Champion: A Legend Novel

My heartbeat slows to a stop. Everything stops. This can’t be real.

How can the boy who stirred an entire nation be dying?

“You’re wrong,” I say sadly. “It makes perfect sense.”

“Why?”

“Because Day chose to walk in the light.” I turn my back on him for the last time. The door opens; the cell’s bars make way for the hall, a new rotation of prison guards, freedom. “And so did Metias.”

No matter how much money the Republic throws at me, I will forever be the boy from the streets.

And I’d forgotten that a boy from the streets is no match for the future Princeps.

capital. Just the thought of seeing him again leaves my heart pounding, aching from his absence in my life

He’ll listen to you.I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew that Anden was right

He stood close enough so that if I wanted to, I could tilt my face up and accidentally brush my lips against his. My heartbeat quickened at the thought

Please, let it be her.
Did her voice always have this effect on me

The one who actually matters to you.”
My cheeks warm at the taunt in his voice. “June?”

She’s June, I tell myself on repeat. My lips work greedily along her neck, tasting smoke and perfume

“I do remember,” he finally says. I search his eyes for that same aching sadness, the torment and anguish that had always been there whenever we were together. But I can no longer see it. Instead, I find something else . . . I see a healed wound, a permanent scar that has nevertheless closed, something from a chapter of his life that he has finally, after all these years, made peace with. I see . . . Can it be possible? Can this be true?

I see pieces of memories in his eyes. Pieces of us. They are broken, and scattered, but they are there, gradually coming together again at the sight of me. They are there.

“It’s you,” he whispers. There is wonder in his voice.