And there was the bald stranger blocking his path. Rovi skidded to a stop, his heart in his mouth, his stomach sinking to his feet. He was caught. He dropped the shoes.
The man stooped, picked up the box, and handed it back to Rovi. “Go,” he said. “Quickly. Don’t look back.” The short bald man with the twinkling green eyes opened the gate. And Rovi raced down the stairs, clutching his Grana Gleams, into the maze of the Lower City where no one would ever find him. He didn’t look back.
3
PRETIA
THE BOOK
Pretia turned over a golden envelope with her name written on it in green lettering. This was easily the thousandth time she’d stared at this piece of paper—her admission to Ecrof Academy, the best sports school in Epoca. It had arrived the day after her birthday, a present even better than her Grana Gleams.
Admission to Ecrof was a mystery. Each year, the academy’s Trainers opened the school’s ancient scrolls to discover the names of the incoming class of recruits—students who were said to have the most powerful grana in the land. This year there were seventeen names. Pretia’s was one of them. She was the first royal-born child in the land, the heir to both the Dreamers’ and Realists’ houses. Naturally, her name had appeared on the scrolls.
She knew what her classmates would say, that she was admitted for her heritage and not her talent. But she was accustomed to being treated differently by everyone. Ecrof would be no exception. Except now she had a secret: her bad grana. She wasn’t so sure about Ecrof anymore.
Pretia looked at the pile of suitcases and duffel bags stacked in her sitting room. Anara had spent the weeks since her birthday in an endless flurry of packing, so much packing that Pretia had begun to worry that Anara had ordered even more clothes for her just to put them in bags. Now had come the time for final preparations.
“It’s only for nine months,” Pretia moaned as her nurse dug through her wardrobe one last time, adding just one more ceremonial dress, just one more backup pair of sneakers, just one more pair of pajamas.
“But I won’t even need a ceremonial dress,” Pretia complained, flopping back on the bed.
“It’s not every day that my favorite person goes off to school,” Anara said, putting a stop to her packing for one moment to kiss Pretia on her head.
“Yeah,” Pretia said. “I’m going to school, not on an around-the-world voyage.”
“Pretia—you do know that Ecrof Academy is on an island, right? If you forget something, it will take ages to get it to you.”
Of course Pretia knew that Ecrof was on an island. There wasn’t a single thing she didn’t know about Ecrof. It was not simply the best school in Epoca, on the most sacred island in Epoca—the former home to the Gods of Granity—but it had produced the highest number of Epic Athletes of any academy in the land. And what’s more, its Head Trainer was Janos Praxis, the most decorated athlete ever to compete in the Epic Games . . . and Pretia’s favorite uncle.
Ever since Pretia could remember, she’d wanted to go to Ecrof and train on the sacred fields, play on the same courts, and use the same equipment as the most famous Epic Athletes. And tomorrow she was going.
There was only one problem. Ever since she had lit Hurell’s flame and then accidentally pushed Davos off the cliff, Pretia had been unwilling to use her grana. She knew it was cursed. It was evil. And she was terrified of what would happen next. There was something dark and uncontrollable in her. She could step outside of herself. Half of her was bad. She was capable of horrible things. What terrible thing would she do next? Whenever she felt a wave of tingling in her limbs or her senses heightened, she remembered Davos disappearing from sight. Why had she lit the flame to the Fallen God? Why?
She saw the way the castle kids now kept their distance from her, giving her a wide berth every time she passed by. She’d looked for Davos, hoping to apologize again, but every time he saw her, he hightailed it in the other direction, as if she was going to push him again. She knew they wouldn’t dare tell on her directly, but there was always a chance that gossip would spread. What would happen when people learned what Pretia was capable of?
Whenever she was tempted to put on her golden shoes, she distracted herself with something dreary—a dull book on the history of Epoca or a pamphlet on ceremonial attire for state dinners. Anything that made her forget how badly she wanted to run, play, compete. Anything that made her forget her cursed grana.
Her parents and Anara thought her moodiness had to do with her missing grana and Pretia didn’t correct them. She could never let them know what she was capable of, what she had done. She couldn’t let them know that Hurell might have granted her wish.
She would go to Ecrof as planned, as she’d always dreamed. But she wouldn’t use her grana. Not now. Not ever. And she wouldn’t be an Epic Athlete. Deep down she knew that giving up on that goal was a small price to pay for never, ever harming someone again as she had harmed Davos. But still, it hurt.
Anara zipped up the final bag for the final time. “That should do it,” she said.
“I hope so,” Pretia said.
“You’ll thank me when you get there.”
A bell clanged through the castle corridors. Anara’s eyes widened in alarm. “Pretia, you’re not dressed!”
“Dressed?” Pretia said. She was dressed, in shorts and a T-shirt.
“We’ve lost track of time,” Anara said, opening one of the bags and tearing through it. “The Ceremony of the Book.”
Pretia rolled her eyes. She’d secretly hoped that Anara and everyone else had forgotten. Another ceremony. Another important function at which she was going to be told how important she was to the nation of Epoca. Another lecture on how she was the Child of Hope—the child for the future. Well, Pretia had grown certain over the last few weeks that all of that was nonsense. The Child of Hope did not push other children off cliffs! The Child of Hope did not accidentally pray to Hurell.
“Can’t they just hand me my book like a normal kid?” Pretia said as Anara began pulling a blue-and-purple ceremonial dress over her head.
“You are not a normal kid,” Anara said.
“How did you get your book? Was there a big boring ceremony with all sorts of people staring at you?”
“My mother gave it to me. And that was that.”
“See—” Pretia began to object.
Anara was now tugging at her hair, trying to flatten and braid it. “Pretia—every child in Epoca receives his or her Book of Grana in a personal way unique to them. If yours is meant to be a ceremony with all sorts of people staring at you, then that’s what the gods have willed.”
“But—” Pretia tried again.
Another bell rang. If Pretia didn’t hurry, soon she’d hear her father’s voice booming through the phonopipes.
“Now get going,” Anara said, pulling her toward the door. “It’s one last ceremony, and then tomorrow you’ll go to school. Then you can be a normal kid.”
One last ceremony—Pretia liked the sound of that. She opened the door and dashed into the hall.
“Wait,” Anara called, “your shoes.”
Pretia looked down. She was wearing her Grana Gleams.
“I can’t hurry if I can’t run,” Pretia said, “and these are my best running shoes.” She smiled over her shoulder at her nurse, then picked up the pace and sprinted through the Hall