the end, Ana became the first member of Holden’s team. Determined not to be dead weight, she had decided to join the Rockwells’ morning endurance training. She crossed through the tall grass, still wet from morning dew, and made her way down to the training fields.

  To her surprise, other families were represented. Holden explained morning training was open to any student invited by a Rockwell. There were quite a few Nobles and Arkwrights present. She supposed technology, engineering, and minerals were key to military operations and probably long-held alliances.

  They completed a series of stretches before beginning a brutal workout, ending in a seven mile run. After the first mile, Ana began to drag. Halfway through the second, she was barely puffing along. By the third, she was walking.

  Holden lapped her once. On his second pass, he slowed to fall in step beside her. “You’re doing great,” he encouraged.

  Ana clutched a stitch in her side. “Am I?”

  “Keep at it, and you will be. Thirty days is plenty of time.”

  Ana wasn’t so sure.

  Ivan Rockwell pulled ahead of them and jogged in place. “You walking now too, Holden? Hell of a team you’ve put together.”

  “Shut up, Ivan.”

  Ana gritted her teeth and started back to a slow jog. She’d show Ivan Rockwell.

  Adam sprinted past all of them, a smirk on his face.

  Her breath came in gasps, and she had to slow back to a walk again. She’d show Ivan and Adam. Well, maybe not today.

  * * *

  Holden and Ana were together on the school’s lawn. Holden was poring over an infotab, his golden hair glistening in the bright sunlight. Ana was lying on the grass, inspecting her new tan. Training in the warm sunshine had turned her a marvelous shade of bronze. If only her mile time was half as good.

  Today, they were making a list of potential team members. Holden had a few people in mind, mostly Rockwells with good performance records.

  Ana wished Samuel were here. He would be so good at this. Intuition, strategy, and a dash of paranoia were his superpowers. But, thanks to her, he had been outmaneuvered. She missed his snarky jokes and the way he always showed up, even when she didn’t want him there. She missed the way he broke Madame Bali’s rules too. She missed having someone to confide in.

  In many ways, Holden had stepped up to the plate, but he wasn’t Samuel. There were some things she couldn’t tell him—like about Samuel and how his arrest had shaken her to her core. Revealing her link to someone accused and jailed for treason was a pretty poor idea, even to her own eyes.

  Holden crumpled the paper in frustration.

  “What’s wrong?” Ana asked.

  “We’re playing from behind. Adam already has his entire team locked in.”

  “So?”

  “So, he pulled the best players. The top five Rockwells in terms of combat simulation scores are all on his team. How do I compete with that? Nobody will want to be on our team. Nobody will want to take the loss on their record.”

  “Who is on Adam’s team again?”

  Holden recited from memory. “Five Rockwells, a Fleur, and a DuBois. All good fighters. All in great shape. The Fleur is a bit of a wild card.”

  “If he’s the one I saw at Adam’s recruitment session, he’s specialized in poison and archery.”

  Holden grimaced. “Great.”

  “If we can’t win, then we have to change the game,” Ana said. “Adam is going for brawn. We have to go for brain.”

  “It takes more than brawn to beat simulation records,” Holden reminded her. “These guys are front of the line for command.”

  Ana considered for a moment. “Do you know about the American Revolutionary War?”

  Holden shook his head no.

  Ana frowned. She could see why the story might be considered dangerous here. The council didn’t want people hearing about how itty bitty colonies could rise up against their overlords…and win. “Well, Holden, let me tell you about a little thing c
alled the Revolutionary War.” She explained how the American colonies had wanted to break away from the British empire, but they were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the British military. She explained how some soldiers had used guerrilla warfare, hiding in the swampland, attacking, and disappearing like ghosts.

  “But our teams are the same size, and we don’t know the terrain any better than they do,” Holden pointed out.

  “The point isn’t to emulate the American revolutionaries. We’re not going to hide in swamps…probably. The point is that they broke the established rules to win the game. We have to do that too.”

  They sat in silence for a long moment.

  Finally, Ana said, “What if we knew the other team’s strategy ahead of time?”

  “None of Adam’s guys would snitch on their own team. They want a win on their record.”

  “What if we knew the location?”

  “That would be a huge advantage, but there’s no way. The committee is very secretive. We don’t even know who is on it.”

  “But it’s not against the rules to know?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then I’d say we need to talk with Shay Noble.”

  A smile spread across Holden’s face. “I’d say you’re right.”

  * * *

  Convincing Shay to join their team wasn’t as hard as Ana had expected. She cornered her after history, a class Adam didn’t share.

  Shay had been unsure at first. “Halt, you know I like you, but joining a side in a Rockwell feud would be career suicide. Win or lose, half of them would never want to trade with me again.”

  Ana shook her head. “No. You’re thinking like a Noble, not a Rockwell. They’ll respect you for winning. Plus, what better way to show off your skills. It’ll practically be a commercial for everyone in the stands.”

  “And how exactly are we going to win?”

  Ana smiled. “I’m glad you asked.”

  * * *

  Ana lay against the grass staring at the puffy clouds. She couldn’t believe she had made it through an entire week of Rockwell training exercises. Holden lay a few feet to her right.

  Ana could still hear her breath coming in gasps. Today’s workout had been a tough one. By comparison, she noticed self-consciously that Holden’s breathing was steady and even. She hoped, with time, she would have his endurance.

  Right now, her whole body ached. Even her arms were cramped. She moved her right arm, trying to rotate her sore shoulder. Her hand brushed warm, soft skin.

  He looked at her in surprise. She blushed, realizing she had touched Holden’s hand.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Sore muscles? he asked.

  She nodded. Her arm back at her side.

  “Better not sit on it too long then. Best thing for sore muscles is movement.”

  She groaned.

  He laughed and offered her a hand up. She pretended to take it and pulled him back to the ground. He lost his balance in surprise and landed on the ground, one arm and a leg strewn across her body.

  “Oof,” he grunted.

  She heard his breath come in a shallow gasp. She was so close she could smell that unique Holden scent—lemon soap and the faintest trace of diesel from crawling under engines in every spare moment he got.

  He rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. As his hand touched hers, he froze. In that same weird, awkward way he had in the Speech & Debate classroom so many months ago.

  “Holden,” she said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Holden.”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  “What did you see?”

  Worry crossed his face and furrowed his brow. “You have to quit the challenge.”

  “What? Why?” she exclaimed.

  “I can’t see all the details yet. The visions come in flashes. All I could see was you and an arrow.” He winced. “You’re going to be injured.”

  “If we already know what happens, we can change it,” she assured him.

  “I’m not sure it works like that. I saw the firetongue too. I saw you touching it, and the poison spreading. I tried everything to stop it. I kept checking in on you, but in the end, someone still got hurt.”

  Ana was quiet for a moment. “That’s why you looked so guilty.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I should have said something, but it would have meant admitting I had the gift. I owe Ophelia an apology.”

  “She’ll understand.”

  “Yeah…” He trailed off. “Maybe.”

  As Ana left Holden behind, she continued to think about his vision. What had he seen, really? An arrow, her injured. It wasn’t much to go on. Anyone could have shot the arrow. How could she possibly avoid it? Should she drop out of the challenge?

  Of course, she didn’t even know that the arrow injury would happen during the challenge. That was just assumption. A pretty good one, she had to admit. She could hardly imagine someone shooting an arrow at her during math class, but anything was possible here.

  Also, while she didn’t want to be shot with an arrow, what was the worst-case scenario? Hadn’t Holden said there were safeties in the game? Even if she were injured, would she die? They had advanced medicine here. The wound could probably be cleaned up in no time.

  In fact, what if she was the one to do it?

  What if she healed herself?

  In front of cameras, spectators, and the council. She could prove she deserved the council seat. She could keep herself and her brothers safe. She could free Samuel. She could marry someone she loved.

  What if she failed?

  But what if she succeeded?

  * * *

  Holden and Ana worked hard to assemble the perfect game-winning strategy. After Shay agreed to join their team, the pieces began to fall into place. By the end of the first week, Shay had been able to tap into the “secret” meetings.

  “I could eat their code for breakfast!” she crowed, slamming through a sequence and downloading the entirety of their schematics. “Nano encryption is for absolute amateurs.”

  “If it was that easy, are you sure you got the right files? Couldn’t it be bait?” Ana asked.

  “Oh no, that drive was even easier to access. Barely hidden at all. I downloaded it too and made sure to leave a trace.” She cackled.

  Together, the three of them pored over the files. The challenge would take place off world on the apex of one of Bellaton’s moons, Obsidian. The Fleurs had devised a strategy where they would dome off a portion of the atmosphere and cover it in plant life. It would be jungle-like—muggy, hot, and filled with creeping vines and insects. The dome would cover a ten-mile diameter with natural obstacles like flash floods and quicksand. Spectators would be allowed to watch from outside the dome. The players, however, would not be able to see out.

  With that much plant life, they needed a Fleur, preferably one with the gift. There were twenty old enough to participate. Luckily, Ana had the inside track on one of them. She spent the better part of the next week begging Ophelia to join their team.

  “It wouldn’t be fair. I’m Adam’s friend too.”

  “Just ask him then,” Ana insisted.

  Finally, with Adam’s grudging approval, Ophelia joined the team.

  Holden had secured two Rockwells he trusted. Ophelia could grow all the plant life they needed, but she’d need protection.

  Finally, they needed an Arkwright. Minerals could enable them to have things like fire and explosives. It would also allow them to have clean drinking water if they ran out of rations.

  “Why not Baylan?” Ana suggested. “He’s healed from his fall. And I’m pretty sure one of the guys on Adam’s team pushed him. He’s got a score to settle. Plus, he’s a hard worker.”

  In the end, they didn’t even have to ask Baylan. He came to them. He had only one question. “Are you going to win?”

  They nodded, and the deal was done.

  That was seven—Holden Rockwell, Ana Halt, Shay Noble, Xa
n Rockwell, Ja Rockwell, Ophelia Fleur, and Baylan Arkwright. Their team was locked in.

  Each member had their own training and preparation plan.

  Ophelia would study and practice camouflage over the next two weeks. Her goal was to hide their base and herself. She was also supposed to report to Rockwell morning endurance training.

  Baylan, who was already in good shape, turned out to be a terrible shot with the standard issue laser rifles. Ja, a sharpshooter, would help him prepare. Outside of shooting lessons, Baylan would research available minerals and prepare a plan for their campsite based on available geological data.

  Shay’s job was to do the impossible—redirect the barrier and reform it around their flag, making them invincible.

  The two Rockwells, Ja and Xan, would practice a series of guard techniques and run maneuvers to capture their enemy’s flag. When Holden wasn’t poring over strategy with Ana, he was shouting instructions and setting up elaborate obstacles for them to dodge.

  Ana’s endurance training was paying off. She wasn’t the fastest off the mark, but by mile six, she was usually near the front of the pack. Today was no exception.

  She kept her breath steady and her eyes trained forward. Then she spotted a familiar head of brown hair. She picked up her pace until she was running side by side with Adam.

  He looked over at her, surprised at first then annoyed. He picked up his pace, but she dug deep and matched him. Locked in competition, the two of them passed the rest of the runners. They were now neck and neck at the front of the group. Each pushing themselves past their limit.

  Ana could feel her breath coming in wheezes now. She started to slow, and just as it looked like Adam would win, his shoelace came untied. He started to stumble forward but caught himself.

  As he bent down to tie his shoelace, she flew past him. She threw up a peace sign and smirked. Who was going to wipe the floor with who?

  * * *

  Madame Bali rapped on her door, and Ana swung it open. Ana was already fully dressed. It was the morning of the challenge, and she had been up for hours, watching the sun lift above the ocean.