A Search for Balance

Chapter 38 - The Final Bow

On the morning of the season finale, Lizzie woke at the crack of dawn, feeling sick to the stomach with nerves. By the time she left her parents' house in Dorset and made her way to the training grounds, the sun was rising in a perfectly blue sky, promising a hot and sunny day ahead.

"This ain't ideal," muttered Ethan as Lizzie entered the changing rooms together with Skye. He looked like he had been there for hours already, pacing up and down the room, eyes flicking nervously between the window and the blackboard with their match plan. "This ain't ideal at all."

Ethan had good reason to be worried; a few hours into the match, whichever team would have to fly against the sun would have a distinct disadvantage. It was something that couldn't be helped now, though, so Lizzie and Skye left him to his devices and gathered up their robes to get changed.

They were quiet as they changed into their blood-red robes with the crossed cleavers on the chest, as were Bethany Tweed and Scout Sheridan, who arrived shortly after them. Lizzie wished one of them would say something to help distract herself from her rising nausea, but it seemed like she was out of luck, and each of the four women remained silent.

By the time they returned to the team room, Orion, Warren Porter, and Dougal Docherty had arrived as well. They stood by the tactics board, trying to calm an increasingly erratic-looking Ethan. Lizzie used the moment to cast a long look across the room she had spent so many hours in over the last couple of years. Knowing that the next time she would be here it would be with a different team, wearing different colours, suddenly seemed both absurd and terrifyingly real. Feeling her heart sink, she sat in her designated spot, leaning against her locker and hoping the next few minutes would tick by a little faster.

When everyone was geared up and ready, and Ethan and Skye had made their final speeches, Lizzie was reduced to a nervous wreck, her hands shaking so badly that she struggled to close the buckles of her gear. She forced herself to stop and breathe before she tried again; it was either that or throwing her stupid gloves against the wall.

As the leather strap slid from her fingers for the fourth time, she cursed under her breath. The rest of the team was already shuffling from the room, and she still hadn't even closed her gloves.

"You were always fidgety before the big matches," Orion said as he passed her. Instead of following the others and leaving her to her misery, he stopped. "If your mind is unbalanced, so will be the rest of you."

"Who even thought these up?" Lizzie muttered in return, glaring at her unbuckled arm protection with disgust. "Why isn't there a spell to close them?"

"I believe Andre was on the case." Orion nodded at Lizzie's gloves. "May I?"

Shrugging helplessly, Lizzie raised her hands, and Orion quickly fastened the buckles on her left arm. As he moved on to the other, he paused.

"Your nerves don't match your confidence, it seems."

"What?"

He carefully got hold of Lizzie's right hand and turned it so that the sleeve of her robes slid back to reveal her wrist. His touch was light, his fingertips barely putting any pressure on her skin, but Lizzie held her breath regardless as his thumb brushed over her racing pulse.

"I remember the day you first wore your topaz around your wrist," Orion said with a melancholy smile. "Skye said you wore it to every single match since, even after I left. Knowing that it gave you strength where I failed to is a consolation, but it's good to see that you don't need it anymore."

Lizzie laughed weekly, silently mourning the loss of Orion's touch as he withdrew his hand. "I'd kill to have my necklace right now. I'm so bad without it, it's pathetic."