SpellShocked (SpellShocked Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 33 - Taking A Chance

The sound of the crowd came roaring back to life, and I looked around, befuddled. Somehow, the adrenaline of the match had forced me to forget about the people watching and I had only now realised the noise of the crowd had been magically silenced during the match.

I was also only now realising how easy I had actually found the match. Sure, I had taken a few hits, but the spells I had cast took very little effort on my part, even the ones I had never cast before. Was I really starting to get good at magic?

The arbitrator appeared at my side and drew back the body ward he had placed on me. He raised my hand into the air and the crowd grew even louder. I looked up and noticed my mom hugging my dad tightly and hiding her face in his chest. Az, unusually, was grinning widely and shouting. But what made me really smile was the sight of Zac, on Hunters back, both of them grinning and waving their arms in the air.

I smiled back; the elation of winning my match and the sight of my two best friends getting on so well...it made me feel invincible.

Then there was a loud bang from the side of me. Turning rapidly, I saw Adalrik - his fist buried in the arena wall - and shards of rock hurtling towards me and the arbitrator. I quickly threw up a ward in front of the man and attempted to duck behind it. I managed to mostly cover my body with the ward, but a felt a small fragment of rock slice across my face, leaving a shallow, stinging cut.

Once the shards of rock had stopped raining down on us, the arbitrator stepped out from my ward and pointed a finger at Adalrik, who froze in position, inches away from slamming his fist into the wall again. The crowd's cheers had turned into shouts of rage and booing towards Adalrik. Suddenly, Ms Carter was by my side and spoke into my ear.

"Come on Charlie, let's get you out of here." She led me through a door that appeared in the side of the arena wall and out into a corridor. She led me to a door, and I had barely stepped through the threshold before I was engulfed by another person's body.

"Oh my god, Charlie, that was amazing!" Olivia screamed one my ear. "You kicked Adalrik's ass! Sorry Ms Carter," she added when she noticed her standing behind me.

"I heard nothing," Ms Carter replied, smiling knowingly.

Olivia dragged me over to a table, and we spent the next couple of hours talking about our matches and watching the others. My high from winning my match was a brought down a little by Theo's match and Maya's match; they both decimated their opponents within a minute with magic that looked incredible powerful and difficult to perform. But I tried to ignore it, I wanted to ride this high for as long as I could. I wanted to stop that voice in my head from dragging me down like it always did. I was going to celebrate this moment damn it!

At long last, the first round of matches was over, and they released us from the Arenam, and to my delight, everyone was waiting outside for us. Both Olivia and I ran towards them and we all ended up in a giant group hug.

We were interrupted by the sound of a fake cough. We looked over to see two people standing awkwardly behind us; a tall muscular man dressed in a three-piece suit and a woman dressed in an extravagant emerald green dress. They looked like they would have been overdressed for a royal ball.

"Mum, Dad?" Olivia tentatively asked, "What are you doing here?"

"We came to observe your match," the man said. He had one of those posh British accents that sounded like they were deliberately fake. He looked towards the rest of us standing there. "Harold Lewis, pleasure to meet you all. And this is my wife, Aubrey Lewis." They proceeded to shake all of our hands rather stiffly.

"Olivia, may we have a word in private?" he asked.

"Um...sure," she murmured.

She turned and gave us all a small smile, and somehow I mustered up the courage to pull her into a hug and whispered, "Don't let them g-get to you. You did a-amazingly today, don't forget that." She smiled a genuinely smile and gave my arm a squeeze before turning and following her parents.