Chapter 59: Chapter 59: Kairan vs Silas pt 2

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Chapter 59: Kairan vs Silas pt 2

They got back into position. Kairan still had blood drying on his arms and scratches that stung with every movement, but he didn’t show it. He stood at his starting line and looked at Silas, who was getting ready on the other side with an expression somewhere between annoyance and embarrassment.

“You don’t know how to accept defeat,” Kairan said, his voice flat, devoid of visible anger. “A man who can’t accept defeat is pathetic.”

Silas stiffened. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“I didn’t say you were afraid,” Kairan said. “I said you were pathetic.”

A murmur rippled through the front rows of the crowd those close enough to have heard. Silas didn’t reply, but his jaw tightened, and his eyes fixed even more intensely on the red ribbons in the distance.

Nathaniel Grey positioned himself between the two lines again, his arm raised. “Same rule as before,” he said. “No contact. If it happens again, there won’t be a third run. Whoever caused the contact automatically loses.”

Silas said nothing. He leaned forward, his body tense.

From the edge of the courtyard, Amara still had her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest, but this time her gaze on Kairan was different less fear, and more of something resembling stubborn confidence. “Come on,” she whispered again, but this time without the earlier tremor.

“Ready,” Nathaniel said.

His arm dropped.

Silas took off with the same burst as before the same explosive speed that had given him the initial lead. But this time, Kairan didn’t need to find his balance or adjust. He launched himself at the exact same instant, and within two strides, he had already overtaken him.

The courtyard held its breath for the second time in minutes, but for a completely different reason. It was no longer a race.

After five steps, Kairan had a two-meter lead. After ten, the lead had doubled. Silas was running with all his might face contorted, arms pumping desperately yet the gap kept widening, as if he were racing against something that had ceased to obey the laws of physics he knew.

“What…” someone in the crowd said, their voice trailing off mid-word.

Halfway through the course, the gap was five or six paces. No one was shouting Silas’s name anymore. Even his teammates from the 280th squad had fallen silent, eyes wide, unable to process what they were witnessing.

Peter’s mouth hung open. Gregory stood motionless, saying nothing. Clara had pressed a hand to her mouth. Samuel was clutching Victor’s arm; Victor, for the first time since Kairan had known him, looked genuinely surprised.

Kairan kept accelerating.

Ten paces. Then fifteen. Then twenty the gap widening with every stride, as if Silas had suddenly come to a complete halt, as if he were running in a different, slower time, while Kairan traversed the same space in a handful of heartbeats.

He broke through the red ribbons alone his body snapping them with a sharp rustle while Silas was still halfway across the courtyard, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his legs slowing of their own accord, as though they had stopped believing in what was happening.

For an instant, the courtyard fell completely silent.

Then, it erupted.

It wasn’t ordinary applause. It was something rawer, more all-encompassing shouts, screams, children jumping on the steps, others slapping their hands against the low wall because they couldn’t stop moving. Even from the rooms that had mocked the Two-Ninety just moments before, people were shouting Kairan’s name without even realizing it.

Amara was the first to reach him, throwing her arms around his neck with such force that he nearly fell over again though this time for a completely different reason. “You did it! You did it!”

Peter arrived a moment later, his eyes still wide with disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Nothing. Ever.”

Gregory clapped him on the back hard enough to make him stagger. Samuel was laughing not quite knowing why, simply because everyone around him was laughing too. Clara held back a step, but her gaze fixed on Kairan held something akin to profound relief. Victor nodded just once but for him, that was a great deal. Lena was smiling that calm smile she’d worn from the start, as if she had known all along it would end this way.

As the crowd continued to cheer, a skinny boy with a small notebook and a pencil ran toward Nathaniel Grey. His name was Edwin Thorncroft; he was eleven years old with brown hair, and pinned to his chest was a small cloth badge identifying him as an official race-discipline assistant a role that, as Kairan would only discover later, always fell to a representative of Room One-Ten, the second-strongest room in that discipline after Room One-Hundred itself.

“The time,” Edwin said, his voice trembling slightly as he handed the notebook to Nathaniel. “I timed it from start to finish. I double-checked.”

Nathaniel took the notebook, his eyes quickly scanning the line written in pencil. For an instant, his face always so composed, always so devoid of expression stiffened into something that looked very much like sheer disbelief.

“Check it again,” he said, his voice lower than usual.

“I already did,” Edwin said, his face now pale as a sheet. “Twice. That’s the time.”

“Tell me the number.”

Edwin swallowed hard. “It’s just one second off your personal best,” he said. “The one you set at the general tournament last spring. One second, Nathaniel. Over the whole distance.”

Nathaniel looked down at the notebook, as if rereading the figures might somehow change them. They didn’t change.

He slowly raised his eyes to the center of the courtyard, where Kairan was now completely surrounded by the others Amara still clinging to his arm, Peter muttering something incoherent about speed, Gregory laughing aloud, the rest huddled close around him as if to ensure he was real.

Nathaniel stood motionless, the notebook still clutched in his hand, his eyes fixed on that eight-year-old boy surrounded by the others blood still dried on his scratched arms, his breathing only slightly labored, as if he had merely gone for a stroll rather than running the fastest race the entire orphanage had ever seen.

“That bastard,” Nathaniel said softly, almost to himself, his voice heavy with an astonishment he had never before failed to conceal so completely. “He was holding back. He was holding back so much.”