Page 40 of Love Worth Gold

Three...

The board flashed in her peripheral vision. Gold. Silver. Bronze. One tiny slip of timing, and she could own any of those—or none of them.

Two...

She dropped her weight lower, feeling every muscle coil. This was the last time she’d stand in an Olympic start gate, not knowing if there would ever be another one. Win or crash, medal or nothing, at least this race would be hers.

One…

The beep sounded.

Isaline exploded forward, driving through the wand with everything she had—legs, core, the sheer stubborn will that had dragged her back from two catastrophic injuries. Her poles snapped back, and the hill dropped away beneath her skis.

And for one perfect, exhilarating heartbeat, she was flying.

The opening glide stretched before her, vast and unforgiving. Isaline tucked tight, hands forward, weight sinking into her heels as gravity pulled her into speed so fast that it made her suit snap against her body. The first gate came fast. She drove through it without a hitch. Pressure-release-balance. The rhythm burned so deep into her nervous system it felt as natural as breathing.

At the second split, she gained green against Blaire’s time. Point-zero-three seconds ahead.

Her brain cataloged it and moved on. No celebrating a win only a quarter of the way down a mountain.

The technical section loomed, the one that had eaten lesser racers all week. She saw the line Matthias had drawn on the map yesterday, felt it in her hips before her mind could second-guess. Her left ski pressured early, carving tight around the gate, while her right ski caught just as the terrain shifted under her. The skis chattered but held. She absorbed the feedback through her knees and kept driving forward.

Another split flashed. Red this time. Point-zero-five down.

At the compression where Blaire had crashed in training—the spot that had lived in her nightmares—she made a bold choice. Weight forward. Ankles rolled. Commit or die trying.

The terrain bucked beneath her. For a fraction of a second, the phantom sensation of a ski hooking wrong flared up her spine. She overrode it with pure stubborn will, trusting the edge to hold because the alternative was sliding into the fence wonderingwhat if.

It held.

Her breath punched out in a sharp exhale as she launched into the next section. Her heart was hammering so hard it drowned out the crowd noise bleeding through her helmet. This was why she’d come back. Not for the medal—though she wanted it, god how she wanted it—but for this exact feeling of being fully, recklessly alive at a hundred and thirty kilometers an hour.

Mid-course, she knew the Italian’s time was sharp. She carved the long, sweeping turns with everything Matthias had drilled into her: let the skis run, trust the wax, gain speed instead of fighting it. Every gate she cleared felt like one more door opening instead of closing.

On the final pitch, her quads turned molten. The burn crawled up into her hips, and she reminded herself that this was a good hurt. The finish stadium roared somewhere below.

The last three gates came in a blur. She rode the final transition with her skis on the absolute edge of control. She tucked so hard her chin was nearly touching her knees.

Then she was through. She shot across the line. Momentum carried her forward as her legs finally gave permission to rise. She looked up.

The board took a heartbeat to process her time. When it flashed, her name was slotted into third. Switzerland. Bronze position. Germany dropped to fourth.

Relief hit first. She’d stayed upright. She’d skied her race, not her fear.

Then came the ache, sharp and precise. Somewhere in that final pitch, in that micro-hesitation her body had made without permission, she’d left the hundredths that might have been silver. Or gold.

But underneath both feelings sat something fierce and unshakeable: she had just put down an Olympic downhill run that looked like her. Not Matthias Senn’s daughter. Not the injury-cursed almost. Just Isaline Senn, flying.

Officials surrounded her before she could catch her breath and wrapped a down jacket around her shoulders, steering her toward the mixed zone. The announcers were shouting something about the podium reshaping, about dangerous bibs still in the start house.

She barely heard them.

Her eyes found the big screen, searching for one name at the top of the board.

Hollis… still first.

Isaline stood near the fence, one hand gripping the rail hard enough to hurt as she watched the leaderboard flicker with each new finish. Her breathing had finally leveled out, but her pulse kept spiking every time a new name dropped into the start gate.