Chapter 216
Chapter 216
Elora
The silence that follows is electric.
Then Petra laughs—a harsh, incredulous sound. "Fuck you, Frost. We'll see who's 'not good enough' when you're eating ice after the short program."
"Bold words from someone who's never medaled internationally," I shoot back.
"At least I earned my spot here," Isabella snaps. "Instead of riding in on my boyfriend's daddy's coattails."
"Then prove it." I shrug out of my jacket, revealing the competition dress beneath—midnight blue with crystalline details that catch the light. "Show me I'm wrong. Show everyone you deserve to be here."
"Oh, we will." Chen Wei's voice is soft but carries an edge like folded steel. "And when we're done, you'll wish you'd kept your mouth shut and let Rhodes rig the scores in your favor."
The competitive fire that's been dormant during all the chaos of the past weeks suddenly roars back to life. This—this is what I've been missing. Not the violence, not the survival, not the endless chess games with people who want to destroy me. Just pure, simple competition. Skill against skill. Will against will.
This is what I came here for.
"Can't wait," I say, and I mean it.
---
The short program begins with Natasha Volkov taking the ice first. Her choice of music—Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2—is predictable but effective, and she executes her opening combination with technical precision. Triple lutz-triple toe loop, landed cleanly. Her spins are centered, her footwork sharp but lacking the fluidity that separates good from great.
She finishes to respectable applause and a score that puts her in a solid position: 73.42.
Isabella Moretti goes next. Her program is more artistic, focusing on interpretation over technical difficulty, but she nails her triple flip and her spiral sequence draws genuine appreciation from the crowd. 71.18.
Chen Wei takes a different approach entirely—her program is aggressive, almost martial in its choreography. She opens with a triple axel that makes half the arena gasp, follows it with a triple lutz-double toe combination, and her step sequence has the kind of sharp precision that speaks to years of disciplined training. Her score: 76.89.
One by one, the competitors take their turns. Each performance is strong—these are world-class athletes, after all, and even their mistakes are executed with more grace than most people's best efforts.
But I notice something as I watch: the judging is scrupulously fair. No inflated scores. No questionable deductions. Just honest evaluation of what's happening on the ice.
Richard's presence has turned this into the most impartial competition I've ever witnessed.
Finally, my name echoes through the arena: "Representing the United States of America: Elora Frost."
The boos are immediate and loud.
I step onto the ice anyway, my blades cutting through the surface with familiar precision. The jeers wash over me like white noise—meaningless. I've faced worse than a hostile crowd. I've faced people trying to kill me. A few thousand strangers disapproving of my tactics?
Please.
The music begins—Chopin's "Winter Wind" Etude, a piece I chose specifically because it's been months since I've competed and I need something that will force my body to remember what it's capable of.
The opening notes cascade through the arena, and I launch into my first element: a triple lutz. My takeoff is clean, the rotation tight, but the landing—
Fuck.
My blade catches slightly on the ice, just enough to throw off my balance. I don't fall, but I have to fight for stability, and it costs me in execution score. I can already feel the deductions piling up.
Shake it off. Keep moving.
Next is my combination: triple flip-triple toe loop. This one goes better—both jumps clean, both landings solid. My body is starting to remember, muscle memory overriding the rust of inactivity.
The step sequence comes next, and here's where I can make up ground. My footwork has always been one of my strengths, the precision and speed developed through thousands of hours of training. I pour everything into it, my blades tracing intricate patterns across the ice, each movement sharp and deliberate.
But I can feel it—the disconnect between what my body knows how to do and what it's currently capable of doing. Ten days in a coma, followed by only two days of training, has left me just slightly off. Not enough that anyone in the audience would notice, but enough that I feel it in every movement.
My final spin combination starts strong but wobbles slightly on the exit. Another deduction.
When the music ends and I strike my final pose, I know before the scores come up that I'm not winning this segment.
The numbers confirm it: 68.94.
Seventh place.
I skate off the ice to a mixture of scattered applause and continued boos, my face carefully neutral. Seventh. Out of eight competitors.
Not disastrous, but far from where I need to be.
"Well, well." Petra's voice drips with satisfaction as I step off the ice. "Where's all that big talk now, Frost? Seventh place? I don't think the podium has room for you."
"Disappointing," Isabella adds with mock sympathy. "And here I thought you were going to show us all up."
I ignore them, focusing instead on unlacing my skates and slipping into my guards. The scores don't surprise me—I skated exactly as well as two days of training allowed. No better, no worse.
But then Yuki Tanaka's voice cuts through the mockery: "Don't get comfortable."
Everyone turns to look at her. She's studying her phone, reviewing the scoring breakdown with the kind of intense focus I recognize from my own competition prep.
"The point differential between first and seventh is only 7.95 points," she continues, her tone clinical. "In a short program, that's nothing. And if you actually watch Elora's performance instead of just celebrating her placement..." She looks up, her dark eyes meeting mine with something that might be respect. "Her first element was rushed—nerves, maybe, or just shaking off the rust. But look at her progression. The triple lutz was shaky. The combination was solid. The step sequence was nearly flawless. By her final spin, she was performing at a level that should have scored in the mid-seventies."
"So what?" Natasha challenges. "She still placed seventh."
"So she's building momentum," Yuki says flatly. "In the free skate, when there's more time to find her rhythm, more opportunities to showcase technical difficulty... anyone who underestimates her is going to regret it."