Shadow and Bone

I stepped to the side, and as she came in close, I hooked my
leg around her ankle. Zoya went down hard.
The other Summoners broke into applause. But before I had
a chance to even register my victory, Zoya sat up, her
expression furious, her arm slashing through the air. I felt
myself lifted off my feet as I sailed backward through the air
and slammed into the training room’s wooden wall. I heard
something crack, and all the breath went out of my body as I
slid to the ground.
“Zoya!” Botkin roared. “You do not use power. Not in these
rooms. Never in these rooms!”
Dimly, I was aware of the other Summoners gathering
around me, of Botkin calling for a Healer.
“I’m fine,” I tried to say, but I couldn’t gather enough
breath. I lay in the dirt, panting shallowly. Every time I tried to
breathe, pain tore through my left side. A group of servants
arrived, but when they lifted me onto the stretcher, I fainted.
Marie and Nadia told me the rest when they came to visit
me in the infirmary. A Healer had slowed my heart rate until I
fell into a deep sleep, then mended my broken rib and the
bruises Zoya had left on me.
“Botkin was furious!” Marie exclaimed. “I’ve never seen
him so angry. He threw Zoya out of the training rooms. I
thought he might hit her himself.”
“Ivo says he saw Ivan take her through the domed hall to
the Darkling’s council rooms, and when she came out, she was
crying.”
Good, I thought with satisfaction. But when I thought of
myself lying in a heap in the dirt, I felt a burning wave
of embarrassment.
“Why did she do it?” I asked as I tried to sit up. I’d had
plenty of people ignore me or look down on me. But Zoya
actually seemed to hate me.
Marie and Nadia gaped at me as if I’d taken a crack to the
skull instead of the ribs.