Estella’s POV:
When the day of the Tournament finally arrived, Cali still hadn’t woken up.
I’d gone to check on her just an hour earlier, clinging to the fragile hope that maybe, by some miracle, she’d open her eyes, but she just kept lying still, her chest rising and falling in shallow, steady breaths.
Professor Incera had been called away to work, and Darius, again in his Dane disguise, had already joined the other referees. That left only Felix trying to wake her, but nobody had seen him since the night before.
I was the first to report at the checkpoint, trying to steady my breathing while the banners of the Tournament fluttered in the morning wind. The others had arrived one by one, reporting for duty with long faces and bleary eyes. The square was already packed with contestants,
