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his voice broke me out of my trance. I stole one last look at Flame, almost invisible now as the sun retook his rightful place as ruler of the daytime skies.

CHAPTER FOUR

Final Night
    Boe, Daija, Laciann and I began doing everything together at the festival. We attended most of the shows, challenged each other in the carnival games, and even had an ill-fated competition to see who could eat the most exotic foods and keep them down. I came to decide that Daija wasn’t so bad now that she had her friend with her and so she wasn’t always … looking at me. Laciann was fun to be around, and she obviously had a thing for Boe, but he seemed to be oblivious and I decided not to bring it up if he wasn’t going to bring it up. And anyway, he’d stopped teasing me about Daija and I was afraid that if I brought up Laciann like that then he’d start up with the Caedan and Daija stuff.
    Weeks passed far too quickly and it was already the last afternoon of the Stoneflame festival. Tomorrow morning, Boe’s family would have to leave with Laciann, and Boe and I would be thrust into our final months of training. The night of the Stoneflame, Commander Hawk had gathered the Stone Souls and assured us that those would be the most intense months of training and had even encouraged us to get plenty of rest and “to get the fun out of our systems” during the festival. We’d been taking that advice.
    “We still haven’t gone for the ride on the magic log,” said Laciann.
    We’d spent a good chunk of each of our days arguing over what we should do next. Now that the festival was ending and we’d done everything I’d wanted, I was prepared to agree to anything.
    “That’s for the children,” Daija said. Apparently she didn’t feel the same way I did.
    “It could be fun,” I offered.
    “Actually,” corrected Boe, “they’re changing the ride for the final night of the festival. I hear that once it gets dark out, the ride will be something really scary.”
    “So let’s do that tonight after sunset,” I said.
    “The line is going to be outrageous then,” protested Daija.
    Laciann suggested that we could head to the line now and that we’d take turns waiting there to save our places. After some more discussion, we finally agreed to the plan and strolled over to the line. Word had apparently gotten around about the change to the show because the line was as long as it had been since the first day of the festival. I spotted many of the young men from training class waiting in the line; some were standing with their families, others had girls on their arms. Bayrd and Gable were standing in the front of the line, surrounded by a whole group of girls, most of them obviously from distant parts of the Realm.
    We still didn’t have a plan for those who weren’t going to be stuck waiting in line. I asked Boe what he wanted to do.
    “I need to take another crack at that shooting gallery. I think I’ve finally figured out the trick to the arrows they’re using,” he said. I could have guessed. We’d been to the shooting gallery twice a day for the past week at Boe’s insistence. Daija had earned the top prize stamp on her second try, and I’d earned mine on our first attempt the next day. Even Laciann had gotten the runner-up prize stamp late yesterday, but Boe was still stuck with the consolation prize stamp and it was obviously gnawing at him.
    “That sounds like fun,” Laciann said.
    “Well, you two go ahead and do that then,” I offered. Too late I realized that I was suggesting that they leave Daija and I alone together to save our spot in line. I looked at her and blushed.
    Laciann didn’t wait for Boe to respond, she just beamed and grabbed his hand, then started skipping away to the games section of the festival. Boe shrugged at us before picking up his pace to avoid being literally dragged away by Laciann.
    “So what’s their story, exactly?” I asked Daija before we could get stuck in an awkward