Rodrigo Zacara and the Mirror of Power

14. Donegan's Hideout

The training sessions planned by Corentin were gruelling but fun. They practised archery, obstacle courses, fighting while balancing on a tree trunk and tons of other things. In addition, the seniors showed them some tricks to knock over their opponent and dodge blows. The only person who still had doubts as to whether they would be victorious was Noa, who continued to commit blunder after blunder. She insisted that it would be better for them all if she sat on the side lines but Corentin refused to give up.

'You can do it,' he would say again and again, never losing patience. 'The only thing you need to do is believe you can do it and I assure you, you can.'

But Noa had less confidence in herself than Corentin had because her arrows would only reach the edge of the target at the best of times and during fights on the tree trunk she would fall even before starting.

'We've seen you fire arrows much better than you have today so don't tell me you can't do it,' said Rodrigo after training. 'You need to forget about the tournament and the bet. When you're about to fire your arrow, imagine you're on your own in the forest hunting hares.'

'I can't help it,' she replied. 'Every time I draw an arrow, I start to imagine Kyle and his team laughing and clapping hard every time the arrow lands outside the target. Listen to me. It would be better if I wasn't involved.'

'We'll be having none of that,' said Darion. 'We need to do something so you can get your confidence back. I'm sure we'll think of something.'

Silently, Vega stood up, grabbed a piece of paper and a quill from the table at the side of the room. She sat down and began to write.

Kyle's behind the door. He's listening to us.

For a moment, nobody knew what to say or do, but Rodrigo soon had an idea. Maybe they could take advantage of Kyle's curiosity and make him fall into a trap. He immediately took the quill and wrote on the piece of paper as well.

Play along.

'I just remembered something that could help us win the tournament,' he said loudly. 'One of the potions we saw in the infirmary. Mirena said that a few drops would be sufficient to give you incredible strength for an entire day. Crikey, I can't remember its name. Do you remember it, Aisha?'

'Oh, yeah,' she said. 'That one that was whitish. I think it began with "R." I remember! Rumularia! It was called rumularia.'

Luckily, Aisha had perfectly understood his plan and was going along with his idea.

'Tomorrow we can slip into the infirmary by crossing the buttress and take it,' said Rodrigo. 'On the day of the tournament, we'll put a few drops of rumularia in all of our team's glasses of milk, without them realising, as it will be our turn to serve breakfast.'

'Great idea!' said Aisha. 'Thanks to that potion, we're going to destroy those on the green team.'

'That's fine. He's left,' Vega interrupted, looking towards the door.

'What were you thinking?' Oliver protested. 'Now he'll go running to Balkar to tell on us and we'll be banned from the tournament for being cheats.'

'I doubt it,' said Aisha, laughing. 'I'm sure he's off to tell his friends and they'll sneak into the tower to steal the rumularia today.'

'Oh, I understand,' said Oliver. 'You want them to be the ones cheating so you can accuse them and then they'll be expelled from the tournament. Nice thinking.'

'Oh, Oliver! You're such a scatterbrain!' Aisha laughed. 'Don't you remember what Mirena told us? Rumularia doesn't give you strength, it does the opposite. When the green team take that potion, they won't have enough strength to lift even a wooden sword. We won't need to accuse them of anything.'